I want to call your attention
to a thought in Hebrews chapter 6, which will be the consummating
objective of the writer to prepare the people of God to enter into
a reflection upon the Melchizedekian priesthood, as we have said before.
And what he has done thus far is taking the people of God through
a manner of Communication that we would call exhortation. Exhortation. In the English, it's exhoreo,
and it means to declare out fully, to proclaim out fully, to speak
fully. In the Greek, it's the term parakaleo,
and it means to draw one near by urgent words to get their
attention. to call their attention to very
urgent issues. That's what it means to exhort
someone. To exhort someone is to urge them to continue in the
truth. To urge them to look to Christ. To urge them to depend upon the
Savior. It is a device of communication
that means the subject matter is of such importance that we
want you to pay us attention. And exhortation is something
of which the scripture said is a unique privilege for sons and
daughters of God. Hebrews chapter 12 puts it this
way. Remember the word of exhortation
which was spoken unto you when it said, all whom the Lord loves,
he what? Therefore receive ye chastening
as sons, for if you are not experiencing the chastening of God, then you
are bastards and not sons. Now, when exhortation is yielded
to the people of God, it is assumed that because of a relationship
between them and their heavenly father, they will take heed to
the exhortation. Now, the exhortation comes in
two modes. It comes in warnings. It warns
you. When you care about someone,
you warn them when they are in danger. You warn them when they
are unaware of certain dangers and harms that are in the way.
When you care about people, you warn them when they are drawing
nigh to those boundaries of which if they cross those boundaries,
they will be in danger. You warn them. That is one side
of exhortation. Flee from the wrath to come. The other side of the exhortation
is encouragement. Encouragement. And encouragement
is to say, if you trust God, it will be all right. If you
look to Christ, things will go well with you. You can depend
upon God to get you through your issues if you simply trust him. This is the way exhortation goes. So exhortation has a warning
side to it, which we looked at last week, did we not? As we
have to deal with the awful reality that apostasy occurs in the church,
where men and women who profess to be believers, but do not have
an authentic relationship with the true and the living God,
over time reveal that breach. reveal that lack of relationship
by a life of departure from the gospel, by a lifestyle that basically
affirms that they never bore those assuring fruits of salvation
of which the writer said in chapter 6, that when the rain comes down
upon the ground, that is, the rain of the Word of God comes
down upon the ground, it receives that rain and it brings forth
Herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed. receiving blessing
from God. It was describing how that the
Word of God, when it makes impact in the heart of the believer,
it illuminates his understanding. It brings him to a knowledge
of Christ. It produces regeneration in faith. It causes him to pursue
God. And then God working in him,
them, the will and to do of his good purpose, bring forth those
fruits of salvation that affirm an authentic relationship. Now,
these are all the most important matters. Can I get one of my
brothers to turn the conditioner, air conditioner on in that room
back there and make sure it stays at 70? That's for me and my sisters
that are still struggling through our stuff. You know how we do
it. I don't want nobody going to the hospital today. And so
the Hebrew writer on that side of the mode of exhortation warns
that it is very possible that if you and I do not give the
necessary diligence to make our calling and election sure, we
might very well find ourselves alone with the five foolish virgins
in Matthew 25, who were utterly shocked when the bridegroom returned
and shut the door on them and they never had access into the
wedding feast. He having said to them, I never
knew you. Depart from me ye workers of
iniquity. Now what was the tragic mistake
that they had made? For they appeared to be true
believers, along with the other five virgins, having been called
to the wedding feast, that's the gospel, having been given
all of the necessary paraphernalia to partake of it. They were virgins. They ostensibly had professed
to be, as it were, committed to and devoted to one God. That's
what it means spiritually to be a virgin. not sleeping around,
committing idolatry, worshipping this god, that god and the other.
They called themselves virgins. And then they also had lamps.
Remember that? They all had lamps. All ten of
them had lamps. The distinguishing factor between
the five foolish and the five wise is that the five wise were
not so presumptuous as to not take oil with their lambs. They prepared for the long, enduring,
persevering journey, the time between the actual marriage of
the bride and bridegroom and the consummation of it when he
came back. But the five foolish were presumptuous. All they carried were lamps. That's all they carried. And
by the time the bridegroom had come back, their lamps had burned
out. and they were fundamentally walking
in darkness. And you and I can very easily
see how what they had done was taken up a mere profession of
God and took on the externalities of religion, but did not have
the substantive relationship between them and God, namely
the third person in their life, producing in them a vital sustaining
faith that only grows more and more and more and more and more
when you actually have it, the path of the just. is as the shining
light that shines more and more and more, not less, more unto
the perfect day. Are you guys following? As we
get on the other side of that particular aspect of exhortation,
he then moves to something that is much more encouraging and
I want you to contemplate it with me. This is actually a staggering
thought and it's this. that God has demonstrated in
his love for people and in the embracing of souls into his agenda,
if you will, into his plan, into his purposes. God has demonstrated
that he will go so far as to promise you that he will do everything
necessary to bring you to a place of eternal blessing and favor
with him. Here is the thought I want you
to contemplate with me for a few moments. God Says I promise you
I promise you I Promise you I promise you That whosoever believes on
the Lord Jesus Christ Will have eternal life. I Promise you I
will never leave you nor forsake you. I I promise you that I will
keep you and preserve you and lead you to an everlasting end.
I promise you eternal life if you will trust in my son Jesus
Christ. I promise. I promise. I have been marrying
people over the last several years. And the last two years
that I have been marrying people, I have been fixated on the importance
of emphasizing in the nuptial vows the nature of marriage in
terms of its covenant promises. And so I stress while I'm talking
to the couple who are standing before me this reality. You are standing before God and
the people of God and you are declaring to the world, young
man, that you promise to love her. and to cherish her, and
to guard her, and to take care of her, and to swim through shark
infested waters, to get her a glass of lemonade just because she
wants it. You promised her. And young lady, you promised
him. You promised him that you would
love him through thick and thin, health and wealth and sickness
and despair and pain and sorrow. You promised. Even when he got
on your nerves, you promised. Because the marriage of men and
women is such a critical analogy of Christ and the church that
any diminishing or distortion of the model endangers the integrity
and character of God in our own perception when we water it down
to this scandalous example of it that we see rendered in our
culture today. But I'm simply saying, child
of God, will you walk with me for a moment? God has declared
a promise to you. A promise, which is the title
of our message. I promise you. Now, what really
is a promise? What is a promise? A promise,
ladies and gentlemen, is a binding declaration. It's a binding declaration. It's a statement of obligation,
a vocal expression of complete irrevocable commitment to the
person that they're making the promise to. That's a promise. A promise is a binding declaration. The individual binds himself
to the promise. I promise you I will do this.
