Sure of Better Things: Hebrews 6:7-12

1. Prayer & Set up…
   1. What are we doing for the next portion of our time together as we continue worshipping. – We’re aiming to know God better. The best way to know God, and the only way to know him rightly, is through his word, where he reveals himself.
      1. That leads me to an admission: I cannot possibly tell you anything more powerful than what this book tells you. I can’t possibly say it better either. I mean, the Holy Spirit is the author. The power of the word is in God himself. That means I’m just a conduit, God’s messenger, to help guide you to the light of it and heat of it. We have preaching because God designed it so that some in the body are gifted by the Spirit for the church to help encourage our hearts that we must let the light in and feel the warmth (or the burn) of its truth.
      2. And there are other proclaimers out there more gifted than I… BUT those others are not YOUR local partner in the family of God. This one is. And this one loves you and wants to grow together with you in greater faithfulness to pursuing God and his will for us… regaining a focus on maturing disciples and multiplying disciples. – That’s my intro. Help me by allowing God’s word to speak into our hearts by ignoring my insufficiency and embracing Christ’s complete sufficiency. And do not listen lazily (5:11b), but with the intent to encounter God and be changed by Him.
      3. Finally, don’t let me handout keep you from focusing on the text itself. Those notes are a secondary help… the original source is primary. Be sure to test everything that we say against the verses in their context and in their place in the Bible.
   2. Let me also wet your appetite for the text. – We’re at a part in our text of Hebrews that is a lot like a locker room pep talk from the coach, or a meeting at work where the boss offers the team an urgent challenge.
      1. “Guys, we’re being sloppy and turning the ball over much too frequently. We’re not hitting the boards. Why are they getting offensive rebounds? At the other end, we’re not setting screens to get one another open looks. That’s what the scoreboard shows right now! But listen up, you can do this. I’ve seen you play well together, I’ve seen you protect the ball and take smart shots, I’ve seen you be an aggressive team. It’ll take all of us to get out heads in the game, but I’m confident in you. Let’s go get it done. Play with all you’ve got for the remaining 20 minutes. Leave it all out there.”
      2. Now that’s a sampling, albeit a weak version, of what happens here in Hebrews because we’re talking about a spiritual chewing and pep talk that includes the powerful working of God in his people. But it helps you get the idea of a spiritual leader, like a coach, turning in the end of a severe warning and urgent plea to a word of encouragement. I’m sure of better things for you because I’ve seen the evidence of better things!
      3. READ 6:4-12
   3. Reminder of the flow of the text here in this section of Hebrews: Loving Confrontation (5:11-6:3), Preventative Warning (6:4-8), and Encouraging Mitigation (6:9-12).
      1. We looked in depth last week at the third-person warning of vv. 4-6 – “those who” have been exposed to every opportunity to respond with genuine repentance and faith, but instead reject the gospel, it is impossible to restore them to repentance. It’s as if they are crucifying Jesus again and holding him up to utter contempt. BTW, it is God who determines apostasy (irredeemable rejection of Him). We do not know that or presume it of anyone. We hold ourselves and every person on God’s planet accountable to the word of our good and just God, and we faithfully proclaim his offer of salvation to everyone.– So the warning of verses 4-8 overall then is that you can hang out with the team but never really be one heart with the team… You can hobnob in the community of faith and not yourself really be a member of the faith community because you have not been fundamentally changed.
      2. Now we know it is also possible for believers to be stuck in immaturity (according to vv. 5:11-6:3) and need to be challenged to grow out of it… But how can we tell the difference? That’s what we get in vv. 7&8, an illustration from agriculture of true saving faith versus that which is not.
      3. We’ve got two different kinds of fields that grow up out of the two soils, both of which have been thoroughly and regularly nourished with the necessary rain. The first produces a harvest, but the second bears thorns and thistles.
         1. The question becomes, which one is obviously fertile soil? Which one is useful to the one for whose sake it is cultivated? (Although I think we should understand this as cultivated for God, it is also of great benefit obviously to the believer himself, by contrast to those in verse 6 who crucify the Son of God again to their own harm.)
         2. And what is the end result for each? The first receives the blessing of God, which in context I believe is reference to the end result, salvation in its future tense. – By contrast, the fruitless field is worthless, on the verge of bearing the full weight of the curse, and its end is to be burned (a reference to judgment).
         3. The illustration further supports our interpretation of vv. 4-6, that we are designed to bear fruit in keeping with repentance (Mt. 3:8). Their so-called initial repentance and so-called profession of faith earlier proves itself to be insincere (not genuine) because “you will know them by their fruits.” (Mt. 7:16, just as is said there of false prophets versus true ones)
      4. But in your case, beloved (switching back to second person “you”), we feel sure of better things. – Firmly convinced the Christian community is like the good soil in the illustration above.
         1. The author’s encouragement to these loved children in the faith is that he (and others with him) feel confident from the evidence of their lives that they are truly people of salvation—those who are being saved—who made a confession of faith in the past, who are continuing in the faith even now, and will Lord willing endure in faith and patience to the end. – Salvation is itself the blessing from God (end of v. 7), received by those who bear fruit in keeping with repentance.
         2. What does this fruit look like? Work and love which manifests itself… shows itself. – Not that these works save you, but they are the fruit that reveals you.
            1. BTW, what good are those flowering fruit trees that don’t bear fruit? It’s a contradiction.
            2. Or what insanity to have an unfruitful diseased tree (Lk 7), and rather than trying to solve the real problem, we take and tape nice-looking fruit to the tree.
