Last Thursday night I attended a prayer group from our church that meets in Sylvia's home. The leader of that group is a retired pastor. One of my requests was for clarity regarding Sunday's sermon on Hebrews chapter 6 since I was finding it to be a tough passage. When I gave the reference, immediately Rev. Mitchell and his wife both began to laugh and to affirm that they would pray hard for me since they knew it to be a very tough passage.
When I went back to the study on Friday, I discovered that God was again gracious and gave me clarity in thinking and allowed me to finish the sermon. I trust that the end result was a sermon that was true to the text and relevant to us today.
The first application from this passage is that every single one of us needs to make sure that we examine our lives to make sure that we are truly trusting in Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior. Just being in church regularly and doing good things is not enough to save you for eternity or to make you right with God. In fact, doing those good things could be dangerous to you if they make you think that you are okay with God when you aren't. The severe warning of the passage, especiallty verses 4-6 is that people can appear to be Christians when they are not. Someone can play the part of a believer in Jesus, but not really believe in Jesus for salvation. So examine yourself to make sure that you are really in the faith.
The second application of this passage is that we need to continue to grow and mature in our faith. We are not supposed to just focus on the initial truths about Chist. Instead, we are to learn those things well, and then learn more. We are constantly to supposed to be growing in our faith and in our understanding of Christ.
How have you grown lately?
There was some interesting conversations on the ride home last Sunday. Good applications. Still I have some lingering questions on the warning part. It is hard to conceive that you could believe that you are saved and it not be true. What else do I believe that is not really true? I guess contemplating these issues is growth in itself.
ReplyDeletePat
I was listening to a ball game recently and the announcers were talking about a game that many people believe that the Red Sox won because they hit a homerun that is often shown in replays. But the Red Sox actually lost that game. The people who believe that they won are wrong. And people who believe that they are okay with God because they do good things and go to church or give money- they are wrong also. They may believe that they are saved, but they are actually trusting in themselves instead of in Christ.
ReplyDeleteDave
Great post Dave! Glad to see you got through that portion of Hebrews and survived! ;-) More power to you as your preach on our salvation resting only in Christ and being found in Him!
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