Persevere, Part 2

Today on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Listen to me, as a believer you will struggle with indwelling sin for the rest of your life.

How do I know that? Because the greatest saints experienced such bitter unsuccessful struggles with sin that it almost drove them to despair. Truer words by hymn writer have probably never been written than that one we love to sing around here, Prone to Wander, Lord I Feel It. Welcome to Summit Life with pastor, author, and theologian J.D. Greer.

As always, I'm your host Molly Vitovich. If you've been in church for any length of time, you've probably seen people who you thought were genuinely saved, passionate about Jesus, serving in the church, talking the talk, and walking the walk, and then they seem to turn away from God completely. How is that possible? How can you just leave the faith like that? Pastor J.D. addresses this question today on Summit Life as he continues our teaching series called Christ is Better.

Today's message is titled Persevere, and Pastor J.D. is answering the question, can a believer ever lose their salvation? If you have your Bible, I would invite you to take it out and open it to Hebrews 6. So chapter 6 verse 1, therefore let us leave the elementary doctrines of Christ, go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works or faith toward God, the instructions about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection from the dead, eternal judgment. Verse 4, for it is impossible in the case of those who've been once enlightened and tasted the heavenly gift and shared the Holy Spirit, and tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then they've fallen away to restore them again to repentance, since they're crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding Him up to contempt.

All right, wow, what does that mean? There's a number of problems with those verses, don't you see it? I mean, first, it sounds like you can lose your salvation, you can fall away.

Second, it sounds like if you do lose it, you can never get it back. Impossible to renew them again to repentance. So the first question people ask about this passage is, who's he talking to? Is he talking to saved people or is he talking to unsaved people? And what the author is saying to them is essentially this, look, if you've seen the glory of Jesus and you've been convinced of the truth of his resurrection, only to return intentionally to the vomit of your sin, what else is there left for me to say? What could possibly be more convincing than Jesus' death and resurrection? What greater argument is there that God could use besides the fact that you, who deserve to go to hell because you had defied the living and almighty God, came and stood in the way of his own justice to take it into his body, which humiliated and tortured for you? If that does not move you, then what else is there left for me to say? If after hearing the gospel, only more thorns of rebellion are produced in your heart, what else can God do? What else could I say? He's exasperated, almost bewildered.

He's like, and what else is there left for me to say? If that doesn't move you, if you can hear the story about God who took on his own wrath for you and that just doesn't move you, he says there's nothing left I can say. I understand. I understand those of you in here who don't really believe the gospel and that's why you walk away.

I understand that. Those of you that are in here who are like, yeah, yeah, no, no, I believe that. Of course, I believe that God came and died for my sin. Of course, I believe I deserve the wrath of God. Of course, I believe that there's one God who created everything and breathed it all into existence and spoke it all with the word of his mouth and holds it up all by the word of his power and holds the molecules of my body together.

He was and is and is to come. And of course, I believe that I deserve hell, but God came and was ripped to shreds and humiliated for my sake so that I could be, yeah, yeah, yeah, I believe all that. It just doesn't move me that much. That doesn't make any sense to me at all.

And it doesn't make any sense to the writer either. He's like, what else is there left for God to say? If you believe that and it doesn't move you, the gospel is that you were so bad that Jesus had to die for you, but that you were, he was so loving that he was glad to die for you. And only one of two responses is appropriate to that. For you to walk out and define unbelief and say, that's not true. Or for you to fall at your feet or fall at his feet in abject worship.

Only one of those two responses makes any sense at all. So I interpret this passage as the author giving a bewildered general warning to a congregation. A congregation that, like all congregations, like this one, is filled with both genuine and superficial believers. Not a description of one particular person and he's not attempting to lay out the mechanics of individual salvation.

If he were doing that, he might have used different terms. So enlightened, become partakers of the Holy Spirit, taste of the goodness of God's word, these are statements about the movement as a whole and everyone who has shared in that movement has tasted of those things, at least to some degree. That's my first observation about the passage. Here is my second.

Number two. In this passage, we see that the faith that saves is the faith that endures to the end. In this passage, we see that the faith that saves is the faith that endures to the end. Faith that fades, no matter how luscious its firstfruits, is not a sign of saving faith. Faith that endures to the end is. If salvation is really taking place in your heart, it never fades away. You stumble, yes, and you fall often, but you always get back up looking at Jesus. Now I know, I know that raises some questions for some of you about what that means when you stumble or fall, or what that means when you go through a season when your faith cools. And I'm going to get to those questions in a second. But first, before I get to those questions, could we consider what that statement, it is impossible to renew those who've fallen away to repentance means?

