Crouch. Pause. Engage.

Hebrews 5.10-6.20

Rev. Grant Beachy, 03.04.07

March 4, 2007 - Grant Beachy

Crouch. Pause. Engage. Crouch. Touch. Pause. Engage.

If you've ever been to a rugby match, you've heard that phrase scores of times. It's how the referee begins probably fifty to sixty percent of all the plays. Maybe you've seen it, the two big groups of guys - the scrum, it's called. Each group has eight guys in it. And they're all big - 1600 pounds, maybe 2000 pounds, per side. The referee gets them together then says, "Crouch." They all come together. "Touch." Make sure you're the right distance apart. "Pause. Engage."

When the ref says engage, you'd better engage, because there's two thousand pounds coming at you. And if you do not engage - even as one member of that eight man team - if you do not engage, the other team is going to push you back, force you off the ball. They'll get the ball and they'll have the advantage. When the call comes to engage, you'd better engage or you'll be pushed off the ball.

That's what we have going on in this passage. It's a call to engage. The pastor - from what I understand, the person who wrote the book of Hebrews was probably the pastor of this church - was separated from them, for some reason, some distance away. Maybe he was in prison. At the end of the letter, he talks about Timothy having been released from prison, so perhaps he, too, had been in prison. Maybe he had gone on to plant another church somewhere else. Still, this pastor has caught wind of what is happening in his former congregation, a church he probably planted.

You see, in the first century Judaism was an accepted religion. In the Roman world, in the Mediterranean, Rome controlled everything and Judaism was an okay religion. You could be a Jew and no hardship came your way - no persecution for being a Jew. But being a Christian, however, was quite different. Christians were openly persecuted. You could harass a Christian and the law had nothing to say to you except, "Good job." So these people, the Hebrews to whom this letter was written, were primarily Jewish converts from Judaism to Christianity. As such, they'd experience life on both sides of the fence - both sides of the aisle if you will - life as a Jew in the Roman world and life as a Christian in the Roman world. So you can understand when some of them were being tempted to consider going back to Judaism.

The Christian life is not an easy thing, let alone when you have persecution from the state. So here are these Christians, a relatively healthy church as it seems, who are being tempted to go back, being tempted to deny Jesus. "He's not really my Savior." If they would say that, then they would be cool with the state. You understand the pressure. We don't have persecution like that in our day and yet some of us maybe are tempted. "This Jesus thing isn't really worth it." "It's harder than I thought it was going to be." "Maybe I'll just go back." The whole of this letter [of Hebrews] is an argument for why they ought not to go back.

In Hebrews 6:1-13, the pastor is trying to encourage his people. "Don't quit." He gives them the main argument that Jesus is superior to everything else. He's superior to Moses. He's superior to the prophets. He's superior to Joshua. He's superior to Melchizedek. Even Jewish ears would go, "Melchizedek? He's only mentioned twice in the Bible up to this point. Melchizedek?" The pastor says, "I want to tell you about Melchizedek. You need to hear about Melchizedek. This will really help you in your progress of the faith, but you're not ready. You're not prepared to hear about Melchizedek."

So what we have in Chapter five, verse ten, through Chapter six, verse twenty, [of Hebrews] is really a pastoral aside. It's like in the sermon when the pastor says, "Now I need to talk to our people for a minute." That's what the pastor is doing. He's saying, "I want you to see how Jesus is like Melchizedek - a High Priest in the order of Melchizedek. But before I get there, y'all need to hear this. I've got something I need to tell you." That's what we have in these twenty-five verses, twenty-five difficult verses. It's written in five different paragraphs with five main thoughts. We could spend a sermon or two on each of those paragraphs, but we're going to spend five minutes on each. Afterward, you'll probably have a lot of questions that will not get answered because I want us to see the main point.

