Opening Illustration: Going on a trip. I love the excitement of going on a trip. The packing up the van – it shows that playing Tetris as a kid actually developed some life skills. The route planning, the stops, especially if it includes a Buc-ees stop. They really do have the cleanest bathrooms. Everyone pitches in to get ready to go. The anticipation of what is to come is the best. I don’t know about your family, but something happens about 2/3s into the trip. The excitement settles and then quintessential road trip question pops up: “How much longer until we get there?”  As soon as that question comes out, it’s like the road trip virus starts spreading. Before you know it, everyone feels it and can’t wait to get out of the car. I always know how bad the virus is based on how many suitcases I have to carry into hotel. Sometimes I even have to carry a kid into the hotel. The way adults and kids handle the road trip virus differs – well, at least it should…As adults, we have the capacity to sit in both feelings. The feeling of being tired from the travel, but also the feeling of the excitement of what’s to come. As kids, the capacity isn’t quite there yet. They live in either excitement or the discomfort – there isn’t an in-between. Parents, remember that next time you are traveling, it will give you a little better perspective. The duality of emotions is important. It teaches us something that we should have spiritually – that we can endure hard times while maintaining our God-given joy. Sadly, many of us, myself included, get so overwhelmed with where we are that we forget where we are headed.

Today, God knows the difficulty of maintaining this posture, so today, we look at a passage in the book of Hebrews that gives a roadmap on how to maintain this posture. And here’s the roadmap: Keep near Jesus and keep going with Jesus. Go ahead and up your Bibles to the book of Hebrews. We’ve been going through this book as a church for sometime now in our Sermon Series: Hebrews. Just a few weeks ago, there was a shift in the book. We’ve jumped from theology to application. The writer of Hebrews has laid out the case that Jesus is better than anything else. And now, we’ve challenged to live like it. The past two weeks have been focused on our calling to become like Jesus. In order to become like Jesus and to become holier, we must be in the presence of God. God knows the temptation to fade away from His presence, so He gives us a warning and a plan to stay close. Let’s find out what God wants to speak to us today: Read Hebrews 10:26-39. Pray. 

As I was preparing the message this week, Psalm 23 kept popping up in mind. In that Psalm, we get the imagery of walking with Jesus. He leads us to peaceful stream. He guides our path. He walks with us in the dark valley. The implication is that we stay with Jesus. In our passage today, we see something we shouldn’t do – well, something we can’t do -- and we see two things we must do if we are serious about becoming more like Jesus and stay walking with Jesus. We start off with the one thing we can’t do: Don’t turn your back on Jesus.

1) Don’t turn your back on Jesus. (vs. 26-31) Over the years I’ve spent preaching, there are passages that come along that are difficult to preach. And we come across one of those passages today. Verse 27 won’t show up on your Bible app as the verse of the day. It would be amazing to see the reaction of people if it did happen. Whenever we arrive at difficult passages in the Bible there seems to two extreme reactions. The first is to completely avoid the verse. Preachers don’t want to preach it and readers don’t want to read it. That’s because of the world we’ve grown up in. We live in a time period in a country that has seen affluency, success, and comfort. And we shouldn’t feel badly about that. God has put each of us at this moment in history for a purpose – as long as we are fulfilling that purpose. It’s comfort that makes people want to avoid the uncomfortable passages in the Bible. There is an opposite reaction as well, where there are some that want to hammer the concepts of hell and judgment.

Where I feel we are best served as a church is to take the verses as they come. We have to see both sides of our Savior – that His holiness means there will be both grace and judgment. That also means God can use His grace and His judgment as motivational factors. May God work as we read these next verses. With all of that as a precursor, we see a big warning from the writer of Hebrews starting in verse 26: ²⁶ Dear friends, if we deliberately continue sinning after we have received knowledge of the truth, there is no longer any sacrifice that will cover these sins. This isn’t the first time the writer of Hebrews has something like this – we saw similar language in Hebrews 6:4. If you remember from months back, we learned that once genuine salvation has been accepted, it can’t be given back. Salvation is once and for all time. When we read these verses, we have to keep that in mind because we all sin. The key words are deliberating continue sinning. This is not simply falling into the same temptation, this is ignoring God’s grace to live as you please. This isn’t showing up for one work day, this is quitting and running away. What makes this difficult is that there are those who have received the knowledge of truth, yet this still don’t accept the truth. They are living in proximity to Jesus without surrendering to Jesus. It’s like coming in here every single Sunday, hearing God’s truth, but never believing it in the depths of your heart and soul. You can’t rely on the faith of others to save you. Your grandma’s faith can’t save you. 

