Do Not Dispose

Sermon Transcript

My wife is fond of telling a story of the time she was at my parents’ house and my dad showed her one of my pacifiers from when I was a baby, which he had recently found in one of his kitchen cabinets, and then, after showing it to her, he proceeded, not to throw it away, but to put it right back in the kitchen cabinet in which he had found it. My parents can be slow to throw things away. Now, I assume that I am like my parents in many ways; Progressive can’t stop you from becoming your parents, right? I am glad for that, but this is one area in which I’m not like them: I love throwing things away. And yet, I can admit some wisdom in their approach: There are things worth keeping, things we should not throw away.

 

We’re continuing our series this morning through the book of Hebrews, and the Hebrews, the recipients of this letter, probably a church made up primarily of ethnic Jews, were facing the choice, the temptation even, to throw away something precious, what verse 35 of our passage calls “their confidence”. That confidence was introduced earlier in chapter 10, in verse 19: It is the confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus. Through faith in Christ, the Hebrews had received what every sinful human lacks by nature: True confidence to draw near to the true God, without fear of punishment or doubt of acceptance. And yet, they faced the temptation to throw away that confidence. The moment any of you turn from your sins and place your faith in Christ, you will receive the confidence to drawn near to God. Many of you have already done that. But in the very next moment after you do that, the world, your flesh, and the devil will begin to tempt you to throw away that confidence. But the confidence you have in Christ is one of those things you should not throw away. Do not throw away your confidence in Christ, and this passage gives us three ways to avoid doing so: Count the cost, remember the past, and look forward to the reward. To resist the inevitable temptation to throw away your confidence in Christ, count the cost, remember the past, and look forward to the reward.

 

Count the cost

 

Our passage begins in verse 26 with a consideration of the cost of throwing away your confidence in Christ. It summons us to count the cost of throwing away your confidence in Christ. Before we consider the cost, though, notice how throwing away your confidence in Christ is described in verse 26: “If we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth.” In the chapter of Hebrews just before this one, in Hebrews 9:7, our author reminded us that under the Old Covenant, on the day of atonement, the high priest would go behind the curtain into the holiest part of the earthly tent made with hands, and offer blood for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people. If you were with us earlier this year when we preached through the first few chapters of Leviticus, you no doubt remember how much attention was given there to unintentional sins. Unintentional sins do refer to sins literally committed by accident, like when someone eats the priest’s food without knowing it, but adjacent to them are also sins arising from our weakness as humans and sinners. In Hebrews 5, for example, our author says that the priest dealt gently with the ignorant and wayward, because he himself is beset with weakness. There are sins we commit, even after becoming Christians, that arise from our ignorance, waywardness, and weakness, and just as the priests before Christ were able to deal gently with them, so Christ, the greatest priest imaginable, is able to deal gently with them, for he himself was tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin (Heb 4:15).

 

You get into an argument with your spouse, and suddenly you find the tone of your voice has changed from the gentle and loving one you would normally use with your spouse to a harsh one that violates the simple command of scripture: Husbands, do not be harsh with your wives (Col 3:19). You get asked a question on the spot, and you know the truth would make you look bad, so in a moment of weakness, you lie. You’re stressed out, and you find yourself clicking on an image on which you know God does not want you to click. You’re walking around your neighborhood, and you find your heart sinking a little as you look at the beautiful house of your neighbor because you wish it were yours. All the examples I’ve just given you violate clear commands of scripture, and for every one of them you are culpable. That’s why the high priest had to go through a pretty complicated ritual every year to atone for such sins before the time of Christ, and those sins are among the sins for which Jesus had to shed his blood for you to be saved from the wrath of God for them. To the degree they are still present in your life today, God requires you, by the power of his Spirit, to kill them, not to excuse them because “well nobody’s perfect” (e.g., Rom 8:13, Col 3:5).