I want us to start by looking at the one overarching point in this passage - the one point that the author makes in these five paragraphs and five thoughts in God's Word - by looking at Hebrews chapter five, verse ten. We read there that, "Jesus was designated by God to be High Priest in the order of Melchizedek. We have much to say about this, but it's hard to explain because you are slow to learn. In fact, by this time you ought to be teachers, yet you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's Word all over again. You need milk, not solid food. Anyone who lives on milk is an infant, not acquainted about the teaching of righteousness, but solid food is for the mature who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil." [paraphrase Heb 5:11-14]

In this first paragraph, the pastor is saying to his people, "There's some significant problems in your Christian life." What are these significant problems? We see the first one listed in verse eleven. "We have much to explain, but you are slow to learn." The phrase, "slow to learn," is how the NIV translates, "You're lazy in your hearing." The word lazy shows up again later in the passage. It's what the pastor is fighting against. Laziness. "You've gotten lazy. You're not living in light of what you already know. You're not living on what you've already heard."

The fact is these aren't immature people. It sounds like they're immature, but they're acting immature. These are mature folks, but they're acting immature. It's like the teenager at the table who belches. The parents look at him and go, "What are you doing? You know better than that. Act your age." A friend of mine is a teacher and he recently gave an exam, part of which was on similes and metaphors. When he got the exams back, one of the students got a forty-percent on the exam. That's really bad. He called him in and ask, "Help me out. What was going on here?" The student said, "I just don't know the stuff. I don't know it." The teacher professor said, "You didn't even read the questions." The student said, "Oh, yeah. I did." The professor said, "No, you didn't. In fifteen of the questions, there were two options given. ‘A' or ‘B'. Here's how your answers went. ‘C, B, D, A, E, C, D.' You didn't even read the questions." "Oh, I wouldn't have understood them anyways even if I did read them." "Look. What is a simile?" "A simile is a comparison using like or as." "You could have aced that section. You knew this stuff. You just got lazy. You just quit. You threw in the towel too early."

That's what the pastor is saying. "Y'all know this stuff. You know what similes and metaphors are. You know the ABC's of the Christian life, but you've gotten lazy and it's left you unprepared. You're unprepared to teach. Y'all should be teachers by now, but you're not prepared to teach because you've gotten lazy. And you're not prepared to receive new teaching."

That's what this whole aside is about - this whole 5:10-14. "You're not ready for this teaching." And it's left them unprepared to face hardship. That's what verse fourteen is talking about. Solid food is for the mature who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. Because you've gotten lazy, when temptation comes, when hardship comes, you are left unprepared to distinguish good from evil. That's saying there are significant problems in your Christian life. You're lazy. You've allowed yourselves to become lazy and that has left you unprepared.

But he goes on in 6:1-3. Look there. He says, "Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And God permitting, we will do so." [NIV]

In this paragraph, the pastor is saying that there are significant problems, but you have a good foundation. Y'all have a good foundation. You know the ABC's. As I read that list, maybe you heard the five things that are listed: repentance, faith, baptisms, laying on of hands, eternal judgement. It's likely that these five things made up the core teachings in the Intro-2 class this pastor taught his people. Each of these five things can be seen in Jewish theology. So, when someone is going to convert from Judaism to Christianity, they would have to know the differences. Okay. So how do Christians view these things? How is the Christian view different from the way Jews view these things? The people had all that stuff. The pastor is saying, "You've got a good foundation. You know your ABC's. You know the basics. We don't need to rebuild the foundation."

Another friend of mine has a house that was built in the nineteen-twenties. It's an old house. It's been around for a while. A few years back, he was doing some renovation work to add on a couple of rooms. In the course of doing that, he had a builder come out to look at the house. The two of them crawled underneath the house, in the crawl space. And the builder looked around and said, "Oh, this is bad. I can't work with this." Why did he say that? What he found was that when the house was built, they cleared the field and took four big stones - not huge stones - and set them in the corners and that's what they built the house on. No cement slab, no concrete walls, no cinder block, just four stones. That was the foundation of the house. And the builder said, "I can't build on this. It's awful." My friend said, "It's been standing for eighty years. I think we're okay."

