Hebrews 6:1-12 - Believers and Behavers

Hello, and welcome back to Tabernacle Talk. It is good to be back with you.

I believe this is Thursday when this episode is coming out, and I'm excited. This next upcoming Thursday, I'm going to be heading on up to Connecticut, and getting to see some old friends, and really excited for that time together.

I'm going to be going to a ministry conference that actually I got to go to two years ago, massively encouraging.

One of my favorite times of worship and learning that I've ever been at, and so really looking forward to that time, and this time I get to take my wife back two years ago.

My daughter had just been born like two, three weeks prior, and so really excited to get to bring her along with me this time. Hebrews chapter six and verse number one.

We have been going through the book of Hebrews, learning about why should we pick Jesus over for these people? Why should we pick Jesus over Judaism? It's easier to go back to what all of our family has believed for centuries.

It's easier to go back to what is less persecuted here in Rome. So why shouldn't we just, you know, we're still following God. We're just not following Jesus anymore.

And the author all the way through has been saying, no, no, no, no, no, no, Jesus is better than anything that you could ever go back to. And he is the fulfillment. He's what everything that you grew up learning about, he's what it all pointed to.

So you know, the angels that brought the message to people at various times, Jesus is the best messenger from God to mankind. He is not just that, he's also like our brother. He became human for us and died for us.

He is our great high priest. And you guys like Moses, you listen to Moses and Jesus is that prophet that Moses said, if you don't listen to him, you'll be cut off from God's people. Jesus is the point.

And we looked yesterday at when the author started to talk about Jesus and how he's a high priest forever after the order of or according to the order of Melchizedek. He's a priest like he's a great high priest like Melchizedek.

And as I'm sure many of you thought as well, like, huh, what? These people certainly would have had that same mind frame mindset.

And the author writes, oh, yeah, I want to talk to you guys more about that, like, more about who Jesus is and how amazing he is and how he connects to the Old Testament. He says, but some of you have gotten too lazy to understand.

So I'm having to, like, reconvince you, some of you, about the fact that Jesus is better than what we came from in our Judaism. Now he is the full expression of everything that we spent our lives learning.

And so he says, by now, you guys should know enough about Jesus so that you can start eating meat. You can get into the deep things of God's Word. And he says, you've been too lazy.

He doesn't say you're too stupid. He doesn't say you can't comprehend it. He says, you've been too lazy.

You are intentionally choosing to not know things about Jesus. So, that's where we come now into Chapter 6 and verse number 1.

Therefore, let us leave the elementary teaching about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works, faith in God, teaching about baptism, laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead and eternal

judgment. And we will do this if God permits.

So, there in verses 1 through 3, He says, all right, the foundation of everything is that repentance from dead works and faith in God, that we turn from our sin, we turn from our self-reliance in our own way, and we say, God, I am believing in what

Jesus has done for me. And then there in verse number 2, some of the things that come as a result of that, the teaching about baptisms or some of the ritual washings that would happen within Judaism, laying on of hands, that is, in ordaining and

praying and caring for others, the resurrection of the dead, like our hope, our certain hope and future as children of God, and eternal judgment. The fact that there will be that day when we stand before the Lord, if we have known Jesus, then on that

day we are rewarded for the good things that we have done in His strength. And if we do not know Christ, that eternal judgment will be a time of, depart from me, I never knew you. And those that would go into hell and the lake of fire.

So he says, we're going to leave behind like these, these are the basic things. These are the things all of the babies in Christ, they know about these things. And he says, we will go on to deeper things if God permits.

And then verse number four, he says something very important. Now, I'm going to read, I think, all the way through the end of where we're at today in verse number 12.

I'm going to read through all of it because we want to hear the full like passage of what's going on. He says, we're going to leave these basic elementary foundational things because hopefully you guys know all of this stuff.

Again, he's writing to people that some of the people that had been gathering with the church or those churches, they had abandoned Jesus for Judaism. And now there were some other people going, okay, well, should we leave like the others have left?

That's the circumstance that we're looking at now in chapter 6 and verse number 4.

For it is impossible to renew to repentance those who were once enlightened, who tasted the heavenly gift, who shared in the Holy Spirit, who tasted God's good word and the powers of the coming age, and who have fallen away.

This is because to their own harm, they are re-crucifying the Son of God and holding him up to contempt.

For the ground that drinks the rain that often falls on it and that produces vegetation useful to those for whom it is cultivated receive a blessing from God.

But if it produces thorns and thistles, it is worthless and about to be cursed and at the end will be burned.

Even though we are speaking this way, dearly loved friends, in your case, we are confident of things that are better and that pertain to salvation. For God is not unjust.

He will not forget your work and the love you demonstrated for His name by serving the saints and by continuing to serve them.

Now, we desire each of you to demonstrate the same diligence for the full assurance of your hope until the end, so that you won't become lazy, but will be imitators of those who inherit the promises through faith and perseverance. Okay.

I want to state, first of all, just outright what this passage does not mean.

This passage is not saying that you can be a genuine Christian, bought by Jesus, written in the Lamb's Book of Life from the foundation of the world, and you can lose your salvation.