Because that's a hard statement, isn't it? So let's talk about what that means and then I'll get to those questions you just asked. Verse four, for it is impossible to restore those who've fallen away again to repentance, since they're crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding them up to contempt. Now again, what does that mean? What could that mean? Well again, listen, the writer cannot mean that those who fall back into sinful habits after they are saved have forfeited their chances of salvation.

How do I know that? Because even the greatest Christians fall back into old sinful habits. In the Bible, the greatest Christians in the Bible fell back into old sinful habits.

Sometimes really bad ones and sometimes for long periods of time. It's called backsliding. Backsliding is a church word that just means you slide back into old sinful ways. Peter, for example, three years after he started following Jesus, went through the course of an evening in which he denied Christ three times. After the Holy Spirit came to him and he was the head apostle, he went through a several month period where he was a racist.

So much so that the Apostle Paul had to get up in his face in front of everybody and say, you're the head apostle and you're a racist. Yet God brought him back. One of Paul's traveling companions, a guy named John Mark, abandoned the mission field because it got difficult and he was scared so he left.

I mean, talk about bad. You leave the Apostle Paul and you just go home because it's hard. And what was it like for that guy going back into church? And we welcome back in brother John Mark, who was on the mission field with Paul and got scared so he came back home.

Here's a guy who clearly put his hand to the plow and turned back. A guy who was not willing to embrace the full implications of the cross. Yet we find out later in the New Testament that John Mark was not only restored to Christ, he was also put back on the mission field into ministry. King David committed adultery, murder, then lied about it and refused to repent about any of those things for about a year. Abraham, whom the writer of Hebrews 6 uses at the end of this chapter, look down in verse 15. Abraham, an example of persevering faith. Abraham doubted God so severely that he told another man his wife was his sister so that this guy could sleep with her so he wouldn't kill Abraham. Now that's not just a moral lapse, that's a dirtbag maneuver. Oh yeah, that's my sister.

You can sleep with her, you can marry her, just don't kill me. And what kind of man is that? Yet Abraham's the father of our faith, all these believers, all of them were brought back to repentance, restoration, and great usefulness for the kingdom of God. Jesus said, John 6 37, that no one who came to him, no one would ever, for any reason, ever be cast out.

Ever. Which means that if you are willing to repent, he will always receive you. That means my friend, my tattooed, you know, pierced up friend, it means if he repents, God receives him. No one, John 6 37, no one ever comes to Jesus, who he for any reason ever turns away.

Well then, what does the writer mean when he says it's impossible to renew those who fall on a wage of repentance? Well again, remember that he's making a general statement to a congregation, right? And what he is talking about, listen, is that scripture in several places speaks about rejecting God's voice so often and so decisively that God finally honors our refusal and leaves us alone forever. God said in the book of Genesis, chapter six, my spirit will not always strive with man. In the gospel of Luke, Jesus refers to this as the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, where you say no to God so deliberately, so decisively, and so persistently that God finally says, well then have it your way. And Jesus says that is a sin, that is a rejection for which there is no forgiveness. If you are worried that you have committed that blasphemy, you probably have it. The final falling away to which Jesus and the writer of Hebrews are referring includes the removal of any desire to be reconciled to Jesus. It is God, after all, who puts in us the desire to come to him.

Thus your fear about having reached the point of no return is really good proof that you have it. If you want to repent, he will always receive you, always. He will not cast out for any reason any who come to him ever. Furthermore, we should never give up on somebody for whom we're praying on the basis that we think the Spirit of God is no longer striving with him.

How many people have told me that before? Well, I quit praying for so and so because obviously the Spirit of God was no longer striving with him. If and when that happens to a person, we cannot know it. What we do know is that the Bible is full of stories of God saving people who looked at everybody else like they were beyond all hope. The purpose of these warnings, church, the purpose of these warnings is not to help us diagnose stubborn people so that we stop praying for them.

The purpose of these warnings is to help us feel the urgency of the situation so that we start doing so more persistently. The only time we can ever conclude that God's Spirit is no longer striving with someone is when they are dead. When they're dead, you can stop praying for them.

Until then, we have the responsibility to pray and they have the opportunity to repent. We'll get back to our teaching in just a moment, but first let me tell you about our latest resource created exclusively for our Summit Life listeners. Just like God was always there for the giants of the faith that we find in the Bible, our new study book is meant to help you do the same.

These challenges make us uncomfortable, but instead of fearing them, we can remember everything that Jesus has done. This study includes 10 short sessions to help you flesh out, apply, and pray through what you're learning here on the program and in your personal study of Hebrews. Christ is Better follows very closely with our on-air teaching, so this resource is a perfect companion to these daily programs.

Reserve your copy today by calling 866-335-5220 or visit us online at jdgrier.com. Now let's get back to the final moments of our teaching today. Once again, here's Pastor JD. You see, I wonder if there's somebody here listening to me right now who has never come to Christ and you hear all these warnings and you say, that must be what happened to me. I fell away after being enlightened and now it's impossible for me to repent.

