Stick and Carrot

Exegetical Idea: The author of Hebrews encourages the Hebrews to persevere in the faith by drawing their attention to God’s judgment and by pointing them forward to the reward of eternal life.

Theological Idea: Hebrews encourages us to persevere both by threatening with God’s judgment and offering God’s reward.

Homiletical Idea: Both God’s threats and rewards help us to persevere in Christ.

Outline

Introduction:

God’s Threats

If we go on sinning after receiving a knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sin. (vs. 26)

What does that word “remains” mean? (Heb 4:6, 9)

Willful sinning

What is the sin which is in reference? Specifically failure to come to church.

That person has no atonement

Instead of atonement - judgment (vs. 27)

Allusion to isaiah 26:11

Those who have no atonement are just God’s enemies.

Here’s the upshot of all this, he is saying, someone who calls themselves a Christian but does not come to church can have no assurance of that.

The law of Moses was very clear that the person who rejected God and his law would die.

If that is true, how much worse will the person who rejects Jesus?

Remember how he’s been saying all along that the new covenant is better and higher and greater than the Old? Well here he’s saying if we have a better mediator, a better assurance, a better hope in the New Covenant, than we have a much more severe judgment for those who reject Jesus.

This is what he means:

To trample underfoot the Son of God

To consider common the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified

Outraged the Spirit of grace

Here’s what he means: the person who calls themselves a Christian yet keeps going on sinning deliberately, in particular by failing to come to church, is not saved. ANd therefore, when they take the name of Christ on their lips, they are trampling the Son of God, they are throwing the blood of Christ on the ground, and they are outraging the Spirit of grace.

The person who has truly been saved, who truly has been atoned for would never do that.

God will take vengeance - That person, who has so profaned the law of God, is under the judgment of God, but not just the judgment, the vengeance of God.

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God.

Does this offend you? Why? Do you think that God has no right to mete out his justice? Do you think that God has no right to call his people to repentance? Do you think God has no right to be offended when people would treat him as if he is something less than he is - glorious, holy, uplifted, transcendent, high and mighty. Does this offend you? Maybe it offends you because you don’t want God to be talking about you. Maybe you want the right to live according to your own standards, your own rules, your own law. Maybe you think, I can go to church when I want, and nobody can tell me what to do. But God can. And if we don’t listen, how great a judgment is upon us!

Listen to the words of Jonathan Edwards, one of the greatest preachers of all time: “You probably are not sensible of this; you find you are kept out of hell, but do not see the hand of God in it; but look at other things, as the good state of your bodily constitution, your care of your own life, and the means you use for your own preservation. But indeed these things are nothing; if God should withdraw his band, they would avail no more to keep you from falling, than the thin air to hold up a person that is suspended in it. Your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead, and to tend downwards with great weight and pressure towards hell; and if God should let you go, you would immediately sink and swiftly descend and plunge into the bottomless gulf, and your healthy constitution, and your own care and prudence, and best contrivance, and all your righteousness, would have no more influence to uphold you and keep you out of hell, than a spider’s web would have to stop a falling rock. Were it not for the sovereign pleasure of God, the earth would not bear you one moment; for you are a burden to it; the creation groans with you; the creature is made subject to the bondage of your corruption, not willingly; the sun does not willingly shine upon you to give you light to serve sin and Satan; the earth does not willingly yield her increase to satisfy your lusts; nor is it willingly a stage for your wickedness to be acted upon; the air does not willingly serve you for breath to maintain the flame of life in your vitals, while you spend your life in the service of God’s enemies.”

- This is true for every single person who does not have the sacrifice of Christ, and it is most certainly true for those who call upon the name of Jesus but spit on his sacrifice.

But notice how Hebrews turns on a dime here in vs. 32, and he shifts from Death Valley to the beautiful, lush valleys of God’s pleasure. He has threatened those who are lackadaisical and lazy in their faith. And now he seeks to prod them forward with the grace of Christ.