And can you imagine the God of the universe making promise to
you and me like that? That ought to bring all kinds
of comfort to your soul. It ought to bring all kinds of
joy to your soul. It ought to cause you to humble
yourself and say, what kind of love is this? That God would
promise binding himself to his own declaration, his own decree,
his own promises. Absolutely amazing, isn't it?
Now, again, when we talk about promises, generally and normatively,
promises are always established upon two parties, the person
making the promise, the individual who becomes the beneficiary of
the promise, and they are generally conditional or reciprocal. This
is the part that you and I have to get a handle on, which brings
us to this aspect of the exhortation that the writer is rendering
now. He's saying to the people of God, we are getting ready
to enter into some wonderful truths, but my concern for you
is that some of you, not all of you, but some of you have
become slothful and indolent and so lazy that we are really
concerned with whether or not you are serious about this thing
called salvation. Can I keep it that plain? And
then he says, but we know that there are others of you, we know
that there are others of you who are, as it were, following
on to affirm the great blessings that God has bestowed upon you
as the people of God. So we read over in verse 9, But
beloved, we are persuaded better things of you. things that accompany
salvation though we thus speak." See, so the writer is saying
we are persuaded of better things than the idea that many of you
will start and then fall away because you were never serious
about the cause of the gospel. Now, once he begins to say, but
we are confident that there are many of you for whom this matter
of salvation has all of the accompanying evidences by which we can be
at rest, that you are certainly pursuing God, he begins then
to move away from their optimistic condition to God's faithfulness
when he says in verse 10, because, that little word for there is
a conclusive clause, because God is not unrighteous to forget
your work and your labor of love which you have showed toward
his name and that you have ministered to the saints and do minister.
Every one of you, I want you to capture verse 10. I'm not
going to unpack verse 10. I want you to capture that and
I want you to make that a thought, a deep, deep profound thought
and reflection for your own soul as long as is necessary for it
to become a reality in your life. I want you to capture that. He
goes on to say in verse 11, and we desire, we desire that every
one of you do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope
to the end. Here's the desire of the writer.
His desire is that every one of them in the church show forth
the diligence that's described in verse 10. That's his desire. Now I want you to mark what he
says. This is important. He says, we desire that every one of you,
it's emphatic, That means they have their mind. It's spoken
in the first person plural. That means it's the writer along
with other men interested in the church at Palestine, the
Hebrew people. And it's spoken in that plural
form saying we are passionately committed to. Epithemia is the
Greek term which means deeply interested, deeply committed
to, bound with the greatest interest in that every one of you do show
the same diligence. You know what that means? They
don't have a casual view of the Hebrew people. They are so concerned
that they want everyone in the community to show forth those
evidences of grace so that they also can be confident that these
people, every one of them, everyone at grace, every mother, every
father, every son, every daughter, every grandchild, every great
grandchild, every child in the womb, Every one of them, we want
them to know God in the fullness of His grace. We are not even
remotely thinking that it's okay if we have 80% that make it in. We want 100%. We want to experience
the grace of God in the life of everyone who is under the
ministry of the gospel in this place to so be swept up by God's
grace as it was in the days of Moses when Moses told Pharaoh,
listen, God has called us out and we are going whether you
like it or not. And when we leave, we're taking
everybody with us. We're not even leaving a hook
behind. We're not leaving one thing behind.
All that the Lord has claimed is going with us. This is how
serious the writer is about the salvation of the people in that
community. And this is how serious we ought
to be in our own community. See the love that these shepherds
are showing? We want every one of you, every
one of you to show the same diligence. Point number one in our outline
then. Our desire for every one of you, what is it? It's the
diligence. It's the diligence. The diligence,
ladies and gentlemen, that comes with a promise. Stay with me
for a moment. It's the diligence that comes
with a promise. It's not a diligence that has no basis or no objective. It's the diligence that comes
with the promise. And I might say this, it's the
appropriate expression of every child of God when God says, you
have eternal life. That for the child of God, there
is nothing more appropriate than that he or she and they give
themselves over to a life of what? Diligence. And so here's
the way we might surmise this. Diligence then is the response
The person who has heard and believed and embraced the promises
of God Diligence is the natural Indigenous response of the soul
of the man or the woman the people of God who have embraced the
promise I promise you God says you know what the believer says
I will embrace that promise with all diligence with all diligence
and see this is what the writer is saying. We want you to understand
that the promise is worth every effort, every endeavor, every
grace that we can involve ourselves in to realize the promise. Now
what is diligence? Just in case you are wondering. It's a term that can be rather
ambiguous, but it's clearly in your outline. To be diligent
is to be a man or woman given over to endeavoring in something.
The word is actually translated labor in chapter 4 verse 11 when
it says, let us labor to enter into his rest. So diligence is
industrious. Diligence is focused. Diligence
is committed. The proverb speaks to the diligent
man and the slothful man. You know what the proverb says?
The diligent man shall have plenty. The diligent man shall stand
before kings. The diligent man shall be able
to give and spread abroad out of the resources of his diligence.
But the slothful man will have nothing and will beg. There's
your antithesis. The diligent. The diligent. The
word diligent is rendered all through the New Testament very
clearly as something with which every believer is marked. The
Hebrew writer puts it in chapter 11 verse 6 this way. The one
that believes that God is must believe that He is also a rewarder. There it is. There it is. A rewarder of them that diligently
seek Him. Diligently seek Him. So diligence,
I would say, is that natural, necessary, appropriate expression
of a believer who has heard from God and has received the gospel
and all of its promises and it's making its impact in their life.