 

And yet, I give you those examples because those sorts of things are not what our author is talking about in verse 26. In verse 26, he’s envisioning someone who goes on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth. He’s envisioning someone who hears the good news that there is a real, holy God, who hates sin, but who we have sinned against, and whose just condemnation we have therefore incurred, but that same God, out of sheer love for sinful people, sent his own Son to suffer the very condemnation our sins deserved on the cross, though he was entirely innocent, and to rise from the dead to eternal life, so that whoever would turn from their sins and rest upon him alone for salvation would be forgiven of their sins and received into God’s loving favor for all eternity. He’s envisioning someone who believes that good news, who gets baptized, joins a particular church, learns the things that Jesus has commanded his people to do and not to do, and then knowing full well what he or she is about to do violates one of those commandments, deliberates over it, and then decides to do it anyway. And the situation envisioned is not even the situation where a Christian does that once, experiences the conviction of the Holy Spirit, confesses it to God, calls up a couple brothers or sisters in the church to confess it, tells a pastor, and makes uncomfortable changes to his or her life to walk in all the ways of new obedience. The situation envisioned is deliberate sin, not sins proceeding from ignorance, waywardness, or weakness, and the situation envisioned is one who goes on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth.

 

So it would be more like you walk by that house in your neighborhood and feel your heart sink as you covet it, but instead of confessing that to God you just kind of ignore it. Then it comes time to report your hours to your boss, you know you worked 45 hours that week, you know God requires that we speak the truth, but now you really want more money so you can buy a better house, so you report 50 hours. You feel some conviction, but you don’t confess it. Next time you meet with some brothers from your church and there is a time to confess sin to one another, you don’t mention it. Next time you’re in church and there is a time to silently confess your specific sins to God, and a time to examine yourself before taking the Lord’s Supper, you just plow through and take the supper anyway. Next week you do it again. Next week you decide to decrease your giving to your church so you can keep more of your money toward that house. Then tax season rolls around, and you see some opportunities to get a tax refund if you just fudge a few numbers. You decide to do it. Eventually, you stop giving to your church altogether, you’re lying every week on your hours, and you lie every year on your taxes. You go on sinning deliberately after receiving a knowledge of the truth. And you can easily imagine similar progressions in other areas of life: One night of too many drinks unconfessed becomes an every weekend plan to go out and get hammered, a harsh tone with your wife becomes yelling, which becomes regular, planned abuse, a website becomes a text exchange becomes an in-person meet up, and a plan to continue.

 

Unless God takes us to heaven on the way home, I assume every one of us, myself included, will leave here today and sin again. But none of us should leave here today planning to sin. And if anyone does sin, whether from weakness or deliberately, what you do with that next hour after you sin, that next day even, is of eternal significance. Do you hide it, rationalize it, and leave it unconfessed and unrepented of, or do you confess it to God, call some trusted brothers or sisters, and strive, by the power of the Spirit, to walk in a new direction? The former is the path to going on sinning deliberately. Make no mistake about it: Even those seemingly small, unintentional sins, want to take you down that path. There are no sins it is safe to tolerate. Be killing sin or it will be killing you. This is what it looks like to throw away your confidence in Christ: To go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth.

 

So count the cost of that as we continue in verse 26: 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. In other words, if you are going on sinning deliberately after receiving a knowledge of the truth, you should not tell yourself, “It’s ok; Jesus already paid for the sins I’m planning to commit.” Verse 26 says just the opposite: If you go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins. Earlier in chapter 10, our author labored to show us that Christ offered the once-for-all-time, never-to-be-repeated sacrifice, and he concluded with this summary in verse 18: Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.

 

That’s good news, right? Yes it is! And starting in verse 19, which we looked at last week, we saw what we are to do with that good news. Since there is no longer any offering for sin, we can and should draw near to God, hold fast our confession, and encourage one another toward love and good works as we see the final day of judgment drawing near. Now, starting in verse 26, we see what we are not to do with that good news: Throw away our confidence by going on sinning deliberately. Why? Because there is no longer any offering for sin! So if you go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth of Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice, there will be no later sacrifice to come to save you from it! Christ is coming again, not to offer another sacrifice for the sins of those who kept on sinning deliberately after receiving a knowledge of the truth, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him (Heb 9:28)! If you go on sinning deliberately after receiving a knowledge of the truth, you should not expect another sacrifice to come to pay for those sins! Instead, verse 27 of our passage says you should expect judgment, a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. If you walk like an enemy of God, God will treat you like an enemy. That’s fair of God, isn’t it?