If your foundation is solid - even though it might look shaky - it has proved in the test of time. The pastor is saying the same. "I know you have a good foundation. We don't need to rebuild it. Let's start from that foundation." Then he looks to the future and in the next verses, he says, "Even with a good foundation, you can still go in a bad direction." Verses four through eight of chapter six: "It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, it is impossible for them to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned." [NIV]

This is hard. This is, by most accounts, one of the most difficult passages in the Bible. I'll spend four minutes on it. We can spend a lot of time here, because if you miss the context of this verse, it appears more terrifying than it needs to be, or it doesn't effect you at all. What the pastor is saying here is, "You have significant problems, very real significant problems with Christianity, but you have a sure foundation. Even so, it is possible for you to go down this path. It is possible for you to allow your laziness to go unchecked and you wind up here." This is a warning. The point is: y'all don't go there.

Who are these people, this category of folks, that the pastor describes here? I mean, there's no way to argue around it. These five things that are listed seem to be traits of Christians, people who have genuinely been immersed in the covenant community, people who would have said, "I am a Christian." These are people who have stood up in front, people who have taken vows when they were baptized. They've had their children baptized. They taught their families the truths of the Gospel. Maybe they've even taught people in church. Every external appearance would indicate that this person is a Christian. Yet, if that kind of person falls away, they've shut themselves off from the only means of repentance.

Now what does it mean to fall away? This is the only time the word is used in the New Testament. It does not mean someone who is struggling with sin, a Christian who is genuinely wrestling with sin. It doesn't mean a Christian who has doubts about faith. The person who falls away is the one who at one point in life pitched their tent in the Christian camp and said, "I believe in Jesus. I believe his crucifixion was unjust. It was wrong. I should have been there." Then later in life, they come into the other camp, and they say, "No. Jesus was a liar, a blasphemer, and in fact crucify him. Crucify him!" That's what they would say. And that is why they shut themselves off. They crucified Jesus all over again.

It's when someone's heart gets so hard. See. This verse is not about us being able to say who is irretrievably lost and who is not. This verse is not about God not allowing people to repent. This is about people putting themselves in the place of not being able to repent. They allow their hearts to get so hard that they finally reject the only option for repentance, Jesus Christ, and thereby, cut themselves off.

This is a serious warning. The pastor is saying, "This is a real possibility. This happens. Think of Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve disciples. Jesus washed his feet. Could anyone else have participated more fully in Christianity than one of the twelve, who still at the end of the day, rejected Jesus." It's possible. And the point of this paragraph, the pastor is saying, "Do not allow your laziness to go unchecked, because even a good foundation, given time, and given the elements, will decay and break down unless it's taken care of."

The pastor continues though, in verses nine through twelve: "Even though we speak like this, dear friends." This is the only time it is used in the whole letter - "dear friends." It's "beloved." This is warm. Even though we speak like this - "I love y'all" - he continues. "We are confident of better things in your case - things that accompany salvation." Verse ten, "God is not unjust; He will not forget your work and the love you have shown Him as you have helped His people and continue to help them."

He's saying, "Y'all have a good foundation and I've seen genuine fruit in your lives." Genuine fruit. Notice in the middle of verse ten. "God is not unjust. He will not forget your work and the love you have shown Him as you have helped His people." You see, the pastor is saying, "I've seen real genuine love come from you. Love directed toward God, love that loves His people. And he continues. "But don't make that the basis of your hope. The fact that I've seen genuine fruit is not the basis of my hope." He continues in verse eleven, "We want each of you to show that same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure."

The basis of our hope is not our good foundation or even our genuine fruit. The pastor encourages his people to press on with the same diligence. Verse twelve, "We do not want you to become lazy." There's that word again. "But to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised." Y'all don't get lazy, because there's significant problems. If they go unchecked, they could lead to serious peril. But I'm confident of better things in your case, because I've seen the good foundation that you have. I've seen, I've experienced the genuine fruit that you have, but press on in that. Continue on in that.