Are you hearing what I'm saying? In fact, when we talk about endeavoring,
when we talk about commitment, when we talk about laboring in
this context, The term is really clearly seen by some of the other
promises in scripture. You remember what Jeremiah 29
13 says, you will seek me and you will find me when you shall
seek me with all your heart. I would write that down, meditate
on it. I remember when I was a young teenager, I said, Lord,
what does that mean? What does it mean to seek God
with all your heart? What does it mean? Because now
I am being given sort of a description of the manner in which I am to
seek Him. But you see the promise is there,
isn't it? If you seek me with all your heart, what's the promise?
You will find me. Now, I want you to think about
the blessing of finding God. I want you to think about that
for a moment. See, the Word of God, when we take it seriously,
it demolishes all of these old funky notions we have. These
twisted ideas that we have that somehow we can stumble upon and
enter into inadvertently, just kind of haphazardly, the blessings
of God. I would say nothing is further
from the truth. Can I make this proposition?
And you can take it up and demolish it all you want. I don't think
a slothful person will ever go to heaven. I don't think a man
or woman that is given to slothfulness will somehow end up in heaven. I don't believe it. I don't believe
it. See, God has established our
salvation based upon a covenant, and that covenant has stipulations
both on God's side and ours. Granted, if you want to argue
for sovereignty, God must bestow upon us the virtues to do those
things by which we apprehend the promise. Is that true? God
must bestow upon me not only the ability to hear Him and pursue
Him, but to embrace Him. He must bestow it upon me, but
it better manifest itself in my life. Because this is the
condition upon which the promise is made. This is why the Apostle
Paul says, listen, I don't know about you, but I press toward
the mark of the high call. I run this race. I fight. I labor. Do you hear me? What he's saying is, I understand
the call to diligence. And I've said this more than
once. It is unreasonable to me. It is not rational to me. Help
me, saints. It's not rational to me for a
man or a woman to be cool about God. I can't reconcile cool, calm,
collected, casual, laissez-faire about God, about eternal life,
about glory, about the redemption of my soul. I'm still not able
to put those two together. I think that the man or woman
that is so absolutely casual about God does not know God.
I have to say it. I don't think you know him. I
don't think you have seen the ineffable bliss. I don't think
he has revealed his glory to you. I don't think God has shined
upon your soul. I don't think you have heard
his voice. My sheep hear my voice. I know them by name and they
follow me and I give them eternal life and they will never perish.
Do you believe that? So then this matter of diligence
is really worth contemplating for at least an hour, right?
You can go back to being slothful after this hour, but right now
I want you to contemplate diligence with me because it means to be
committed. We translate the word study. In 2 Timothy 1, I think, chapter
1, verse 15, where we often tell people, study to show yourself
approved under God, a workman that need not to be ashamed,
rightly dividing the word of truth, right? And this is generally
rendered forth in the context of academic studies and scholarship
and labors exegetically to make sure you're rightly interpreting
the word. And so people are told, now, you've got to make sure
you study your Bible. I hear theologians and pastors say it
all the time. In the last conference I was
in, a scholar said it. He said, you gotta study your
Bible. That's not what that passage is saying. That passage is saying
you better be diligent to know that you know God. Especially
if you are a person who is in the ministry of expounding and
teaching God's word. To make sure that on that day
when you stand before him to give an account that he does
not shame you for having played the hypocrite. For while you
are pretending to save others, you yourself were not saved. You did not give diligence to
your own soul, your own eternal welfare. God will not be mocked. Am I OK, Saints? So diligence becomes for me,
when I contemplate it, the only requisite response to I promise
you. I'm already blown away by God
promising me something. I'm blown away. But now I thank
him for this added piece of evidence. You know what that evidence is?
The characteristic of people who've got it is that they will
be diligent. They will endeavor. They will
press forward. They will labor. They will toil,
even to exhaustion. They will be attentive. They
will inquire fully. That's the other word that is
used in the New Testament. It means to inquire fully. To
inquire fully. Give you an example. Next week
we'll be talking about the Lord Jesus in his incarnation. Won't
we? Love to do it. You know, a few men who amazed
me were those brothers who came as far as from Babylon to see
the birth of the child. Stay with me for a moment. See,
listen, if there were no other testimony in the scripture, but
those three brothers, God would be able to indict all the rest
of us for our slothfulness. When these brothers, they didn't
catch a plane. They didn't ride a train. They
didn't drive a car. They rode camels and they walked
with their entourage all the way from Babylon or Persia. That's some distance. But do you know what it describes?
Diligence. Can I ask you a question? Did
those men hear the promise? Did they hear the gospel? Did
they, in the land in which they were in, where God had sprinkled
his rebellious people because of their disobedience, in Babylon,
Medo-Persia, then in Grecia, and then brought them back to
their own land, be dominated by the Roman Empire. Did those
brothers, 300 years before Christ, 200 years before Christ, 100
years before Christ, did they hear the gospel in their own
land? Did they believe that gospel? What was the evidence? They went
after Jesus. They pursued Christ. They said,
what? You mean he's only 5,000 miles
away? Let's see. If I get started now and I'm
guided by his light and I allow his light to take me step by
step in the direction in which it will lead me to him, God promises
me, according to Jeremiah 29, 13, if I seek him with all my
heart, I will find him. Did they find him? Did they find
him? Did they find him? And when they
found him, they worshiped him. This is what we're talking about.