What’s the result of not believing? ²⁷ There is only the terrible expectation of God’s judgment and the raging fire that will consume his enemies. The reality is that you are either in the family of God or you are an enemy of God. There is no middle ground with Jesus. Here’s some hard truth: When you turn your back on the only One that offers forgiveness, the only thing ahead is the punishment for doing so. That’s what we see in verses 28 through 31: ²⁸ For anyone who refused to obey the law of Moses was put to death without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. ²⁹ Just think how much worse the punishment will be for those who have trampled on the Son of God, and have treated the blood of the covenant, which made us holy, as if it were common and unholy, and have insulted and disdained the Holy Spirit who brings God’s mercy to us. ³⁰ For we know the one who said, “I will take revenge. I will pay them back.” He also said, “The Lord will judge his own people.” ³¹ It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God. 

Now, let me take one more step in this direction and then we’ll start facing the other direction. The process of turning your back on Jesus happens begins in the stillness of your mind. Even in our culture today, there are those who grew up in church and have walked away from church. Much like other movements in our culture, a new name and new identity are created around it. I would venture to say that most did not wake up one day and completely walk away from church – and I say church intentionally. It was a process that happened in the still of their mind. Illustration: Pilgrim’s Progress. I read Pilgrims Progress many years ago, but I was reminded of a scene this week. Christian and Hopeful were talking about another character named “Temporary”. Temporary was involved in religion, but then faded away. The dialogue goes like this:

Christian says, “I think I know how it happens.”

Hopeful says, “How does it happen?”

He says, “Well, this is how it happens. This is what people do. First, they draw off their thoughts, all that they may, from the remembrance of God, death, and judgment to come.” So they quit thinking about God, life, death, eternity. “Then they cast off by degrees their private duties”—private prayer. They cease to curb their lusts. They don’t sorrow over sin. “Then they shun the company of lively and warm Christians.” They go with the wrong crowd. Then, “they grow cold to public duty, the hearing, and the reading,” and the godly communion of the saints, “and the like.” And then, they “begin to pick holes, as we say, in the coats of some of the godly, and that devilishly, that they may have a seeming color to throw religion.” And “then they begin to adhere to and associate themselves with carnal, and loose, and wanton men.” And “then they give way to carnal and wanton discourses in secret; and glad they are if they can see such things in that they are counted honest, that they may more boldly do it through their example.” And “after this, they begin to play with little sins openly. And then, being hardened, they show themselves as they are. Thus being launched again into the gulf of misery, unless a miracle of grace prevent it, they everlastingly perish in their own deceivings.”[1] 

The greatest tragedy in the world is for someone to walk up to Jesus, hold His salvation in your hands, and turn your back on Him. If you don’t know 100% where you stand with Jesus, don’t leave here today without talking with me. I said there was one thing we can’t do and two things we must do. The first is the heaviest. The second and third are our encouragement. My guess is that you are ready for the encouraging part now. Let’s start the encouragement with this: Keep the vibrancy of Jesus in front of you.

[1] Taken from https://www.truthforlife.org/resources/sermon/keeping-near-keeping-on/#back-[6]

 2) Keep the vibrancy of Jesus in front of you. (vs. 32-34) Do you remember who the writer of Hebrews was writing to? Jews who saw Jesus as the Messiah. Jews who used to follow the Old Testament law, but now live under the new covenant of Jesus. And there was the temptation to turn their backs on Jesus. So, the writer of Hebrews starts encouraging them. It wasn’t an easy start for this group of people either. Look at verses 33 through 35: ³³ Sometimes you were exposed to public ridicule and were beaten, and sometimes you helped others who were suffering the same things. ³⁴ You suffered along with those who were thrown into jail, and when all you owned was taken from you, you accepted it with joy. You knew there were better things waiting for you that will last forever. This group of people came to Christ, were beaten, publicly ridiculed, thrown into jail, and had everything they owned taken away from them. What their response? Joy! No doubt they had sadness and pain and hurt, but in the midst of it was joy. In the midst of all that happening was the decision to remain optimistic about what’s ahead. They knew what it meant to count it all as joy because they were gaining what truly mattered.

What does the writer of Hebrews do in verse 32 to this group of people that were losing traction with Jesus? He pointed back to all those bad things that happened!  ³² Think back on those early days when you first learned about Christ. Remember how you remained faithful even though it meant terrible suffering. I haven’t tried this approach as a pastor, but maybe I should give it a shot. The next person in my office that is having a hard time with their faith, I’m just going to put them back to all the bad things that have happened! The question is are you going to be the next person?! Why on earth would the writer of Hebrews do this? He’s showing them how far they’ve come. He’s showing them how much Jesus has shown up, even in the hardest moments of life. The reason we continue is because God continues. We can look to the past and see how God didn’t quit on us. So we can look to the future and know this: God doesn’t quit on His kids. 