Many of you gave of yourselves when the Salters were here four months ago. You gave your time; you gave your energies. You loved Leigh Ann; you loved Dustin; you loved the kids amazingly well. Press on in that diligence. Don't rest on your laurels saying, "I've served somebody." That's great. And it is great. Press on in that. Continue. Make your hope sure. There's a woman in this church who, every Tuesday, would sit with Dustin up here at North Greenville Hospital. When he went to Fort Worth, she said, "This doesn't need to stop." So she contacted the nurse manager at North Greenville Hospital and asked how she can help. "How can I help. Maybe I can sit with people who don't have anyone to sit with them. Maybe I can get volunteers from my church to do that." That's it. Exactly. Press on in that love that you show God by loving His people. Endure. Persevere.

But even that is not the basis of our foundation. Starting at verse twelve. "We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised." For example, "When God made His promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for Him to swear by, He swore by Himself, saying, ‘I will surely bless you and give you many descendants.' And so after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised." [Heb 6:13-15 NIV]

A little bit on Abraham. Maybe y'all know that Abraham was one of the first guys to show up in the Bible, back in Chapter twelve of Genesis. In that chapter, God says to Abraham, "I want you to leave. I want you to leave your family, your culture. I want you to leave your hometown, your job, and go. I will make descendants come from you, many descendant. I will make nations come from you, I will bless you. And through you I will bless the nations." Abraham leaves. Chapter fifteen. God promises Abraham again. "Abraham now look. I know you don't have any kids, but now go outside and look to the heavens. Do you see all those stars? So shall your descendants be." And Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. God promised Abraham, "I will make descendants come from you. You will have innumerable descendants."

That was the promise. Do you know how long it was before Abraham had one - before Isaac was born? Twenty-five years. Twenty-five years between when the promise was initially given and Abraham finally got one descendant. God didn't say at the beginning when He made the promise, "Okay. Abraham, you're going to have many descendants, but you're going to have to wait twenty-five years before you get your first one." He didn't say that. He said, "Abraham, you're going to have many descendants." And Abraham had two. Wait.

One descendant isn't really "a multitude of nations" descendants. So even after Isaac was born, Abraham had to wait another sixty years to have grandchildren. With eighty years between when the promise was given and when he actually had grand-kids, Abraham could start to go, "Okay, maybe this won't work out." But you see, Abraham didn't base his assurance - he didn't base his hope - on what he could see, did he? Faith. He based his hope on God and on His character and on His promise. So, the pastor continues in verse sixteen, "Men swear by someone greater than themselves, and the oath confirms what is said and puts an end to all argument. Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of His purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, He confirmed it with an oath. God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie." Those are His promise and His oath. "We who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf. He has become a High Priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek." [Heb 6:16-20, NIV]

There it is again. The basis of our assurance, the basis of the Christian hope, is not the foundation you have laid. It is not the genuine fruit that you have seen. It is God's faithfulness. It is God's character that allowed Abraham to say, "I believe that. I'm ninety years old; my wife is old; she's well past childbearing years; but God said it. I believe it."

Even when God called Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, his only son, in Genesis 22, Abraham still went forward and he raised the dagger. And God said, "Stop! Don't lay a hand on him. There's a ram over there. Use that." Then we have what is quoted for us in [Genesis, chapter 22] verse 14, "I will surely bless you and give you many descendants." God reaffirms that oath, that promise. Even in the face of adversity, Abraham persevered though faith and through patience. And that's what the author of this passage is trying to communicate to his people. "You are experiencing hardship. I understand that, and there are significant problems in your spiritual life; and there is serious peril that is out there waiting, potentially. That is where the evil one wants you to go, but I've seen a good foundation. I've seen genuine fruit and what's more to boot; we have God's faithfulness as if all the others weren't enough."