You can have genuine salvation at one point, and then end up not having it. That is not what the passage is saying. Why would I say that?

On a cursory reading, it might sound like that. The reason is this. We interpret scripture through the lens of scripture.

That we look at some of the verses that I mentioned about the fact that God is the one that adopted us. He elected us. He chose us as Ephesians 1 and 2 Thessalonians, Chapter 2, and Romans, Chapter 8, and John, Chapter 6, and John, Chapter 10.

As they all state, God loves us. God was the one that initiated our salvation. We didn't initiate it ourselves.

And because God is the one that saves us, because we didn't do anything to enter into a relationship with God, we can't do anything to remove ourselves from a genuine relationship with God.

However, as the author of Hebrews has been highlighting the whole way through, he's saying not everyone that journeyed on that wilderness journey in the Exodus, not all of them were truly God believers and God followers.

Some of them were behaviors for a little bit of time that they walked out of Egypt and they walked along with the Children of Israel and they got some manna and they were at the foot of Mount Sinai when Moses received the Ten Commandments and they

perhaps fought in some battles against those groups that were attacking them, like the, I think it was the Amalekites and I think the Ammonites at another point during that journey. So he says there were people that were walking with the people of

God, but that they didn't believe. And so when the time came for them to take the step of obedience, to go into the promised land.

And when Joshua and Caleb were encouraging the people, if God is for us, then we can go and we can defeat the giants and we can defeat all of these like enormous Philistines that the other ten spies that had spied out the land with Joshua and Caleb

that they were so afraid of. Joshua and Caleb said, guys, believe God and let's do what he has called us to.

But the author of Hebrews highlights, there were a bunch of people that they did not enter into the land of God's rest because of their unbelief, that they behaved but never believed.

And that's the exact type of thing that now he's reiterating here in Chapter six, especially as we look at the rest of the Book of Hebrews.

We're going to notice time and time and time again, the fact that Jesus paid for our salvation and he paid for it once for all. That there's not like a reapplying of the blood of Christ to your account.

And you just got to hope that you're like sticking with him and asking for reappli... reapplyment. I just made up that word and I'm going to stick with it.

You don't have to ask Jesus for reapplyment of his forgiveness. It was purchased for us once and for all at Calvary. So let's dive in.

Verse number four. We'll kind of pick this apart word by word, piece by piece. And we'll learn some things along the way.

Okay, verse number four. It is impossible to renew to repentance those who were once enlightened, who tasted the heavenly gift, who shared in the Holy Spirit, who tasted God's good word and the powers of the coming age, and who have fallen away.

Okay, why is it impossible to renew to repentance those people? What does that mean?

Maybe in our common thinking, we might say, well, someone, you know, prayed a prayer once to Jesus, and so if it's impossible to renew them again to repentance, then they'll never again maybe pray that prayer of, Jesus, I believe in you.

That might be how we think about it. That's not how the writer here is picturing it. He's saying those that have not continued in their faith have shown that there is no, there is no returning to favor with God without returning to Jesus.

So he's warning them against following others who have abandoned Jesus for Judaism. And he says, if you go into Judaism, you can't, like, you can't repent and turn to God again.

He says you can go to the temple in Jerusalem and you can go to the priests and you can offer your sacrifices. But that's not where your relationship with God can be found anymore. It's gone from there.

You used to do that. You used to be, you know, like Jesus, who when he was eight days old was circumcised. And then 40 days, 40 days or so after he was born, where his parents took him to Jerusalem and he was dedicated at the temple.

And they paid the cost of the couple of, I forget if it was doves or pigeons that they paid. He says, these people used to do these religious actions outlined for us in Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

He says, but there's nothing left for him there. You can't repent when you are away from God. Repentance only happens within a relationship with Jesus.

That old way, the Old Covenant, the Old Testament, if you will, is now closed. The only way forward is through Jesus Christ.

He says, so those who were once enlightened, that is, those that now know that there is a difference between what Jesus accomplished and the old way in Judaism.

So there were people, even that Paul interacted with Apollos and some other old disciples of John the Baptist, that they had been following along faithfully, serving.

They're preaching the gospel of repentance that John the Baptist was preaching, but they didn't know about Jesus. And so Paul let them know, like, hey, here's this new way.

And if you will, they are enlightened, much like Paul himself was enlightened, that he thought he was following God. And then on the road to Damascus, he was literally enlightened about the fact that Jesus was the new way.

So those that now know the difference, the second line there, who tasted the heavenly gift, in one sense, this could be speaking about the Lord's Supper, about partaking in that remembrance of Jesus' life, death and resurrection, could be the love

feasts that were often done either before or after, or before and after partaking in the Lord's Supper, in those early churches. Those that have been enlightened with their eyes, that they have tasted the heavenly gift, they've shared in the Holy

Spirit, they've seen God do these signs and miracles, and wonders in the middle of their local assemblies. That was something that was mentioned, I forget if it was Chapter 1 or Chapter 2 of Hebrews, where they say, You guys have seen this.