Ladies and gentlemen, make no mistake about it. This is what
we're talking about. See, the scriptures condemn me. It condemns me. It indicts me,
it shuts me up. I'm bound by the testimony of
the Word of God. I have no excuse. I must. Because they were like men as
I am. With the same infirmities, the
same weaknesses, the same struggles, the same challenges. And I would
say that I am in some ways better off than them. Because if I had
to, I could catch a plane to Jerusalem. And be there in a
few hours. Am I making some sense? I may
have to do the requisite labors of acquiring the money in order
to purchase the ticket. That is a form of diligence too,
because I am preparing my heart to obtain the promise. This is
so very important. And I guess what I want to drive
home to you, children of God, if you don't go away with anything
else here, God is worth seeking with everything that's in you. God is worth it. God is worth
it. And so the Hebrew writer does
more than simply call our attention to his desire for pressing forward
in that diligence, in that diligence. He tells us also that there is
an assurance that comes from diligence. Look at what he says
over in verse 11. And we desire that every one
of you do show the same diligence, right? To the full assurance
of what? Unto the end. Now the Hebrew
writer, if he is indeed the Apostle Paul, he uses this construction
a lot. It's called the full assurance.
The full assurance, a long Greek term, I'm not going to utter
it, but it's a word that he uses in most every one of the epistles.
to encourage the believer to know this. I want you to get
this now. He encourages the believer to know that if you have heard
the call of God and you have now begun your journey with God,
you have started walking with God, you can be sure that as
you are making your way towards God, God is going to affirm your
journey with evidences credible. to the promise that he made to
you when he said if you seek me you will find me. Do you know
what that means? That means our journey of faith
is not one where God simply makes an abstract objective promise
to us at the beginning and we have to try to wing it all the
way there. May I assert that as we make
our way towards God what he does is He allows the certainty of
His promise to be made in our life by evidences and assurances
of His grace and His mercy and His kindness in our life as we
go. Do you buy that proposition?
Do you buy the notion that God not only calls you, but He goes
with you as you make your journey to God? And as you make your
journey to God, God gives you the emblems and the tokens of
His presence in your life. Do you buy that notion? Do you
buy the notion that God doesn't simply call you to a naked faith
that has absolutely no accompanying evidences to say that I am with
you? When God says He's with you,
He's with you. And He gives you everything necessary to encourage
you to make the next step. Do you believe that? Do you believe
that? And so when the apostle or the
writer is saying the full assurance of hope What he is saying is
the characteristic of the life of the believer is a life of
what? Hope. Did you get that? Let's straighten that doctrine
out right quick. The characteristic of the life,
the lifestyle of the believer is that we're called to a hope
which is set before us in glory in the person of Jesus. That's
the last verse. Wherein our forerunner has entered
into that which is in the veil, even Jesus. Jesus is in the veil. He's in glory now. He is our
forerunner. You know what that means? He's
the head, we're the body. That means where he is, we are
in principle, and we will be there one day. And for us, Jesus
is our hope, because as the writer to the Romans puts it, hope is
not seen, because if it was seen, it wouldn't be hoped for. So
we are actually operating out of a hope, are we not? Faith
and hope are two sides of the same coin. Do you believe that?
For faith is the substance of things, what? There it is. And so Peter says God has begotten
you and me again Unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead. I've been born again to a hope
Now what that means, you need to get this, what that means
is there is a large portion of the inheritance that I am not
going to receive on this side of glory. So I do not need to
be lying to people about obtaining promises on a material level
of things that don't correspond with God's promise for me. Because
when once I have obtained all that, I am no longer operating
by hope. If God has promised me houses
and cars and Cadillacs and Rolexes and this and that. The moment
I obtain those things, my journey is over. If he has promised those
things and some of us who will live and die really struggling
to just pay our bills, we will be able to say God was a liar. God did not tell the truth. God
did not tell the truth because he said every one of his can
have these things down here According to the prosperity gospel. Are
you hearing me? but if my brothers and my sisters
who are struggling all over the world the larger preponderance
of them being so Abjectly poor compared to where we are and
they live and die that way every day They will be able to say
God you did not meet your promises, but I'm here to tell you right
now God doesn't lie he doesn't change and God can't fail he's
not a man that he should lie or the son of man that he should
repent see so those folks who are talking like that got their
gospel wrong are you hearing what I'm saying but I am here
to say that when you and I get a handle on the encouragement
of the Word of God to pursue God you can expect God to to
give you assurances that accompany your journey of hope. And in
fact, the way it's actually rendered in the original is the full assurance
of all that comes with hope. Hope is a seed. And the fruits
of assurance are those evidences that that seed is true. The life
of hope is a seed, because like a seed it goes into the ground,
it's not observed. Only way you know that seed is
there is that it bears fruit. Is that true? And so when a believer
does live a life of hope, there are going to be evidences that
they are living a life of hope. When a believer lives a life
of faith, there's going to be evidences that he or she lives
a life of faith. Am I telling the truth? If a
man or a woman is walking in love, Which is another one of
the phrases Paul uses in Colossians chapter 2 verse 2. Not that one,
but 1 John chapter 4, the assurance of love. If a person is walking
in love, aren't there going to be evidences that they are an
individual who has possessed love? Doesn't love have fruit? Doesn't hope have fruit? Doesn't
faith have fruit? Paul talks about it in Colossians
chapter 2, the full assurance of understanding that comes with
those who are committed to Jesus Christ, who becomes for us the
treasure and wisdom of God, the resource by which we can draw
from Christ to meet our every need as we make our way through
this world. See what the Hebrew writer is
getting ready to do is unpack this very contemplation by way
of an analogy or a historical illustration but first what he
wants us to understand is if you have received the promise
be diligent to pursue it and as you pursue it diligently be
sure that God is going to bless the seed of your hope the seed
of your faith the seed of your love now these three abide faith
hope and love and all three of these are intangibles You don't
see faith. You don't see hope. You don't
see love in terms of their basic form. But they manifest the fruit
thereof. Listen, I know when you love
me, and I know you know when I love you. Am I making some
sense? See, we can say we love, but
love has fruit. We can say we hope, but if you're
living a hopeless lifestyle, I can't actually bear record
that you are a man or a woman of hope. You can say you have
faith, But James makes it very clear, biblical saving faith
always is accompanied by those works that are the fruit of faith.
Am I making some sense? You can say you're pursuing God,
but if you have no passion for the knowledge of God, I have
no confidence that you're pursuing God. Now with those things, let
me say it also, that if you are pursuing God, God's gonna give
you every necessary resource to obtain it. So if you're struggling
with any of the things that I'm saying, Here's what God will
say to you, to whom he is making the promise. Are you ready? Ask. Ask. Ask. Ask. And I will give it to you.