God’s Rewards

Remember the former days when after you were enlightened - Remember when you first became a Christian. How you had so much passion, so much excitement, so much zeal to share the Lord?

you endured a hard struggle with sfuferings

Sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction - When they would go out, they would be mistreated. They would be verbally abused, they would endure the hatred of their families, they would gladly be disowned.

and sometimes being partners with those so treated - In fact, even when this didn’t happen to them, they would reach out to those who suffered these things themselves. So they would reach out and minister and serve those people who were enduring these things themselves. Instead of joining in the mockery, instead of shrinking into the corners and hoping people didn’t see them, they would step forward and say, “That’s my brother, and you better do whatever you do to them to me.”

You had compassion on those in prison - Just like they had a “sympathetic high priest” they would themselves show sympathy to those who were in prison. Back then, if you wer ein prison, you coudl not count on the system to provide for your needs. And so you needed your friends to come and help provide for your needs while you were in jail. And that’s exactly what the early church did when people were imprisoned for their faith.

They joyfully accepted the plundering of their possessions - People would come nad steal from them because of their faith, and they knew that because they were Christians, they would have no justice in the courts.

Why would they do all this? Why would they endure such things? since you knew that you had a better possession and an abiding one. That is, that when they first became Christians, they knew that it didn’t matter, they could take their possessions, they could rob them of their honor, they could mock them and insult them, but “there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ jesus.” (Rom 8:1). There was nothing that people could do to rob them of their Savior. Because he was their treasure, adn their treasure was ascended to heaven and was pleading with them even then. So who cares if they lost a house? Who cares if someone robbed them? Who cares in teh end? They had Jesus, and that is what truly matters.

And now they were in a position where their faith was starting to waver, and the author tells them, “Don’t you give an inch.” Don’t stop coming, because they needed a great endurance, the same endurance they had when they first became Christians. They needed that faith of Abraham, that was so dogged and believed in God even though everything else in the world was telling them, “This is never going to happen.” They needed to keep believing, so that like Abraham, they could receive the promised reward.

What would this endurance enable them to do? To “do the will of God.” In otherwords, to not drift. To keep coming to church. To hold fast.

And he quotes here Habakkuk 2:4. And what I want to point out about this in vs. 37-38, is that the point of vs. 38 is is this, if we have been justified, made righteous, forgiven, and saved by faith, then they will continue to live by faith. They will keep believing. They won’t let go of Christ.

Whereas, if they don’t have faith, God has no pleasure in him.

And notice how he says in vs. 39, that he says, “we are not those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.” God is not pleased by people who give up. God is not pleased with people who are lackadasical with their faith. God is not pleased with the lukewarm. God is not pleased with people who look for excuses to not take him and his people seriously. He’s pleased with those who trust him and believe in him when everything else seems to go haywire. He’s pleased with those who hold fast to their faith even when everything else is ripped out of their hands. He’s pleased with those who tell Satan, “take what you want, I’m not going to budge an inch.” And to them, to those poeple, he has promised a great reward.

Notice how God uses both threats and promises, both judgments and rewards, every tool in his arsenal to get you to hold fast in your faith. God wants you to endure. He doesnt want you to give up. God is prodding us and poiking us and pushing us and saying, “Zion is just around the corner.”

So what do we do with this? Well let me say a few things.

Be sure that you have had faith in the first place.

There is not a single hint here of works righteousness, is there? Someone receives the good sacrifice that Christ has made only by faith alone. Someone is saved by faith not by works.

ANd you can tell if you have faith, because that faith always leads to fruit. IT doesn’t keep skipping church. It doesn’t keep yelling at its spouse without guilt. It isn’t filled with hate. In other words, it doesn’t go on sinning deliberately.

See that even God’s rewards are a gift of his grace

Perhaps you are wondering, “Well, if I’m saved by faith, then why would God offer me a reward?”

<Illustration: Calvin on the slide.>

God’s rewards aren’t given because he has to, but because he wants to.

Find ways to strengthen your faith.

Church is one of those things that you get out of it what you put into it. If you just kind of treat it as an obligation, if you don’t really take this seriously, then you will always kind of feel like its a waste of yoru time. But if you come here, and you’ve read your Bible throughout the week, and you’ve prayed, and you’ve shared hte gospel, then you will leave here warmly encouraged and heartened.

And if you come to churhc, and you are just frustrated leaving church each week, mabye that has more to do with your own walk with Christ ahn with the church. If you go home and you just can’t believe that I would preach on that topic, and you complain about hte music, and you just are revolted by the people here, that might say more about you than it does about teh church.