It is those that have, gotta return the page one more time, those who have tasted God's good word and the powers of the coming age, that they have been, if you will, what's often phrased as, they've been fed the word of God through their spiritual

leaders, that their pastors, their elders, their overseers, if you want to use an old translation, their bishops, they have declared the good word to them about Jesus, and they've seen the power of Jesus and how he has transformed lives and how he

has saved people and how he has turned people's lives around. Those that have seen Jesus do all of those things and yet have abandoned him, he says, don't follow the abandoners because there is no repentance. It's impossible to renew to repentance

when you are away from God. Repentance means that you are no longer pursuing your sin, but now you are pursuing the Savior, and you cannot simultaneously reject the Savior and say, oh yeah, I'm repentant. I'm living a good moral life.

I'm following God. I'm just not following Jesus. It's not how it works.

And the person explained, the author here explains why this would be so. He says, this is because to their own harm, they are re-crucifying the Son of God and holding him up to contempt.

They are with the Pharisees, with the Sanhedrin, with the Romans, with the Jewish crowd on that Good Friday. They are proclaiming, crucify him. He is not the King of the Jews.

He is not the Lord of all. He is not the Lord of me. I don't want him.

Be rid of him. Get rid of him. Crucify him.

And when we reject the Lord, when we reject following him, man, it is like a re-crucifixion of Jesus. There's a great song, Depth of Mercy, and it's an old Charles Wesley hymn. Fred Coleman, I believe, was the man that wrote a new tune to the song.

I'll link it in the show notes. One of the lines says, I have long withstood his face, long provoked him to his face, would not harken to his calls, grieved him by a thousand falls.

There for me, the Savior stands, shows his wounds and spreads his hands. God is love, his grace so free. Depths of mercy, there for me.

And there's a line in there as well about like a recrucifying Christ. And that is what we do when we reject him. And certainly those that abandon the Christian faith, there is no salvation.

There is no repentance outside of returning to Jesus. Let's continue on. Verses 7 and 8, the author reminds us of the illustration that Jesus gave in Mark 4, that I've referenced often here, about the different types of seed and soil.

He says, those that actually have accepted Jesus, they're bringing up that good fruit, that the rain comes and they produce fruit, versus those that have not genuinely believed in Jesus when the rain comes, then just thorns and thistles grow up,

those things that choke out any possible faith or belief or life in Jesus. So he says, this is how you know when you're looking at people in your life.

Chapter 13 would give the indication that even some of the spiritual leaders of these Hebrews had been killed for their faith.

And so the author in Chapter 13 will remind them, he'll say, hey, remember those that taught you the Word of God and considering what the outcome of their faith was, follow them.

You know how they still loved and still followed God and still had joy and still had peace in what they were going through. Versus, these people that are abandoning, they're growing up thorns and thistles in their interactions.

Don't follow after them, instead follow those that have followed the Lord faithfully.

And verse number 9, he says, even though we are speaking this way about those that really are true believers versus those that were just temporary behaviors, he says, even though we're speaking this way, dearly loved friends, in your case, we are

confident of things that are better and that pertain to salvation. He says, even though I'm warning you about that and I'm telling you about these things, I believe that you guys are true believers in Christ. He says, for God is not unjust.

He will not forget your work and the love you demonstrated for His name by serving the saints and by continuing to serve them.

He says, I've seen what you guys have done and how you have loved God's people, how you have loved those that are less fortunate and how you are continuing to do so. And I know that God will reward you for the work that you are doing.

Verse number 11, now, we desire each of you to demonstrate the same diligence for the full assurance of your hope until the end.

Here, the same type of thought that we learned about in 2 Peter chapter 1, that when God's new Holy Spirit life is being lived out of us, then we are confident that we are true believers.

Because when the Holy Spirit has free reign in our life and he's doing whatever he wants to do, then we know, like, hey, this isn't from me. Like, I'm not just a great person in and of myself, but the Holy Spirit is good.

And as he is changing me and changing my desires and changing my words and changing my actions, I know that I am a child of God because it's not about me. It's about what the Holy Spirit, about what Jesus Christ is doing in and through me.

And he says that diligence will give us full assurance of our hope until the end. Verse number 12, so that you won't become lazy. There's that phrase again, but will be imitators of those who inherit the promises through faith and perseverance.

What do you need in your Christian life today? You need some diligence, you need some faith, you need some perseverance. Let's not be lazy.

Let's not neglect to do what God has for us to do. Those good works that he has equipped us with from Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 10.

We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God before ordained that we would walk in them. Let's be faithful to follow that out because when that happens, there's no doubt in our minds.

We believe in Jesus and we are following him. We're repenting of sin and we are pursuing the righteousness that God has for us to adopt into our lives. There will be no question of, God, am I a believer or am I just a temporary behavior?

And I'd like to encourage you today, you know, ask the Lord. Use the word of God. God, is what I profess to be my relationship with you, is it real?

Am I a real believer or have I just been a behavior? If you have just been a behavior, then today you can turn to Jesus and call on him in faith and he will save you. Thanks for tuning in today.

Looking forward to continuing Chapter 6 with you all tomorrow. I believe we've got some more stuff about Melchizedek, so it's going to be a blast.