Do you remember what we’ve seen these past two Sundays? We are called to be a holy people. Our holiness depends on the being in the presence of God. The writer of Hebrews now tells us don’t fade away from the presence of God. We are to look back at the moments when God showed up. We should take inventory of when God shows up and remind ourselves of those moments. In the moment, those are powerful, vibrant. We revisit those to keep the vibrancy of Christ in front of us. Illustration: The big ruler we don’t use. In one of my houses growing up, there is a 2 x 4 in the basement – who knows if it is still there today – but there is 2 x 4 that has my height marks on it. Every so often, my parents would mark my growth. It was cool to look back over the years and see how much I’ve grown. As a parent, I thought it would be so cool to carry on the tradition. Many years ago, Rachel and I decided that instead of marking on the wall, we would buy a large piece of wood that looked like a ruler to measure the growth of our kids. That way, we could take the memory with us wherever we went. Well, I guess parenting got pretty hard and we never actually used the giant ruler. But you know what, that didn’t stop us from setting it up in our hallway for the past 9 years! What was supposed to point us back to the growth in our family became just a large piece of wood.

If you are serious about your holiness and being close to God, you’ve got to keep the vibrancy of His work in front of you. When God moves, write it down. When God moves, make notes of it. When God moves, write it on your walls! Seriously, how cool would it be to have a small part of a wall where you are writing down all the times that God shows up?? Do whatever it takes to keep the vibrancy of Jesus in front of you. In addition to keeping the vibrancy of Jesus in front of you, we see one more way to keep near Jesus and keep going with Jesus: Keep the reward of Jesus ahead of you. 

3) Keep the reward of Jesus ahead of you. (vs. 35-39) I believe what God is calling us as a church into this year is going to be so good, but it’s also going to bring some uncomfortableness. I believe that as we get more expectant of God moving – as we get serious about becoming more like Jesus this year – it’s going to bring some transformation that so many of you have been wanting. But you need to know it’s going to cause you to take some uncomfortable steps. You need to keep verses 35 and 36 close to your heart. ³⁵ So do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord. Remember the great reward it brings you! ³⁶ Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God’s will. Then you will receive all that he has promised. 

Satan will dampen the trust you have today in pursuing holiness and pursuing the presence of God. Satan is going to do whatever he can to lure you away from the great reward you have been promised. He’s going to start dangling whatever carrot entices you in front of your face. He’s going to try to get you to quit. Maybe you are here today and that’s exactly where you are – you are ready to quit. If I had the power to keep you from quitting, I would. All I can do is tell you that what God offers is so much more than anything this world offers. Illustration: Navy Seals ringing the bell. There is an elite group in our military called the Navy Seals. Very few make it through to become a Seal. Towards the beginning of their training, they are put through a week of some of the most intense training. In a lot of ways, that week is designed to get people to quit. To quit, a recruit has to simply walk over and ring a bell. That’s it, if they want to get some food and sleep, they just have to walk over and ring the bell. All week, the training are screaming at the recruits to just go ring the bell. What’s so cool is that the moment a recruit stands up and starts moving toward the bell, the other recruits will start yelling them. “Don’t quit! Don’t ring the bell!” “Think how far you’ve come. Think about all the work you put in to get to this point.” “And think about your goal. Think about that Navy Seal uniform you’ll get to put on!”

As much respect as I have for our military, as Christians, there is something far more valuable that we get to put on than a uniform – and that’s the righteousness of Christ. What lies ahead for Christians is the glories of heaven. That moment we get to stand in front of the Father, wrapped in the righteousness of His Son. There will be no bell to ring, no temptation to walk away, because our only response will be to marvel in the glory of God. Don’t make this world your home. Ponder the glories of heaven. Keep the reward of Jesus ahead of you. Let your heart be stirred. If you are wanting to quit, take a look at your heart – what is it longing for? Are you sitting in the car overwhelmed by the journey ahead or are you focused on what’s to come? May we all long for Jesus. 

Let me close with these final 3 verses as a final dose of encouragement. We are the righteous and faithful ones. Look at verse 37: ³⁷ “For in just a little while, the Coming One will come and not delay. ³⁸ And my righteous ones will live by faith. But I will take no pleasure in anyone who turns away.” ³⁹ But we are not like those who turn away from God to their own destruction. We are the faithful ones, whose souls will be saved. For those that know Jesus personally and have accepted His free gift of salvation, that is who you are. You are His righteous ones. You are the faithful. And your soul is saved. That is who you are – that is your identity. Don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise. Now, go. Go keep near Jesus and keep going with Jesus. You’ve come so far and there is so much ahead of us. I can’t wait to see what’s ahead. Let’s pray.

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