Who Am I Following?

I read a story earlier this week about a Muslim college student who came to believe in Jesus Christ. One of his friends was shocked and asked him, “Why did you become a follower of Jesus?” Here was his response: “It’s simple really. Imagine that you’re walking down a road and you come to a fork in the road and there are two people there to follow as your guide along the way. One of them is dead, and one of them is alive. Which one would you follow?” See, each one of us one day will die. Our loved ones will pass away. Our leaders will pass away. We’re here for a moment and gone the next, James calls this life a vapor! Yet, in this life, we have a choice that we must make… who will I follow? As we read Scripture, we are reminded over and over that Jesus Christ is not dead… He is alive! He still changes lives and He conquered death once and for all. Because of these truths, we are called to deny ourselves, pick up our cross, and FOLLOW Jesus! This sounds good at church, but it can be hard to put to practice at home or at school or at our job whenever it would be so much easier to do what everyone else is doing. When it would be easier to go with the flow. It would be easier to blend in and not stand out. After all, we wonder, what’s the big deal about doing what everyone else is doing? The “big deal” is that God’s Word is always true and right, regardless of what our culture or those around us say. We either follow Jesus or we follow anything else, which means that we follow self.

Spurgeon once shared this, “Sin and Hell are married unless repentance proclaims the divorce.” This morning, we’re going to look at the danger of living in unrepentant sin. The danger of choosing not to follow Jesus and not repenting of the sin we have done. This is a serious text, but sin is a serious subject and God takes it extremely seriously! Thankfully, today there is an alternative available to us. Today we don’t have to follow self. We don’t have to follow the way of our world down a dead-end road. Today Jesus Christ can change us and turn our life around as we deny ourselves and follow Him. Let’s continue walking through Hebrews and see what the outcome of following self is compared to following Christ. Hebrews 10:26-31, God’s Word tells us this

Hebrews 10:26–31 CSB

26 For if we deliberately go on sinning after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire about to consume the adversaries. 28 Anyone who disregarded the law of Moses died without mercy, based on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29 How much worse punishment do you think one will deserve who has trampled on the Son of God, who has regarded as profane the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know the one who has said, Vengeance belongs to me; I will repay, and again, The Lord will judge his people. 31 It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

What a text and what a wake up call for those tempted to think that sin doesn’t really matter all that much or that no one will know what we’ve done or continue to do! In a world that accepts and celebrates sin, God shares that He will judge it and condemn it. Before we dive into this heavy passage, let’s pray for the Lord to give us eyes to see and ears to hear from Him and make sure that we are following after Jesus this day.

Following Self Leads to Judgment (26-31)

No one in our world likes the word judgment - unless we’re the one doing the judging! Honestly, we don’t like being judged and if we feel like someone is judging us, we usually are quick to tell them to stop because everyone in our world knows Matthew 7:1 which says “Judge Not.” In fact, some go so far as to say, “Only God can Judge me” as if this statement makes our actions and words not matter… In actuality, as we read in passages like Hebrews 10:26-31, the reality of God’s judgment isn’t something that we should shrug off - it’s something that should make us carefully evaluate our lives and make sure that we are doing what we’re supposed to be doing rather than just going with the flow of the river directly in the path of the coming wrath of God against evil. Some people simply fail to understand the severity of God’s judgment and they shrug it off in order to go and do what they want to do in the here and now and we’ve all been guilty of this before. We know something is right and something is wrong and we willingly choose to do the wrong thing. We like to say that we didn’t know or that we had to do this because of this reason but the fact of the matter is that there are times in our lives where we disobey God and we do so deliberately and knowingly. Sometimes we sin ignorantly and other times we sin deliberately. Consider the difference here.