In the day of trouble, call upon me and I will deliver you and
you will glorify me. That's a promise predicated upon
conditions. that if you diligently observe,
God will bless. Am I making some sense? He will
bless us. This is so critical. So now we've been talking about
diligence, and I know diligence irks us, because we're slothful
by nature. Can I get a witness? See, I know
some of you don't believe that, but I'm here to tell you, you're
lazy by nature. Especially when it comes to God. especially when it comes to God.
When it comes to God, you need God's grace working together
with your born again spirit to do the will of God. That's true. It's a synergetic energy that's
necessary for you to get down the road of obedience, even when
you're born again. even when you're born again.
For the will to do is present with me, but how to perform that
which is right, I find not. Unless, of course, God bestows
upon me the energy to actually actuate my will so that my will
manifests itself in actual obedience. That's why I'm saying you better
ask. You better ask. It gives God glory to assist
His children in getting down the road. And in fact, He won't
have it any other way. He won't have it any other way.
Sometimes he actually quickens you by his spirit so that he
can bring you into the promise and leave you right there Telling
you come on so that you can discover that while you want to come on
You can't come on until God gives you grace to come on See right at the beginning he's
teaching you You have a little baby sister on the floor and
wants to come to mama come to that and daddy said come on Come
on, come on, and they can't they want to but they can't and then
you have to start training them Your energy has to be applied
to their energy to bring them towards you until they can get
strong enough to know how to walk. Is that true? Isn't that
the way it is for the believer? Exactly the same way. And so
diligence is critical. I want you to capture that and
work with it. We're going to move on to our third point because
it's important. Not only does he call us to diligence
and he affirms for us, according to the text, that there are assurances
that come with it for, as he said, to the full assurance of
hope to the end. We desire that every one of you
show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope to the
end. Then he says, so that you be
no longer slothful. See that? Now again, the way
this language is constructed, he's simply saying, don't start
being slothful. And if you are slothful, stop
being slothful and turn it around now. That's a good father for
you, is it? Don't start if you haven't started, because there
are some he knows that we're diligent. He's confident that God was working
in their life. He said, now I'm urging you on like this so that
you don't become slothful. What a wise word. Watch this. There are some of us who are
given to diligence in areas and we pursue those things with excellence
and we achieve certain levels of success. Is that true? I don't
care what it is. If you have an orientation to
business, you have an orientation to academics, if you have an
orientation to the arts, whatever, you pursue that thing and you
do a great job, but you still have the propensity over time
to lapse. and get lazy, even in that very
thing that you are gifted to do. So it is prudent by the boss
or the superior to come to you and say, now, you're being diligent.
I want you to continue to be diligent. Do not take a break
from your diligence and become lazy. Am I making some sense?
What a good coach. What a good coach. You got it,
boy, you got it. Now stay on top of it. That's
exactly what God is saying. Do you know why he's saying stay
on top of it? Because you only got a little ways to go. You
only got a little ways to go. You don't have a long ways to
go. Man's life is 60 or 70 years or by reason of strength 80.
You ain't got but a minute to go. Your race is almost over. Your journey is almost done.
Suck it up and keep rolling. Now I want to call you to another
principle. It's called the pattern. The pattern. I thank God because
His Word is sufficient to build us up and give us an inheritance
among those that are sanctified. It is a light and a lamp, isn't
it? It is wisdom, isn't it? It is the whole counsel of God
for our lives. We can go to the Word of God and get all of the
necessary instructions. So God tells us, He promises
us. Blown away. He tells us, diligently pursue.
It makes all the sense in the world. Then He tells us there
will be assurances along the way. Thank you, God, because
I'm weak. Then he says, I've got a pattern for you to follow.
How good God is. I got a pattern for you. See,
some of us are not only lazy, but we're kind of dumb. So you
know what God has to do? He has to give us a pattern.
He has to give us a framework. He has to give us a model. And
you know what he says? Just operate in this model and
you'll be cool. Are you with me so far? I just
want you to see the text now. There's a lot here, but I want
to just make it as plain as possible. The believer, the child of God
that sincerely pursues God does not have to believe that he operates
out of a naked faith that does not bring forth the fruits essential
to get him down the road every step. God will be with you. In
fact, he loves to show up in your life. God, does he love
to show up? Does he show up? Doesn't God
show up on time? And it blows you away when he
does. You're just about to fall off the cliff. Oh Lord. He swoops through and gets you,
brings you back to the shore. Establishes a solemnity and peace
in your life. And then he tells you, all right,
now let's just keep going. Now you're really trembling from
the last one. But he said, no, no, don't tremble. Keep going.
Because that's the way God works. See, because you actually got
yourself in that trouble where you were hanging over the cliff.