 

And in case you’re thinking, “Oh but God’s not like that; he loves everyone unconditionally no matter what they do,” our author adds support to his assertion. In verse 28 he says anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. Under the law of Moses, various sins were punished by the death penalty: profaning the sabbath, murder, manstealing, cursing your father or mother, adultery, false prophecy, and more. And you might think, “well that was the law; we’re under grace now” but look where our author goes in verse 29: If that was true even under the old covenant, not how much lighter, but how much worse punishment will be deserved for 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? Make no mistake about it: Even if you prayed a prayer once, even if you go on claiming to be a Christian now, attending church services, and taking the Lord’s Supper, if you go on sinning deliberately after receiving a knowledge of the truth, this is what you are doing: Trampling underfoot the Son of God, profaning the blood of the covenant by which you were sanctified, and outraging the Spirit of grace. The same God who said, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay” and again, “The Lord will judge his people” is the God of the new covenant, with whom all of us who have been called to faith in Christ are in covenant.

 

And so, verse 31: It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Of course, our author is not saying here that it is a fearful thing to be close to God in every sense; to draw near to God is the very thing we were told to do with confidence in verses 19-22. But it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God without being covered by the blood of Christ, and if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving a knowledge of the truth, we have profaned that blood, and no further blood will be shed for us.

 

There are various reasons people consider throwing away their confidence in Christ. Perhaps the most common is that the struggle against sin is just tiring. It’s so much easier to give in, and adopt a lifestyle of ongoing, planned, and hidden sin. But count the cost, brothers and sisters: If we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sin, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. And, next: Remember the past.

 

Remember the past

 

Instead of going on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, verse 32 presents an alternative: But; 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. The author is reminding the Hebrews that there was a time after they were converted when they endured through persecution. The persecution included public exposure to reproach and affliction. Isn’t public exposure to reproach one of the things we tend to fear most? In our day, saying you go to church probably won’t expose you to public reproach, but what if you were to say in your workplace that you believe that male and female are the only two genders, and each human is conceived essentially and unchangeably male or female as revealed in his or her biological sex, as our members all affirm in our church’s statement of faith? Why does that scare many of you? Because you know you could be publicly exposed to reproach, not for trying to coerce or intimidate others into holding such a belief, but for simply holding it yourself.

 

Well, our author says the Hebrews were willing to be publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes they were even partners with those so treated. The sense in which they were partners with those so treated is given in verse 34: They had compassion on those in prison. In other words, some Christians in their day were imprisoned for their faith in Christ, probably because they were trying to tell others about it. This still happens throughout the world today: We recently received word from our brothers in Northern India that in their state, 7-8 men were arrested on charges of “conversionist” activity, and that means what it sounds like: They tried to tell others about Jesus, and they were arrested for it. That tends not to happen in Philadelphia, but might the day come when pastors could be imprisoned for refusing to perform certain “weddings”, when parents could be arrested for refusing to give their kids certain hormone therapies, or when even Christians could be arrested for simply speaking the sexual ethics Christians and most humans have held for thousands of years? I’m not predicting that, and given how feeble our powers of prediction are as finite humans, I consider it more likely that Christians will be imprisoned in the future for an issue we aren’t even talking about in 2024, but the point is simple: As Christians, we must be ready and willing to be publicly exposed to reproach, afflicted, and imprisoned if we refuse throw away our confidence in Christ.

 

And, we must be willing to partner with those so treated. So let’s consider a scenario that may feel more imminently relevant to you all than imprisonment: One of your fellow church members refuses to use the preferred pronouns of her boss, because she believes that to do so she would have to lie, and she refuses to do so in the presence of the God who loved her and gave his only Son for her. As a result, she gets fired, and the story makes the news. You go to work, and your co-workers are all just trashing this sister of yours and going off about how bigoted and backwards evangelicals are. What would you do? Would you say something like, “You know, I actually know and dearly love that person you’re talking about, and I believe the same things she does” or would you say, “Yeah you’re right, that lady is such a bigot, and I just want you to know I’m not one of those Christians”? If you found out her lawyer fees cost more than she could handle, would you contribute financially to them? If she ended up in prison, would you visit her? Sometimes being partners with those who are persecuted feels just as costly as enduring the persecution yourself.

 

But the Hebrews did that! And on top of that, their own property was plundered! Their stuff for which they worked hard was either taken away or destroyed because of their faith in Christ and willingness to associate with others who had faith in Christ. And not only did they accept that; they joyfully accepted it! Can you imagine that? Someone comes and takes your stuff, maybe damages your house because of your faith in Christ, and instead of being sad about it, instead of getting angry, instead of even just bearing it with a stiff upper lip and remaining silent, you start rejoicing?! And yet, isn’t this what Jesus told us to do? “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matt 5:11-12). Rejoice and be glad when you are persecuted, Jesus says, even when it means the plundering of your property! And that’s what Hebrews did. Why? How?