One example was whenever a little boy found himself playing baseball with some neighbors outside on a summer afternoon while his parents were working around the house. The parents went inside to clean up and get ready for dinner only to look back outside and not see their son or the other boys! They looked everywhere for their son but they simply could not find him. They began to call some of their neighbors and still didn’t have any luck. About 20 minutes later their son came back into the house through the front door soaking wet. The parents were relieved but curious as to where the boys had gone. There was a new boy whose family had moved into the neighborhood a few weeks ago and he had invited the other boys to his house because he had a pool! The parents were upset, but the boy simply thought that he was doing something fine. He was hanging out with his friends - he just went to a house that his parents didn’t know about. There is some innocence in this situation, right? Sure, the boy broke a rule and terrified his parents, but he wasn’t deliberately trying to break a rule by any means. Contrast that story with the story of the teenage boy who has a 10pm curfew on school nights who decides to stay out with his friends until 2am and ignore all phone calls and text messages from his parents. We would say that he deliberately disobeyed his parents’ rule and he broke his parents trust by not returning any text or phone call.

The Bible shares with us that whenever we choose to live in sin after hearing the Gospel, there is judgment awaiting us. Let’s follow the flow of the argument here in God’s Word: We see people in Hebrews 10:26 living in deliberate sin or unrepentant sin. These are people who know better - they know what the Word says - they’ve likely been a part of the church gathering for a period of time like those in Hebrews 6… but now they want nothing to do with it. How does this happen? Throughout Hebrews we see a 4 stage slide that leads to this point in Hebrews 10:26. First in Hebrews 2:1-4 we see a warning as some drift away from God’s Word. If you drift away from God’s Word, you will begin to doubt God’s Word as Hebrews 3:13 tells us. If you doubt God’s Word you will soon become dull to God’s Word as Hebrews 6:4-6 tells us. And if you grow dull of God’s Word, you will soon despise God’s Word as Hebrews 10:26 tells us and this text unpacks what is awaiting the person who despises the Word of God and it’s not a happy ending!

Within the context of the local church, the body of Christ, as Hebrews was written to a local church, there are some who have heard the Gospel, they’ve seen the power of God on full display, they have heard about how Jesus is better and how He saves sinners, but they choose to willingly live in deliberate, unrepentant sin. Why on earth would such a person do this, we wonder? Why would someone reject Jesus’ Word and live in opposition to God and forget all that God has done in His Word and in their lives and stop following Him and coming to church and worshiping Him? Because we’re all prone to wander and we all have a sinful selfish nature that desires to do what we want, how we want, when we want, where we want, and for whatever reason we can think of and our world celebrates this. Our world says that doing this, doing what you want will make you happy. Doing what you want will free you to be yourself. Doing what you want will unlock your potential or you’ll have a breakthrough, or you’ll realize your self worth if you just follow the desires of your heart… but the Bible teaches that the things this world offers cannot satisfy our human heart because of sin. Our hearts are fallen.

Warren Wiersbe shares that we all struggle with sin and we all drift from time to time and we ask God to forgive us and He does! But God’s forgiveness doesn’t always mean that there are no consequences for that sin. Think of King David. He asked God to forgive him for his sin with Bathsheba… but there was still a consequence because of his disobedience. I’ve heard it said like this before, “Sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay.” So if we’re traveling down this path of sin and we wake up and realize that we’re in a place that we shouldn’t be and you want help, friend, turn to God and ask Him for mercy and forgiveness. The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross is sufficient for your sins - Hebrews 10:26-27 is not saying that there is a sin so great that you cannot be saved from it, but if you don’t repent from that sin and continue walking down the wide path towards destruction, you will face God’s judgment. It’s a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God for the judgment of sins… but if you’ve been washed by the blood of Jesus, there is no safer place for you than in the hands of the your living and loving Father.

In the Old Testament, if you were guilty of disregarding the Law on the basis of 2/3 witnesses - you were stoned as Deuteronomy 17:6 tells us

Deuteronomy 17:6 CSB

6 The one condemned to die is to be executed on the testimony of two or three witnesses. No one is to be executed on the testimony of a single witness.

What does this type of disregard look like? Primarily, the thought here is idolatry. If you refuse to follow God, you are following yourself. If you are following yourself in the place of God, you are making yourself god. This idolatry carries with is severe consequences as the person guilty was to be stoned because of their blatant rebellion against God. Being stoned to death by rocks sounds pretty bad - like if we were going to rank the best ways to die and the worst ways to die and this is the middle, being stoned to death would definitely fall on the “worst” ways side of center! But the preacher of Hebrews shares that the punishment for rejecting to follow Jesus Christ will be even worse. Let’s consider 2 questions here:

Why is this punishment worse and what punishment is received?