But see, because God made a promise to you, he's gonna come get you
before you fall. But because he doesn't want you
making any money off that calamity, he said leave it alone and keep
rolling. Right? That's how God works. And then He gives us a pattern,
a critical pattern, and I just want you to see that because
He doesn't leave us in an ambiguous manner or way by which we have
to pursue God on our own. No, He has left grand patterns. Verse 12. See to it that you
do not become slothful, if you aren't. If you are, stop being
slothful. Those kinds of attributes do
not represent believers, but become followers. Got it? You see that word follower? But
become followers. Snatch it out of the air of your
thoughts. Become a follower. That's humbling. That's humbling. Don't be lazy. Be diligent and become a follower. See, in our 21st century Western
culture, where everybody is autonomous in their own dog, their own sovereign,
becoming a follower doesn't feel good. But here's what God is
saying. If you become a follower of certain
people, you will make it just like they made it. Because they
made it by being a follower of other people. Am I making some
sense? So he's saying I want you to
take up the pattern of their life because their pattern was
given to them by me and they operated out of my pattern and
they left for you a model to follow. Now all you have to do
is mimic them. That's the word follow. Mimic,
mimic, mimic. Step inside of their paradigm. Step inside of their model. Step
inside of their blueprint. Step inside of that which they
have proven over and over again works and follow it because that
is the way of the Lord. Are you guys hearing me? So a
believer is a follower. A child of God who is diligent
to obtain the promise and wants to experience all of the assurances
that come along with it will be a follower. Do you want to
know the man or the woman, the family or the church that's highly
favored of God? They are people who have become
diligent to become followers. We don't have a problem with
being followers. I'm not too proud to say I need
a model in front of me. Not too proud to say it. I'm
not too proud to say I need to see someone in front of me who
has operated out of that pattern in a way in which God has affirmed
his promises to that person. And I can get inside that model
and ride that model out. Am I making some sense? And see,
this is where the Hebrew writer is getting ready to go with this
objective. But I'm simply saying to you that there is a pattern
of faith that the believer can follow. Not a novel, homemade,
jury-rigged form of diligence. You know how people just have
the audacity? If some people could, don't have
the gift of engineering or architecture or nothing. If they could, they'd
make their own cars, they'd make their own house, they'd violate
all of the laws of physics, Aesthetics everything doing it because they
just don't want to follow but there are some things That you
can't improve upon That if you simply operate in that model
You will have the blessing of those having already tested improved
and affirm the efficiency of that way Am I making some sense? For us here at grace. We call
it the upline for the downline See, this is the inheritance
that parents are to leave to their children. Am I making some
sense? This is the inheritance that
fathers are to leave to their sons and their daughters. And
grandparents are to leave to their grandchildren. A legacy
and a history of a pattern of life and faith and hope and love
and commitment to God that the children can enter into and own
for themselves until it becomes a reality for them. It's designed
to make it easier for them. Because we have a tendency to
want to kind of carve out our own route. But I have heard from
the word of God that there's nothing new under the sun. Am
I making some sense? And as I said before, and I want
to affirm it again, there are some things you can improve upon.
And see, this is where the church is jacked up today in the 21st
century, trying to improve upon something that God ordained.
This is why the church is in the mess that it's in now. How
are you going to improve upon God's model which has been working
for 2,000 years? Now you want to change that which
God has instrumentally used to save and sanctify and use men
and women. the centrality of preaching and
teaching the word of God, calling men and women to a deep and profound
committed relationship to Jesus Christ and letting the spirit
of the living God conform them to Christ and make them evangelical
collectively as the body of Christ. That's what God has called us
to. He ain't called us to entertainment and playing with people. and
meeting people's carnal, secular fancies. He hasn't called us
to, as it were, find a way to meet folks' felt needs. He's
called us to one unique task by which souls are brought out
of darkness into His marvelous light, inheriting the promises
of God from generation to generation to generation to generation.
Are you guys hearing me? And when those people are adopted
in the beloved and brought into the commonwealth of Israel, the
commonwealth of Israel, the commonwealth of Israel, they begin to manifest
their sonship just like everybody else does. And they look like
the sons and daughters of God. You know what that looks like?
Men and women who are going step by step by step by step in faith,
trusting the true and the living God, committed to His Word. Just
that simple. Just that simple. Just that simple. It's a pattern. Get on that for
a minute. It's a pattern. The pattern. What he says is be followers
of them. Who are the them? Well, the followers of them that
the writer is talking about could be talking about the folks that
are living in the first century with them. You look around, there
ought to be in the life of the community of the people of God,
folks, you can pattern your life after. Oh. Now, you know you
are in trouble If you can't look around in the community that
you're a part of and not find men and women and families after
which you can pattern your life, you are in trouble. If you are
in a community of believers where everybody's life is so raggedy
that there is even a slight emblem of representation of that which
has been historically the model of faith. you are in trouble. But I would suggest that if God
cares about your soul, he's going to put you in a body of believers
so that you can look around and benefit from the life and the
wisdom and the maturity and the experience of saints who have
gone long before you. Am I making some sense? They
become for you patterns and thankful patterns too. Because you can
walk right up to them in all humility and say, help me understand
how you have made it through 35 years of marriage. Help me
understand how you have made it through your addiction to
this, that, and the other thing in this kind of promiscuous culture.
Help me understand how you made it through a life of faith committed
to the glory of God in all of the storms that you have gone
through. I heard your testimony. I've heard what you've been through.
How is it that you're still standing? Am I making some sense? That's
what the life of the believer is about. That's what the pattern
is about. Now, it's going to be very clearly
evident in one verse that he's going to use for us as an initial
illustration. Brother Abraham. Who through
faith and patience inherit the promises, right? So the followers
of them, those of us who are called to mimic, we are to mimic
them who through faith, right? And what? Patience. Do what? Inherit the promises. I don't
want to follow anyone who is not serious about eternity. Don't
ask me to waste my time with you if you're not committed to
the glory of God with everything that's in you. You're going to
lead me astray. Don't ask me to waste time with
you when you are not committed in total to the glory of God
in Christ. Are you hearing what I'm saying? You are going to
waste my time. I need to know people who are
serious about God. That's who I need to know. I
want to know. I'm not disregarding or discounting your weaknesses
and your infirmities and your humanness. I know something about
God to know this much. God is able to make all grace
abound in the life of weak sinners. And that there's no person or
family who has established a model of commitment and faithfulness
to Christ who is not yet still human. I see you. Just like you see me, I see you.