So, he's calling his people to engage in their Christian life. Do not get lazy. Y'all, don't get lazy. This is not a game. This is not some social club. This is not a joke. We're talking about life and death. The warning of Chapter 6, verses four through eight has to settle in on some of us who have gotten lazy, just kinda chilling, hanging out. It's been a long time since we actually engaged in Christ. That's the call of this passage - to engage in Christ. For many of us, it's a call to re-engage in Christ. The question is how? Just a few points of application. How do we engage in Christ?

First, you must engage in His worship. To engage in Christ is to engage in His worship. That means being here. Corporate worship. When God's people come together, God shows up in a unique way. We say this all the time, but it's true and we don't believe it. Corporate worship is the primary means of God pouring His grace into the lives of His people. Corporate worship is the primary means of God dumping the dump-truck of His grace unto your life. And when we allow ourselves to get lazy - no one sets out to be lazy - we have allowed ourselves to get lazy. When we allow ourselves to listen to the bad excuses of why I need not go to worship this morning; why I need not go back to community group tonight; or why I need not go back to church tonight, we buy those lies.

We're lazy. We're unprepared to be able to tell the evil one what for when that comes, because we've gotten lazy. But this time - corporate worship - is when God dumps His grace into our lives through the word preached and through this moment - right now - God is pouring grace into lives through His sacraments. In the Lord's supper and baptism, God pours His grace into our lives through the call to worship. You don't think it's important, but God calls us to worship Him. He invites us to the throne room. Confession of sin. It seems like a silly routine, a waste of time, but how else are we going to experience the grace of God if we don't know that we need it?

It is through confessing our sins, running to Jesus, crawling to Jesus, asking Jesus to come pick me up, come save me, that we encounter grace. Through the assurance of grace, God assures us every week, "I love you. You are my children. Your sins are forgiven." Through the prayers that we offer, through the songs that we sing, down to the benediction - "Go in the grace and peace of God" - this event is the primary means that we engage in Christ. But, if we're not here, we allow ourselves to be hardened, to get lazy. And just as you may not experience - you may not feel - different when you leave Sunday morning as when you come in, over time you are different. Just as you might not feel much different if you don't show up on one Sunday morning, if you make a pattern of that, you will be different. God's word assures us of that.

We also must engage in His Word. Engage in His worship and His Word. I think I've said this before here, but when I was on foreign studies at Furman, there was this girl that I was . . . Well, I'd already decided that I was going to marry her. She didn't realize that yet. But . . . I was on foreign study over in Israel, Greece, and Italy and we would correspond some. This was before either of us had cell phones and e-mail wasn't really a hot option, so we sent faxes back and forth. She had access to a fax machine and I'd get a fax in the hotel lobby. It was great. You can ask the guys that I lived with on foreign study, I would pour over those letters. Three and four and five times a night I'd read them. This is my girl. This is my girl. You see, we don't realize - we don't act like - we just dust this thing off [he holds up the Bible] and bring it to church so that people will think we're spiritual. We don't realize that these are love letters from our lover, the One who actually loves our souls. We don't realize God's Word. We don't realize that we have in here One who's saying, "I'm coming back for you. I know we're apart, but I'm coming." We don't act like that; we don't live like that. To the extent that we do engage in His Word, we experience the faith, the patience, that we need. God gives us all that we need in here. The Word of God is the source of our hope.

Maybe you've heard the new Dixie Chicks new album. It just won a Grammy for album of the year. The last song on there is, "I hope." It's really kind of a nice song. It sounds cool. It's a great song to end an album on, but it's just, "I hope." "I hope we have more happy ever afters." "I hope that our kids will get along." I hope, I hope, I hope. The problem is there is no ground for hope. There is nothing to put your hope in. It's just a wish. It's just, "I hope this will happen," but there's no reason to expect that it will. God's Word is not that way. God's Word is the ground. In God's Word we have assurance. We have God saying to His people, "I'm coming back and I'm going to take care of you until I do. You're safe. You're secure." There's real hope. Here we engage in worship. We must engage in His Word.