 

Our author tells us at the end of verse 34: Since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and abiding one. They plundered your possessions, but you rejoiced. Why? Because you knew you had a better possession and an abiding one. Earlier in chapter 9 the author called this possession our “eternal inheritance”. Later in chapter 11 he calls it a better country, that is a heavenly one. Later in chapter 12 he calls it a kingdom that cannot be shaken; in chapter 13 he calls it the city that is to come. The Hebrews rejoiced when their property was plundered because they knew their heavenly home was not plunder-able, and it was better! Do you know that? Do you believe it would actually be possible for you to joyfully accept the plundering of your property? Could you imagine yourself saying in that day, with Job, that the Lord has given, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord? Could you imagine yourself singing in that day, “And Lord, haste the day, when the faith shall be sight, the clouds be rolled back as a scroll. The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend, even so, it is well with my soul”? Brothers and sisters, we have an inheritance that no police officer, no boss, no government, and no terrorist can take from us, and it is better than anything else we could lose on this earth. Do not throw it away.

 

The Hebrews had not thrown it away, and so the author wants them to remember that. He’s saying, “Look, you’ve already been through so much, and you had joy even as you went through it, because you knew what you had was better and longer lasting than anything on this earth. Why would you throw it away now?” That’s what he says in verse 35: Therefore, because you have already demonstrated that you know you have a better possession and an abiding one, do not throw it away! My brothers and sisters, remember the past. Think about how far the Lord has already brought you. What brought you through to this point? Why did you keep believing and joyfully accept hard struggles with sin and doubt, stillbirths, infertility, cancer, visas being declined, family looking at you funny, friends distancing themselves from you, uncomfortable conversations, giving away money you could have spent or saved for yourself, living somewhere you never thought you’d live, ending that relationship that once seemed to bring you so much happiness? Isn’t it because you knew that you yourselves had the best possible possession and the only possession that will truly last in the inheritance of the promised heavenly city? Do not throw that away. Don’t give that up now. Instead, finally, look forward to the reward.

 

Look forward to the reward

 

Verse 35 pivots the focus from remembering the past to looking forward to the reward. After reminding them of the past and telling them not to throw that away, he adds in verse 35 that this confidence of theirs has a great reward. In other words, not only did this confidence of yours enable you to endure persecution and even to rejoice at the plundering of your property in the past, but the confidence we have in Christ has a reward coming in the future! I’ve already mentioned how that reward is spoken of as a better possession and an abiding one, an eternal inheritance, a heavenly country, a kingdom that cannot be shaken, a city that is to come. Closer to our passage we can see that it is to live as in verse 38, or to preserve your souls, as in verse 39. In other words, it is a future salvation from death. That begins when you die, and to be clear: Everyone who dies in the body has a soul that will continue to consciously exist after their bodies die. As we saw in Hebrews 9:27, it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment. After death, the soul faces God’s judgment, and then is eternally consigned to one of two places, most commonly called heaven or hell. The souls of those in hell continue to exist, but they suffer conscious torment under the wrath of God, while the souls of those in heaven enjoy conscious bliss under the blessing of God.

 

That said, it’s not this judgment that is mainly in view when the great reward of verse 35 is mentioned, or the living by faith of verse 38 is mentioned, or the preservation of souls mentioned in verse 39. Verse 37 points beyond the death of our individual bodies to a coming day when God says “The coming one will come and will not delay” and that is a reference to the second coming of Christ. Our author already alluded to that in 9:28 when he said Christ will appear a second time, not to offer another sacrifice for sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. Those who are eagerly waiting for him in that day will not only have spiritual bliss, but their bodies will be resurrected to live with Christ forever in that heavenly city now come to earth, that better possession and abiding one. And therefore, since that is still to come in the future, verse 36: You have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.