But I see the grace of God in your life too. And I can hear
the wisdom in your words. And I can see the fear of God
in your life. And I see the humility. I see the discretion. I see how
God has honed you, and matured you, and softened you, and given
you the kind of discriminating judgment that makes for wisdom. I want that. Want that because
I don't have it in myself naturally in myself. I'm inclined to self-destruction
I will mess up everything I touch if God leaves me to myself So
I need to know how to embrace those experiences that you have
obtained Victory in so that I can walk in those same things. Am
I making some sense? so I'm give you two analogies
to affirm my point and one of them will be with Abraham and
his son Isaac and So the first illustration will be with Abraham
and Isaac. So Abraham becomes the father
of faith and we know that he was a remarkable saint, wasn't
he? But was he human? Did he make his mistakes? And
if you were walking with brother Abraham and you didn't look past
Abraham to Christ, Abraham could make you stumble. Are you hearing me? Because he's
just a man. But God used him mightily, kept
him, There's a lot we can learn from brother Abraham, but if
you get stuck Oh Abraham, like I we be Abraham see Abraham gonna
have you in the pit Do you understand that? Abraham gonna get you stuck
and then he might just leave you there in his humility and
going on about his business Don't trust Abraham But Abraham had
a son And his name was Isaac Finally the promise had come
to Abraham that the token promise which was Isaac and you know
what Abraham did for Isaac Abraham left for Isaac a pattern. He left him a pattern. And then
he gave him the inheritance. And he told Isaac, Isaac, I need
you to follow my instructions carefully so that you can perpetuate
the promise. Am I making some sense to you
right now? I just want you to follow this. This is the importance
of what the Hebrew writer is saying. Follow them who through
faith and patience inherit the promise. It makes no sense for
you to try to carve out your own way when you can see the
finish line in their life. So when you have that father-son
relationship, that's a covenant model, right? Abraham represents
God the father, Isaac represents God the son. And so the father
is going to bestow upon the son those blessings by which the
son can obtain the promise. In the book of Genesis chapter
26, Isaac is taking over of the family business and the wealth
of The family and he has to struggle through life in this world like
father Abraham does Genesis chapter 26 I want you to see that with
me in Genesis chapter 26 He has a struggle through life like
like father Abraham does and come to understand how to work
these things through in Genesis chapter 26 I want you to see
verse 12 now Isaac had a remarkable business of which God had described
that that business prospered and Isaac was blessed and he
had resources but he also had troubles. It seems that he being
in the land of Egypt or on the brink of Egypt between Egypt
and Canaan dealing with the same kings that his father Abraham
are dealing with, he found himself striving with the Philistines.
Genesis chapter 26, are you there? Listen to what we have over in
verse 11. And Abimelech charged all his
people, saying, He that touches this man, that's Isaac, or his
wife, that's Rebekah, shall surely be put to death. Then Isaac sowed
in that land. You know what sowing means, right? That's the stuff that gives you
the heebie-jeebies. The hard work. Isaac sowed in that land. You know, unless you sow, you
don't what? That's right. That's a reciprocating
law, right? So you can sit around and be
lazy all you want. We're going to bury you. And because you're dead,
we're not going to spend a whole lot of money on you. Unless you give us the money
to do it, because we don't really think you're going to really
care. So he says, then Isaac sold in
that land, received in the same year a hundredfold. Do you see
verse 12? Then Isaac sold in the land and
received in the same year, how many fold? Now watch this, and
the Lord blessed him. May I submit to you, this is
what I meant by as he stepped out in obedience and faith, taking
on the father's passed down inheritance and following the father's instruction
as he took step by step, God was with him. And God blessed
his journey. Are you hearing me? God blessed
his journey. See, because daddy Abraham ain't around. It's Isaac
now. And Isaac has to learn to affirm
his faith by seeing God show up in his own diligence. And
notice also that Isaac wasn't merely living off the resources
and wealth of his daddy. Hint, hint. And the man waxed great and went
forward and grew until he became very great. For he had possessions
of flocks and possessions of herds and great store of servants."
Ah, and the Philistines hated him. Do you see that? See, that's
the way it goes in this world. Do you understand that? But this
is what Christ meant when the disciples came to him after he
had laid down what is the rule for obtaining the kingdom. Jesus
says, if you're going to follow me, you got to give up everything.
Remember that? And the disciple says, Lord, we have given up
everything. We have left everything for you. Jesus said, verily,
verily, I say unto you, No man or woman or people have given
up everything for my sake in the kingdom sake who will not
receive manifold more in this life with persecutions You got
that with persecutions. I Have to stop here in a few
minutes, but I tell you this is so important. You're gonna
follow Jesus You must accept as part of the inheritance persecution
You cannot serve God in this world and expect everyone to
like you. They don't like Him. Are you
hearing me? See, the rate of exchange for
walking in public faith with God Almighty is for you to be
hated by those who hate Him. That just comes with the inheritance.
See, what happens is when you're born into a certain family, you
get the fame and the infamy of the family. Isn't that right?
You just have to live with that. So when it comes to God, it's
the same thing. Everybody doesn't love our God. Listen, you already
know you go to sign an application, fill out an application for a
job. You are really struggling with whether or not you're going
to tell old folks you are Christian. Am I telling the truth? Oh, why? Because you know, you may receive,
you may be opening the door for persecution. But if you believe
God, If you trust God, you say, let the chips fall where they
may. The very God who has called me by his grace has opened this
door. If he wants me in this place, he'll take care of me
in this place, regardless of how many enemies are in this
place. Is that true? See, this is all, this is all
a brother. Isaac is coming to understand that daddy Abraham
did not obtain the blessings without conflict. Abraham had
his problems too, didn't he? For all the wells which his father's
servants had digged in the days of Abraham, his father, the Philistines,
had stopped them and filled them with earth. This text is rich
with several implications. I just want to draw out the one
principle to share with you. Father Abraham had laid out a
pattern of life, a journey of life for his son. That journey
of life circumscribed every place that Abraham camped out. Every
place that he lived. For every place that he lived,
he had to dig a well. To dig a well is in order to
provide water. Water is necessary for life. So Abraham had done
the hard, difficult task of finding all of the well-watered portions
of the land, and he had obtained those. He had obtained those
to pass them down to his son Isaac. Are you hearing me? Those
waters of whales, those whales of water represent the inheritance. They represent the promises of
God. They represent the blessings of God. They represent the gospel
of grace. They represent the virtues of
the kingdom of God that God's people pass from one generation
to the next. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
These are critical because Isaac is not going in terms of geography
anywhere different than Abraham. They're in the land. but they
have to occupy the land effectively in order for them to actually
advance the kingdom. So the whales represent those
resources of grace and blessings that Father Abraham had discovered
in his walk with God. And he had left those for his
son. But the enemy had plugged up those whales by God's providence. See, God's in control. You know,
God was saying to Isaac, be diligent. Be diligent. You got the pattern. You got the promise. I'm with
you, boy. Be diligent. You go search out the wells that
work. Dig those wells up. and revisit
the path and pattern of your father Abraham and I will keep
you and I will bless you and I will make you mighty in the
land. Are you guys hearing what I'm saying? You don't have to
carve out a new path. Your father has laid out the
course that worked for him and it will work for you. And the
reason why Isaac was blessed is because he merely recovered,
recovered, recovered the course that father Abraham had went
down. Oh, this gets into so many other theological implications.