And y'all, we've got to be patient. We've got to stop being American when it comes to our Christianity. Speaking of being American, recently - just about two years ago - my wife and I bought a house here in Travelers Rest. It's kind of that thing that when I was in college - and very idealistic about what life should look like - I despised the idea of buying a house in the suburbs, one with a fence and the whole bit. And lo and behold, here I am. This house had a yard. It's an alright yard, kinda sloped, but I had really high hopes for my yard. There's grass there. You know. We could play with the kids. We'll get a dog. We could put up a fence. It'll be fine. And we can go play in the grass. I made a pretty good effort for the first six months to a year. I'd mow it regularly, even fertilized it a time or two. Then - I think it was last spring - I made the mistake of putting down weed-and-feed at the same time as I put down grass seed. Uh-uh. Brent's going, "Bad idea." Because what happens is that the grass seed doesn't have a chance to germinate. So I wasted a bunch of money on grass seed that wasn't going to come up anyway and all I fertilized were the weeds. So I'm paying for that right now. Over time, it's just hard to stay on top of a lawn. It's hard. Mowing isn't that big of a deal, but the money, the time that goes into getting it aerated , then getting rid of the weeds, spot treat, pre-emergent, and post-emergent, it's just a lot of work. So my dream of having a nice yard has kind of died a slow death. So when I go out to play fetch with my dog with a frisbee which he loves - he's actually pretty good. I've got to throw one pitch in for my dog. He's not a great dog, but he can do that well. So, I'm out there throwing the frisbee with my dog, but I spend most of my time trying to rid my lawn these nasty little purple plants that have come up. And it's really depressing, honestly, because I'm a guy and this is my house. I'm supposed to be able to handle this and it's really depressing to me. It had kinda gotten hopeless. I'd thrown in the towel. But. I went to Lowe's and I got some crabgrass preventer. I talked to the people at Landscaper Supply and they told me what to do; and what not to do; and when to do it; and when not to do it. It was extremely helpful. I put some crabgrass preventer on my lawn according to the instructions on the bag - which I normally don't read, but I'm doing it right this time. I'm going to read the directions.

And you know what? My lawn doesn't look any different than it did yesterday - exactly the same - but I'm so full of hope lawn, because it doesn't look different today, but it will in two months. When you do life, when you apply the right things at the right time, the lawn will take shape. It's no different from our souls. You might look at when you became a Christian. You got excited about your spirituality. You had high hopes, then you saw some weeds. You weren't sure how to handle those things. So you dumped on too much stuff at the wrong time; you got involved in some things that were unhelpful to you, and now you're just overrun by weeds. There are dirt patches. You think you might as well just quit. Let me encourage you not to quit, but stay engaged. Apply the pre-emergent, fertilize after April 15th. It's the same way with our souls. The bag tells me that in two months it will look different. The Lord tells me that in two months I'll look different. In two years, I'll look different.

See we've got to be patient. God does not grow His people on their time schedules, but on His. He gives us the promise of Philippians 1:6, "I will carry on to completion what I began in you . . . I will complete you." We've got to be patient. You may leave on a Sunday morning. You may have come to Redeemer for a month and you're going, "I don't really seem much different." Patience. Corporate worship, the Word of God, are formative over time. You cannot underestimate the value of children sitting in worship from birth to eighteen years. Do not undervalue that. They don't have to get every point of the sermon - you don't get every point of the sermon - but they're here. They're in the presence of God's grace and that rubs off. Then after eighteen years, they'll have a good foundation and genuine fruit and they have the assurance of the hope that is theirs in Christ.