Why is this punishment worse?

Throughout Hebrews we’ve seen that Jesus is a greater messenger, priest, and mediator. He’s a greater deliverer than Moses as He brings about a New Covenant that is written on our hearts, not on tablets of stone. Jesus is greater than Moses - therefore, the punishment for rejecting Jesus is greater than the punishment for rejecting Moses and the Old Testament Law. You’ve wronged a more powerful and important person.

Did you know that in many states, if you intentionally scratch a car, you can be charged for property damage? Now, if you go up to the first car I had which was a 1990 Ford F-150 that had scratches galore all over it, you’re probably going to be fine because we won’t even notice! If you scratched a nice Ford F-150 today, you’re probably going to get in some trouble because the value of the truck is higher and so is the consequence - you’ll probably pay a fine… but what if, in Salem Missouri, there was a $250,000 Ferrari that you went up to and intentionally scratched with a rock because you were upset about something. Now you’re not talking about a warning or a fine, you’re potentially talking about jail time. Why? Because of the value of the thing that was wronged increased. This is how it is with Jesus. Whenever we reject Him and go our own way, the consequence is severe because of WHO we have disobeyed.

What punishment is received?

For the person who rejects Jesus, they do 3 things in verse 29: They trample on the Son of God, they regard His blood as profane, and they insult the Holy Spirit. This is a willing, deliberate, conscientious choice to reject Jesus and follow self. This person mocks what Jesus has done. They treat the blood of Jesus as if it doesn’t matter. They might come to church, but they aren’t following Jesus. To this person, Hebrews 10 tells us that God is going to judge them and that this isn’t something that we should take lightly because it’s a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

This is serious stuff. This isn’t to say that a person who came to church and left the church is never welcomed back to Jesus. It’s to say this: If you deny Jesus and follow and trust in yourself, you are playing a dangerous game because you have revealed your true cards on the table and you are living in opposition to Jesus and in unrepentant sin. To this person, they are not saved and there is no sacrifice for their sins at the present time. Following self over Christ leads to judgment - not just temporary judgment… eternal separation from God. There are people who can be externally associated with church and the things of God, but internally they are not attached to Him. They are living in deliberate sin and in that present state, they are enemies of Christ. We don’t want to be there, friends! And thankfully there is a better choice at the fork in the road and it all starts back in verse 26 with a tiny little word… IF - we can either follow self into deliberate sin and opposition to Jesus… OR there’s another path that we can travel and that is the narrow path of Jesus

Following Christ Leads to Joy (26)

Whenever we sin, which we all do, what are we supposed to do? As a Christian, the Bible teaches us that we have the Holy Spirit living inside of us to convict us whenever we disobey God’s Word. As we feel convicted at times, we are supposed to ask God for forgiveness and mercy as we repent and turn away from our wrongdoing. Rather than living in unrepentant and deliberate sin, we are to repent from our sin and ask God to help us and to change us. Consider the example of Luke 18 in regards to this type of conviction

Luke 18:9–14 CSB

9 He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and looked down on everyone else: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee was standing and praying like this about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I’m not like other people—greedy, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of everything I get.’ 13 “But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even raise his eyes to heaven but kept striking his chest and saying, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner!’ 14 I tell you, this one went down to his house justified rather than the other, because everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Both were sinners - but one denied his culpability and the other repented and asked God for mercy. One followed self and exalted himself over the other person, and the other denied himself and followed Jesus because he recognized that he needed help. What does it look like to follow Jesus? Following Jesus, first, means that we realize our need for Him and the depths of our depravity and sinfulness and our need for His help. Following Jesus starts with understanding our need for Jesus. How have we seen this need in Hebrews? Hebrews 2:3 told us this

Hebrews 2:1–3 CSB

1 For this reason, we must pay attention all the more to what we have heard, so that we will not drift away. 2 For if the message spoken through angels was legally binding and every transgression and disobedience received a just punishment, 3 how will we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? This salvation had its beginning when it was spoken of by the Lord, and it was confirmed to us by those who heard him.