Or you see the writer's analogy about the rain producing only thorns and thistles and you think, was that what's wrong with me? I heard the gospel and I didn't repent. Is the soul of my heart corrupt and fatally flawed? Is my heart fundamentally bad?

Am I unsavable? The Bible, however, never, never, never tells us to try to diagnose the spiritual state of our or anybody else's heart and it certainly does not have us sit around and speculate about the providences of God's electing decrees. You know what it says to us? Repent. Repent. Hebrews 3 15. If you hear God's voice, obey it today.

That means if you're listening to this right now, the choice is still yours. You have the opportunity and the obligation right now to repent and if you obey it, God will save you. Because the gospel message, listen, the gospel message is that your heart is indeed fatally flawed. The soil of your heart is indeed corrupt.

Spiritually dead to be exact. But the good news of the gospel is that God makes dead hearts new. That God takes hearts of stone, Ezekiel 36 26, and turns them into hearts of flesh. He brings back life from the dead. He transforms Saul, a pharisaical, Jesus hating murderer, enemy number one of the early church, into Paul, his greatest spokesman and advocate. He can do that for you too.

You just have to ask him. So don't turn what the writer intended to be an encouragement, don't turn what the writer intended to be an encouragement to repent into a discouragement from it. He's not trying to help you determine your election status. He's trying to communicate to you the seriousness of the gospel that you've heard and to urge you to obey it today. Verse nine. Though we speak this way, beloved, yet in your case, we feel sure of better things. Things that belong to salvation. We don't think you fall away.

Why? Because we've seen the evidence of what God did in your heart. For God is not so unjust as to overlook your work and the love that you've shown for his name and serving the saints as you still do. He saw so much spiritual fruit in their lives. Love for God's name, love for God's people. He said, I've seen the evidence that God has been at work in you. Watch. And that evidence of how strongly God's been at work in you is my assurance that that work is going to continue on for the rest of your lives and that your faith is not the kind that will fade because I've seen how real it is.

Does that make sense? What the writer of Hebrews is saying is I saw the power of God come into you. I saw the significance of the change. And that is my assurance that it's going to go on forever. Because Philippians 1.6, I'm confident that he who began the good work in you will continue it to the day of Jesus Christ. You see, the faith that endures is the faith that saves. And I'm confident of better things for a lot of you because I've seen the evidence of your love for God and love for others. Verse 11, but we desire each one of you now to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end.

Do you see what he's saying? Persevere. Persevere. Because by persevering you prove that the salvation that took place in you is actually real.

That's the irony of this whole thing. By heeding the warning you show you have the hope. By not heeding the warning you show the hope was never yours to begin with. Those of you who are genuinely saved will heed the warning and not fall away. Those of you who are not saved will not heed the warning you will fall away and you will not be saved.

You catch the irony and all that? If you heed the warning it's because you have the hope. If you don't heed the warning it's because you never had the hope. Because the faith that saves is the faith that endures. Once you are truly saved you'll never lose it. But once you're saved you will also never stop following Jesus. So again once saved always saved.

But also once saved forever following. Wayne Gruden one of my favorite theologians says it like this. Listen, the perseverance of the saints means that all those who are truly born again will be kept by God's power and will persevere as Christians until the end of their lives. And that only and that only those who persevere until the end have been truly born again. Or a slightly less academic sounding definition, a faith that fizzles before the finish was flawed from the first.

That's the one I prefer. A faith that fizzles before the finish was flawed from the first. Now your question. I know that some of you have struggles with sin.

You're in the middle of one right now. You're like sometimes I fall back, sometimes I struggle, sometimes I doubt, sometimes my faith grows cold. Does that mean I'm not saved? Every Christian has times where they backslide into sin. We all do it. Technically anytime you sin you're backsliding.

I do it dozens of times every day. That doesn't mean that you're not saved. So the question becomes this. How long can you backslide before you conclude that your faith was never real? How long?

What's the magic number? Six months? Is that it? Five years? Maybe 12 years since that's all Jesus was when he went to the temple? Is that what that's there for? 33 years that's all it was when he died?

Is that how long you can backslide? Okay. We just don't know. We just don't know because the Bible never tells us.

There's no clear answer. Bible never gives us a time limit. Like I mentioned a few minutes ago, some of the greatest Bible heroes like David and Peter and other people, they fell back into sin for a pretty long time before God brought them back to their senses. But then on the other hand, there are others, the apostle John says, who went out from us because they were not of us. The reason they fell away is because they weren't genuinely saved. They looked like they were, but they weren't.