There's an interesting thing in Chapter 6, verse 1 of this passage. It says, "Therefore let us leave the elementary teaching about Christ and go on to maturity." All of the English translations kind of muddle that. It says something more like this. "Leaving the elementary truths about Christ, let us be carried on to maturity." The verb is passive. Let us be carried on to maturity. It is the same verb that is used in Luke 5, that talks of the four friends that carried the paralytic to Jesus.

Let us be carried on. God is the one who does the carrying. Yes, we have responsibility in this. We are called to engage. We must participate in this thing, too. God is sovereign and you are responsible. Absolutely. Engage, all the while knowing that Jesus is the one carrying you. Some of us are Christians and the call of this passage to us is to re-engage. Some of us have gotten lazy. Kinda taken up, come what may, the Beatles "Let it Be." That's kind of our attitude toward Christianity. Well, it doesn't work. What that does, once we're lazy, is make our hearts hard and the harder our hearts get, the closer we get to saying that Jesus isn't the One. "I was a fool to ever believe him." So we need to re-engage.

My son is ten months old, and he can't eat birthday cake until he has mastered green peas. You can't do algebra if you don't remember your times tables. Some of you are big Duke fans. JJ Reddick. That man can shoot from anywhere on the court. Twenty-six foot with three guys on him sideways and he's draining threes. You know he still practices his foul shots. You've got to stay faithful in the basics and never forget that Jesus is your anchor and nothing else. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. If you feel like you're unfirm, on shaky ground, maybe you've placed your anchor somewhere it ought not be.

The hymn we're about to sing, "How firm a foundation, you saints of the Lord is laid for your faith in His excellent Word." We have everything we need. "What more can He say than to you He has said, to you who to Jesus for refuge have fled." If you have fled to Jesus for refuge, you have everything you need in the Scriptures. If you have not fled to Jesus for refuge, if you're not a Christian, you wouldn't say that Jesus is your Savior. You don't want any part of Christianity. Maybe you're curious about this Christianity thing. Have you fled to Jesus? Have you made Jesus your refuge? Jesus himself promises that, "Whoever believes in Me shall not perish, but have eternal life." And in John 5:24, Jesus says, "I tell you the truth, whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and will not be condemned. He has crossed over from death to life."

Some of you, if you don't know Jesus as your Savior, you're dwelling in death. That's just where you live. You've thrown your anchor into all sorts of things that just end up killing you. You know that. You're tired of it maybe. Jesus says you can cross over from death to life. You can have real security, real assurance, real hope. Believe in Jesus. There are some of you who need to, for the first time this morning, to believe in Jesus. He's the only bridge to hope. He's no Terribithia. He's the bridge to hope, to security, assurance. Then we're told, "The soul that on Jesus leans for repose." You have this assurance. If you're wondering, "Should I turn to Jesus or not?" To the soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose, God says, "I will not, I will not, desert to his foes. That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake." And believe me beloved, it will. Satan hates God's people. He will seek to shake your soul, but the better reality is that God says, "I'll never" - in case you didn't get it the first time - "No never" - in case you didn't get it the second time - "I'll no never forsake."

Therefore crouch . . . touch . . . pause . . . engage.

Let's pray.

Our Father we look to You for refuge. We look to You as the only One who can save. We look to You as the only One who can give us hope and assurance, security and safety. So God, I pray for those who are wrestling with that question. Should they flee to Jesus, God, by your Spirit, enable them to. For those of us who are Christians, and have been for a while, Father help us to flee again to the Savior, to be reminded of the things we have known for a while and have maybe forgotten. Carry us on, for Your Name's sake. Amen.

Heb 6:1-15

6:1 Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, 2 instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. 3 And God permitting, we will do so.

4 It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, 6 if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.

7 Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. 8 But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned.

9 Even though we speak like this, dear friends, we are confident of better things in your case-things that accompany salvation. 10 God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them. 11 We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure. 12 We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.

13 When God made his promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for him to swear by, he swore by himself, 14 saying, "I will surely bless you and give you many descendants." 15 And so after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised. (from New International Version)