         3. But this fruit is genuine, springing from a healthy growing tree. We know that because 1) It is for His name 2) It ministers to the saints, and 3) It continues.
            1. Where God’s glory is the goal, his grace is at work in us. (because the gospel of Jesus Christ has transformed us)
            2. Christ-like good deeds and Christian sacrificial affection show up most prominently in the most obvious place – deaconing the saints (God’s set apart ones). I say deaconing bc that word for serving, ministering is the verb form from which we steal our word deacon (a servant, a minister). – It’s not just an office/position for some guys who back up the elders with serving hands, it’s the fruit of every member in the body, every partner in the gospel. – Who’s already deaconing? Deacon and encourage one another all the more as you see the day approaching (Heb. 10:25).
            3. Genuine ministry continues. It’s not a flash in the pan or a shooting star. It’s a gold that becomes more and more refined. It’s a fire that spreads and grows (giving off more light and heat).
         4. Let’s shift our attention for a moment. – Here’s the real comfort or encouragement in all this. Which really is one with what should cause great fear in those who are not genuine. God is not unjust. Soak that in. Sometimes the most obvious truths about God are the most impactful when they finally grip us. God is not unjust! There is no unfairness in God. He won’t overlook the plain evidence of our work and love for his name in serving His people. He doesn’t neglect or forget. God is perfectly attentive and perfectly just in recognizing and caring for those who are his.
            1. I don’t know about you, but for me, I can hardly express the great comfort and encouragement it is to me that God’s decrees and commands, his acts and judgments, his expectations on us, are based firmly in his perfect character.
            2. Wouldn’t it be so nice if that were true of your boss at work? That every decision he made and every direction he gave was firmly grounded in his perfect person? – That isn’t the case with us, but it is with our Heavenly Father. It is the case with our Savior and King. It is the case with our comforter and guide, the Holy Spirit. (There is a similar point made in the following section by the author of Hebrews regarding the certainty of the promises of God.)
            3. I even find it comforting to know that when I face the Bible and difficult passages such as these, I never have to worry that God is the problem with my difficulty. God’s justice isn’t based on my weak and worldly human version of what fairness should look like. God is better and can be trusted. It gives me strength and courage to love him and live for him according to his word.
         5. It’s with that foundation that the author now says, ‘our intense desire is that each one of you will demonstrate’ (make visible and apparent) the fruit that proves your genuineness.
            1. BTW, if we have a single useless beehive, it doesn’t mean there will be no honey coming from this group of hives at all, for there may be many hives doing what God has designed for them. Yet it is a deep tragedy and makes us all less effective. It does indeed hurt Christ’s church. But besides that, for your OWN good before God, we urgently desire is that you demonstrate the eager diligence of active ministry, because it is that which gives full assurance of hope to the end.
            2. And that knowledge (especially the knowledge of God’s justice) should motivate you to not be sluggish (lazy) about your growth and active ministry, but instead to intentionally imitate those you can tell are headed toward inheriting the promises… which you can observe in them by their faith and patience.
            3. And thus your assurance of hope, certainty, and complete confidence of one day inheriting the promises is based on your endurance in the faith. There’s no doubt whatsoever on God’s end. God is faithful and just and steadfast in love to a thousand generations. Your problem is you. My problem is me. Will I prove my faith genuine by bearing fruit with endurance? Will I keep growing in Him and serving for the sake of His name firm to the end?
            4. Show eager diligence and be imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. – (The blessings of salvation culminates in inheriting the promises…) Your fruit shows that you’re on the path, that you are the fertile soil. And we desire that EACH ONE among you show that same earnestness of faith.  (Because from the evidence of that genuineness – fruit – comes full assurance of hope, hope which perseveres to the end. – faith and patient endurance right up the point of when our faith becomes sight.

• Application: to us as a church family and to you as an individual (who stands before a just God)
  1. I’m glad we have examples in the Bible of people doing confrontation right, because much of the time it feels like we don’t do it right. – Let’s hold one another’s feet to the fire in real, authentic accountability, and let’s also encourage one another with evidence of God’s work in our lives!!!
     1. There may be unbelievers in our midst, and certainly others whom we desire to reach out to, who need to be lovingly confronted with this truth about salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ: Fertile hearts produce a harvest. No fruit (no evidence of saving faith) means dead soil. Fake evidence will also reveal itself as false over time. Yet we can comfort these ones that God can be trusted to save them and produce fruit in them when they turn to him in repentance and faith.
     2. There can also be immature believers who need both a kick in the pants and some mentors to imitate. These can be encouraged that growth and active ministry await those who are not sluggish but show eager diligence in pursuing God.
     3. And the mature believers must not see themselves above these warnings but always reforming their minds, hearts, and actions to be consistent with the character of God revealed in his word. That happens best in authentic proximity to God’s people.
     4. We’re on this journey together… we can help each other to show the same earnestness, we can encourage one another, even as we challenge each other in areas of weakness, that we see the fruit of God at work. – And we need to be always reminding each other, “Who you are in secret should be your greatest concern. What goes on in your heart is what matters most.”
  2. Can you be content that you don’t get to choose where you are planted, how big of a tree you are, or what flavor your fruit is? – God knows what he’s doing. Find your joy in being His and being used by Him how he sees fit. You keep growing and producing what he has given you to produce amongst the people he’s paired you with.