They were like the seeds that sprouted up quickly and then faded away. So how do you know? Pastor, you got to tell me, how do you know? Well, for some people, the life change in their conversion was so significant and their lapse into sin was so brief that it's pretty obvious their conversion took place in the past and that this lapse into sin was a temporary time of backsliding. That seems to be the case with the people the writer of Hebrews is addressing. He's like, it's obvious that you really were born again back here and this is a temporary lapse.

For other people, the opposite is true. There was hardly any life change after their initial profession of faith. At some point, they got reawakened of the gospel and they started to understand that that was their true conversion, even though they technically prayed the sinner's prayer a long time ago in the past. We see this happen all the time at our church. We have people come in here and say, you know, I grew up in a place where I heard the gospel and I made those initial response and I got saved and I was this old or got confirmed here or whatever. Then they come here and they're like, but for the first time, I feel like I'm understanding the gospel and my heart is awakening to it and I feel like my faith really became real. You see, for those people, it's pretty obvious that this was the time of their conversion, not that time in the past where they prayed some ritual prayer.

So for a lot of people, it's obvious either way, but for a lot of you, though, the answer's not really that obvious. You're not sure if your reawakening of the gospel was simply repentance from a time of backsliding or if it was your true conversion. Sometimes you just don't know exactly. You're like, well, pastor, I got to know. I got to know when the moment of conversion was.

Help me. Okay, here's what I'll tell you. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter when you were converted. At the end of the day, it just matters that you are converted. Salvation is not praying a prayer. Salvation is a posture of repentance and faith toward Jesus. Yes, it begins at a point, but knowing that point is not essential, right?

Knowing when you were seated is helpful, but knowing that you are seated now, that's what's essential. Listen to me. As a believer, you will struggle with indwelling sin for the rest of your life.

How do I know that? Because the greatest saints experienced such bitter, unsuccessful struggles with sin that it almost drove them to despair. I love, probably truer words by a hymn writer have probably never been written than that one we love to sing around here. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart, Lord. Take and seal it.

Seal it for thy courts above. That kind of prayer, that kind of struggle is evidence that God has really saved you. Because yes, you struggle with sin, but the trajectory of your life is you fall, but you get back up looking toward Jesus. From all my favorite Old Testament verses, Proverbs 24, 16.

Love this. The righteous man falls seven times and gets back up again. The righteous man is not the man who never falls. The righteous man falls seven times and gets back up again. Your belief in the gospel is demonstrated best by what you do when you fall. Your belief in the gospel is demonstrated not by the fact that you don't fall, but by what you do when you fall. And yes, righteous people struggle with sin a lot, and they say, prone to wander, Lord, I feel it.

But they get back up looking at Jesus. So the question for you right now is what's the present posture of your heart? Not do you have a card in your Bible that was signed by your grandmother and tear-stained by Billy Graham.

That's not the question. Do you have a present posture of surrender and trust in Christ's finished Word? This chair I mentioned again, all right, it represents the fact that Jesus has paid for all your sin and the fact that he is Lord.

You are in one of two positions in relation to that chair, only one, all right. You are either seated in submission to his Lordship or you are standing in defiance against him, saying that you're still going to control your own life. You are either seated in the belief that he has paid it all and he's your full hope of heaven, and you're sure that if you died you go to heaven because he paid it all. Or you are standing in the hope that you can be good enough to earn your own way to heaven. You can only be in one of those two categories.

It doesn't matter what you prayed in the past, right now, or you seated in repentance and belief, or are you standing in rebellion and unbelief. You've got to be one or the other. So which are you? Which are you? The faith that saves is the faith that endures. What is the present posture of your heart? So is your heart fully surrendered to Christ or is there a part of you that you're holding back? If you aren't sure where you're at with Jesus, you don't have to wait another minute. Talk to God.

Ask him to take control and offer him your entire life. Then talk to someone at your local church so they can help keep you accountable and help you grow. Be sure to check out all of the helpful resources at jdgrier.com. And when you team up with us by donating today, we'll say thanks by sending you our brand new resource this month. The book of Hebrews takes us on a journey that compares and contrasts Jesus to key historical people and events from the Bible.

Through these comparisons, we see his superiority. This is why we named our newest Bible study, Christ is Better. It is a 10-session workbook that includes some helpful insights and deeper reflection questions meant to give you greater understanding and deepen your faith. Ask for your copy today when you give by calling 866-335-5220.

That's 866-335-5220. Or you can give online at jdgrier.com. While you're there, you can also browse Pastor JD's blog. He covers a ton of topics about real-life issues with wisdom straight from God's Word. And when you subscribe to our email list, you'll get future blog posts straight to your inbox. Go to jdgrier.com. I'm Molly Vinovich, encouraging you to join us Friday as our message is about the ancient Jewish holiday Yom Kippur. We'll see you right then here on Summit Lights with J.D. Greer.