Must leave it alone. My point is God leaves a pattern
for us. You and I don't have to be bereft
of the resources of grace in this 21st century. God has given
us more than enough for us to get the job done in terms of
resources. We don't have to invent nothing
new. All we have to do is be diligent to follow the pattern.
He has given us everything necessary for life and godliness through
a knowledge of his son and patterns of belief Have I persuaded you
on that yet? Let me go on and shut this down. It's very critical
very critical Point number three then this is absolutely phenomenal
going back to our tax here's what the writer does after he
says be diligent after he says I Follow the pattern of diligence. After he says, Abraham becomes
for us the contemplation. For when God made promise to
Abraham, there's our text. For when God made promise to
Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he swore by himself. Isn't that absolutely stunning? Because he could swear by no
greater, he swore by himself. I'm getting ready to land this
thing right here. Cause I, I just, I said enough. I need you to
think about, I said enough that I need you to think about, but
I want you to, I want you to hear this. Why would God not
only promise, but swear. Okay. Now I want you to stay
with me now. See your promises don't mean
a plum nickel nor mine. And you're swearing probably
borderlines on blasphemy. But it certainly can't accomplish
anything. Pastor, I swear I didn't do it.
Yes, you did. I swear, yes, you did. You know how these folks,
they get caught red-handed. 500 cameras caught them in 50
different directions with their hand in the cookie jar. They
get brought to the police station and they say, I didn't do it.
I swear I didn't do it. I swear on my mama's grave, I didn't
do it. You know how they go and all that? All men are liars. Every man is a liar and will
you hear me child of God? Every man in and of themselves
is a vain show The only one we can truly trust is God himself
That's the only one because intrinsically God cannot fail intrinsically
God cannot lie Intrinsically God cannot change. It's the nature
of God to be a Impeccable and faithful and truthful in everything
he says and does Because of that he shouldn't have to promise
me anything All he has to do is be God Because of that he
shouldn't have to swear by his name All he has to do is be God. Is that true? But see the problems
not with God The problems with me and the problems with you
Will you hear me child of God? The problem is with us. God looks
at you, and he looks at me, and he says, these people are so
weak, so sinful, so inclined to prevarication. Look that up. Ambivalence. Look that up. Obsteperous people. Look that
up. cantankerous by nature, given
to whim and capri and being tossed to and fro. These people of mine
are by nature inclined to turn their back on me. That's how
we are. No, not me, pastor. Yes, you. Yes, you. Yes, you. In the face of all
God's promises, you will doubt 25 hours a day against the promises
of God. if he doesn't swear by himself. And he can't swear by any greater.
There is no, and you know what the text says? Oaths used to
be an end of all controversy. I swear on it, man. You can shake
hands on it. I swear. You can take my word. What God
is saying is this. When I make a promise and I couple
that promise with an oath, It should end every doubt, every
game saying word, every if and and but, every but God what if. It should put an end to every
one of those qualifying statements that rise up out of unbelief
and doubt and fear that come to us. when God makes those promises
as visibly plain as anyone possibly could. We should just be walking
forward in unfettered obedience to God when He says, I'll be
with you. I'm not leaving you. I will keep you. My son died
for you. The Holy Spirit has called you.
He has sealed you. He will bring you to glory. We
should just be walking with God in perfect obedience, letting
the chips fall where they may. But God has to swear to us Boy, we're a mess, ain't we a
mess? Listen to what the language says,
I'm done here. He says in verse 13, For when
God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no
greater, he swore by himself, saying, will you hear this? Surely. That's the term that
establishes the idea of assurance. Assurance the assurance of hope
surely it this here again is the phrase that says you can
be confident in me Abraham surely Blessing I will what? Do you see that? Surely blessing
I will bless thee in the Hebrews a certain construction in the
Greek. It's a certain construction They're both in what are called
the absolutes What that means is is that God is going to bless
Abraham from the start throughout the process and all the way to
the end Will bless you and blessing you and blessing you and blessing
you until I'm through blessing you I will bless you as I'm already
blessing you and I will bless you until I have blessed you
with the blessing that I said I would bless you with Abraham
don't worry about it, but whether you blessed by me thinking about
you Okay, you're blessed by me calling you you're blessed by
me bestowing my plans on you And I'm gonna bless you all the
way through until you receive the blessing that I have blessed
you with That's you That's huge! That's huge! And Abraham received
a blessing. What was the blessing? His son. But he had to walk by faith,
and he had to walk with patience. And he had to go through some
troubles, didn't he? But he left for us a pattern, didn't he?
And see, the Hebrew writer's saying, hold on, because when
we get to chapter 11, we get to look at a whole bunch of brothers
like this, whole bunch of sisters like this. Hold on, because when
we get to chapter 12, we're going to look at the one impeccable
man who came and went and left the pattern for us. Hebrews chapter
12, verse 1 and 2. Looking unto Jesus, the author
and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before
him endured, endured, endured, endured in order to leave for
us a legacy and an inheritance and a pattern to get us to glory.
See, he's exhorting now, isn't he? He's encouraging us now,
isn't he? He's calling us to understand we don't have to do
this thing on our own, isn't he? See, but you and I have to
read that book and ask God to give us understanding of that
book and make that book vital in our life so that it can conform
us to the image of Christ so that we can be faithful followers
of them who were faithful followers of them who were faithful followers
of him so that we might obtain the promise. After all, children
of God, after all, God says, I promise you, I promise you,
I promise you, I promise you. And that ought to be enough for
us. Amen. Amen.