 

You have need of endurance because receiving the promised reward is still future, and you have need of endurance because receiving the promised reward is not automatic. Look at verse 38: After saying the righteous will live by faith, it considers an alternative: If he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him. In other words, those who profess faith in this life but then go on sinning deliberately and eventually renounce their faith will not live in that day. They will not preserve their souls. Instead, they will face the fury of fire that consumes the adversaries. You don’t want to end up like that, and so you have need of endurance. I’m not much of an athlete, but to the degree that I am, I am definitely not an endurance athlete. I have run maybe 5 5k’s in my life, and I am proud to announce that I am now retired from them. When I exercise now, I do workouts that last in the 10-20 minute range. That kind of exercise can produce some physical strength in you, but it does not produce physical endurance. The good news for me is that I don’t really need much physical endurance. I don’t anticipate ever having to run 50 miles in a day to catch and kill dinner for the next week; Aldi is working just fine.

 

But to live the Christian life, to receive the promised reward, you have need of spiritual endurance. You need to cultivate the ability to keep confessing the same faith over and over again, to keep singing the same songs over and over again, to keep hearing sermons from the same book over and over again, to keep praying for the same things over and over again, to keep taking the same meal over and over again, to keep loving the same people over and over again, to keep saying no to the same sins over and over again, while the world around you is always trying to sell you something new. I’m prone to second guess, and not all second guessing is bad: Sometimes you should second guess a certain theological position you hold that isn’t biblical, sometimes you should second guess a practice you’ve developed that many not be helping you become more like Christ, and so on. But don’t second guess your confidence in Christ. There will never come a day when his blood is insufficient, there will never come a day when he ends up back in the tomb, and there will never come a day when he fails to save those who draw near to God through him.

 

And, good news, verse 39: We are not of those who second guess him, renounce him, and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls. How’s the author know that about the Hebrews? Well, he’s not claiming to know that infallibly about every individual one of them. But, in general, he knows them to be Christians, like him. They have received the knowledge of the truth, they were enlightened, they were sanctified by the blood of Christ, and after all that, he even knows they endured a hard struggle with suffering, associated with those who were persecuted, and joyfully accepted the plundering of their property, because they knew that they themselves had a better possession and an abiding one. He knows, insofar as it is possible for a human to know, that in general, the Hebrews were true Christians. And therefore, though he warned them sternly about the consequences of a true Christian going on sinning deliberately, he now assures them that true Christians won’t do that: We are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls. Although some may profess faith and be baptized and join churches who then go on sinning deliberately, renounce Christ, and are destroyed, those who truly have faith live by that faith and preserve their souls.

 

In closing, then, let’s reflect again on the two errors we’ve considered before in the so called “warning passages” of Hebrews: One error is hearing them and thinking, “That’ll never be me”. Another is hearing them and thinking “That’s already me”. Let me start with the second of those. Some of you here today may be wondering: I feel like I have already gone on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth; does this passage mean there is no hope or me? Am I now doomed to be destroyed? No, and let me briefly explain why. First, notice that verse 26 of our passage is a warning if what will happen if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving a knowledge of the truth. In other words, it is written to people who have not already done that, but who are facing the temptation to do so. The intended meaning of the words, then, is to warn you not to go on sinning deliberately, not to tell you that you already have, and therefore all hope for you is lost. So, if you are here today and you are sinning deliberately after receiving a knowledge of the truth, do not go on doing it, and verse 26 will no longer be true of you: You will not be one who goes on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth. From front to back, scripture is clear: If you repent and believe, you will be saved. And if you go on sinning deliberately, you will not. Do not conclude that’s already you. Instead, repent and believe in Christ, and you will be saved from the wrath to come. So don’t think, “That’s already me”.

 

That was one improper response to these warnings. The other we mentioned before was, “That’ll never be me” and I think at this point we can actually nuance that one. On the immediate level, it’s true: If you read verses 26-31 and basically dismiss it by saying, “Welp; good thing that’ll never be me. Once saved, always saved,” while you go on sinning deliberately, you’ve totally missed the point of the passage. If that’s what the author intended to say, verses 26-31 simply would not be there. But if the author simply wanted to leave you thinking that tomorrow you might start sinning deliberately and lose your salvation, verse 39 would not be there either. Verse 39 shows us that there is a way, after listening attentively to the warning of verses 26-31, after resolving, by the power of the Spirit, to put your sin to death and to now throw away your confidence in Christ, to say, “That’ll never be me” because we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls. Those God saves, God keeps (1 Pet 1:3-5), and those the Father gives Christ, Christ promises to raise up on the last day (John 6:37-40). So do not throw away your confidence in Christ. Count the cost of doing so, remember the past, and look forward to the reward.