We are facing a problem and only Jesus can save us! Hebrews 4-10 reminded us of what Jesus has done for us as He died in our place on the cross and sacrificed Himself for sinners but rose to demonstrate that death doesn’t win in the end and that all who are in Christ have that same resurrection hope as well because Jesus is our mediator and great high priest. So, we must understand that we need Jesus. Second, in following Jesus, we need Jesus to change our will and make it in line with His. It’s one thing to hear that you need Jesus or that you need to repent but it’s another thing to actually confess that you need help. James 1 tells us that we must not just hear, but do

James 1:22–23 CSB

22 But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 Because if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like someone looking at his own face in a mirror.

Does this mean that life gets easy whenever we follow Jesus? Does everything go our way all the time? Are we promised health, wealth, and happiness whenever we follow Jesus? The answer in Scripture is no. Joel from Houston can disagree, that’s ok. We aren’t promised that everything will go our way or that it will make sense or that we have the authority and power to command certain things to happen. We aren’t promised an easy life, Jesus said that in this life we will have trouble. We will face trials as James 1 tells us. But in the midst of the suffering, the brokenness, the sickness, there is a joy to be found in Jesus Christ. There are things that this world offers us that promise things like success, prosperity, health, happiness, victory, satisfaction and maybe they’ll provide for a season but they’ll leave us emptier than ever before. Friend, if something doesn’t align with the Word of God, it is sin to go forward with it - even if it sounds really good. That’s the point of Hebrews 10:26 in its context. To go forward with something that is contrary to the Word of God and the God of the Word is deliberate sin and that demonstrates that we don’t know Jesus. The solution is to follow Jesus and to follow Him well.

Sometimes following Jesus means that you’ll be led to the mountain top. You trust in Jesus, you follow Him instead of yourself or this fallen world, and Jesus delivers you to a wonderful place where you’re able to look back on the journey and smile as you praise the Lord for His provision… but there are other times that we follow Jesus and life doesn’t get better from the outside, it seems to get harder. Think of Paul here. God’s plan for Paul was for him to be shipwrecked, beaten, imprisoned, stoned, betrayed, ran out of town, and nearly killed numerous times. Yet, follow Jesus Paul did. God’s plan for our lives doesn’t always make sense. But look with me at Hebrews 10:31. It’s a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God if you’re born once… but it’s a terrific thing to fall into the hands of the living God if you’re born again!

If this is true, if it’s a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God dressed in our own righteousness then we’d better check our hearts and make sure that we’ve been changed by and are following Jesus Christ daily. I’m not sure about you, but I need help in that process because I’m not perfect. This is why the local church matters so much. Kevin mentioned this a few Wednesday’s ago that we can consume information and sing songs through services on YouTube, Facebook, or whatever podcast platform we prefer… but that’s not church. Those pastors and speakers don’t know us at all. They can’t encourage us at all when the livestream stops. What do we need to have joy in Jesus? We need one another in the local church as Hebrews 10 has been telling us the last few weeks. We encourage one another to follow Jesus together and as we do this, we find joy in Him!

Think of a way that you’ve been encouraged or encouraged someone else this past week. Y’all this week was probably the hardest week I’ve had in ministry, especially at this church - that’s not complaining, that’s being honest and vulnerable and real with you. I love this church and I love each of you, but this week was a low point and sucked the life out of me… yet, in the middle of this terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week I saw God move in talking with people about joining our church and I was encouraged by so many of you and many of you didn’t even know that this week was a back biting gut punch at times. Kevin, Paula, David, Grant and Sydney, Joe Brand (half a world away), Phil, and many others encouraged me this week to follow Jesus, not the crowd and not myself, but God’s Word and some of your guys’ messages literally brought me to tears because of a new weight I’ve never felt that seemed absolutely unbearable at times. Your encouragement reminded me to find my joy in Jesus. To follow Him alone. This is why we need the local church, friends. We need community. We need people to help us follow Jesus together on our good days, but doubly so on our bad ones whenever we’re prone to wander and beat ourselves up.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones once said this, “To love to preach is one thing, to love those to whom we preach quite another.” I love you, FBC family, even if y’all don’t always feel the same way, that’s ok. I’m grateful for you and the way that God is using us for His glory and to be a beacon of light in a dark world. He is using us and has used us to make a dent in Dent County as the lost are being found and the saved are growing and I am extremely excited to see what HE has in store next as we stand unapologetically upon His Word because that stands out in our messed up, self-centered world. God doesn’t exist to prop us up - we exist to glorify Him and we have to remember that! As Tony Evans shared in a recent book, Submission to God means saying to Him day by day, “Not my will but Your will be done.”

