Oct 24, 2021 | Categories: Greater.

GREATER > Week 19 – Hebrews 10:26-39 | Ryan Falls

Greater: Steadfast

Hebrews 10:26-39 | Ryan Falls, Senior Pastor

Because of the steadfast nature and goodness of God, we ought to live steadfast lives of joy and obedience, no matter the circumstances

I. Ponder the possibility of judgment

“this passage was destined to have repercussions in Christian history beyond what our author could have foreseen”

  • Rejecting Christ has ultimate implications

For if we go on sinning deliberately (after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified…For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Hebrews 10:26-31

That the reason why they are not fallen already and do not fall now is only that God’s appointed time is not come. For it is said, that when that due time, or appointed time comes, their foot shall slide. Then they shall be left to fall, as they are inclined by their own weight. God will not hold them up in these slippery places any longer, but will let them go; and then, at that very instant, they shall fall into destruction; as he that stands on such slippery declining ground, on the edge of a pit, he cannot stand alone, when he is let go he immediately falls and is lost.

–Jonathan Edwards

  • We could not have a God of love, goodness, and holiness, if He didn’t exercise wrath in response to sin

How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace?

–Hebrews 10:29

There are a lot of people who struggle mightily with this whole idea. They say, “If God is a God of love, he doesn’t send people to hell. If God is a God of judgment, he can’t be a God of love. I can’t reconcile the two things.” Yet the Bible insists that not only is God a God both of love and wrath—not only do those two things not conflict with each other, but they actually establish each other. One without the other is nonsense. One without the other is meaningless. If you actually try to somehow extract, remove surgically, excise the Christian message of the wrath and judgment of God, what you actually have is nothing left at all.

–Tim Keller

II. Recall our reliability in trial

  • Endurance in suffering

But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction

–Hebrews 10:32-33

  • Solidarity with other Christians as they suffer

But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on those in prison

–Hebrews 10:32-34

  • The joyful surrender of our worldly possessions

But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on those in prison and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property

–Hebrews 10:32-34

III. Focus on our future hope

  • Develop a holy imagination

For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.  Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.
For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. For, “Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay;
but my righteous one shall live by faith,
and if he shrinks back,
my soul has no pleasure in him.”

–Hebrews 10:34-38

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.

–Revelation 21:1-5

  • Live with courage and conviction

But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.

–Hebrews 10:39

Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.

–C.S. Lewis

Because of the steadfast nature and goodness of God, we ought to live steadfast lives of joy and obedience, no matter the circumstances