Conclusion

So many in our world and even churches don’t do this. They want crowns without crosses. They want breakthroughs without being discipled. It’s easy to pick and choose what parts of Jesus we want and which ones we don’t. We want the love but not the leaving self to cling to Him. We want the warm welcome at the door but not the command to walk after Him daily. We want to pick and choose. I’ll take this but leave that part out - and it doesn’t work that way. If we continue to pick and choose or if we continue to think that Jesus accepts us as we are and that we have a license to continue living a life of sin, we demonstrate that we haven’t been saved. We are still following self. This is the warning Hebrews 10 is calling us out of. Stop living in sin. Stop trampling the Son of God. Stop treating His blood as if it’s an afterthought. Stop insulting the Holy Spirit by thinking that we have a license to do whatever, whenever, however we want to. We don’t. God is not there to affirm everything we do. He condemns those living in sin. The Lord will judge His people and whenever we see that, that includes Jesus! Jesus does condemn and He will judge sinners as Matthew 7:22-23 tells us. What must we do in response to this text? Make sure that we are actually following Jesus for Jesus and not for self serving motives. To make sure that church isn’t our box to check in order to make us feel better as we live in unrepentant sin the rest of the week. For that person, understand that there is judgment awaiting… but God through His grace has provided you a way out through His Son. He is a consuming fire, but if you repent of your sins and trust in Jesus as Lord, Jesus will pay that price and take your place. But we must repent. We must ask Jesus to change us because our sin is so serious that it took His life to bring us to the Father. That must change us out of a lethargy, lukewarm, and lackadaisical attitude about sin and following Jesus. We must respond in faith to Who our God is and What our God has done

If we are living in deliberate sin and we know the Gospel, we must repent because God’s patience will one day wear out

If we are tempted by deliberate sin and we know the Gospel, we must ask God for wisdom

If we are tempted by deliberate sin and we know the Gospel, we must seek godly counsel

If we are tempted by deliberate sin and we know the Gospel, we must follow God’s Word (not our feelings)

If we know someone living in deliberate sin, lift them up in prayer and love them enough to speak Scripture to them

If we continue living in deliberate sin where we know what God’s Word says and we either ignore it or we we think that we know better than Scripture, we are in a terrifying position as we await God’s coming judgment. Knowing God’s Word isn’t enough - although we’re called to study Scripture carefully. Coming to church isn’t enough - although Hebrews 10:25 instructs us that Christians are to come to church consistently. Doing nice things isn’t enough - although our works to matter as James 2 tells us. What matters? The fruit of our life. The fruit of the born again child of God will look like Jesus as they stand on God’s Word unapologetically because Jesus is their King and He demands their loyalty. Today, are you playing the game and trying to get something from Jesus but still follow self? Or are you genuinely wanting God’s will for your life?

Al Mohler notes, “Hell is full of people who have a clear understanding of the Gospel but never bowed the knee to Christ as King.” Do you feel the conviction, church? Have you bowed the knee to Christ as King? If He’s not Lord of all, He’s not Lord at all! If you disregard King Jesus and continue to live a Christless life, you will not receive mercy from the King of Kings, you will receive judgment and the fury of an eternal fire. God has graciously given us a way out from what we deserve. He’s provided us with salvation through the cross of Jesus Christ. But we must repent. We must be changed. We must walk in newness of life as Jesus turns us into a new creation. If you’re not there today, please, turn to Jesus and follow Him in obedience.

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