God Is Reliable (Part A)

If you're going to get joy in Christ, you're going to have to have a sword. You're going to need a breastplate and a helmet. You're going to have to cover your legs a little bit.

You're going to need more stuff than just a thrill. These books, I think, teach us how to be let down, how to ignore reality and become disillusioned with the Christian faith until you have people using Jesus' name preaching things that just aren't true, that just aren't in the Scripture. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Hebrews.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the book of Hebrews, Chapter 6, as he begins a new study called God is Reliable. If you have your Bibles, please open to Hebrews, Chapter 6. Hebrews, Chapter 6. We will try to get the remainder of the chapter, verses 9 through 20. We will begin at verse 9. But beloved, we are confident of better things concerning you, yes, things that accompany salvation, though we speak in this manner.

For God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love which you have shown toward His name, that you have ministered to the saints and do minister, and we desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end, that you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. For when God made a promise to Abraham because he could swear, by no one greater he swore by himself, saying, Surely blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you. And so after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise, for men indeed swear by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is for them an end of all dispute. Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath that by two immutable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us, this hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the presence behind the veil where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus having become high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

God is reliable. That's where we are going with this this morning because that is largely a part of what is being said in this section of Hebrews. Now in the first 12 verses, the writer addressed those who profess Christ and were thinking about refusing Him.

They probably would not have come out and said it that way in the early stages, but they were drifting. They were drifting back into Judaism, and he ended that first section, verses 1 through 12, with a contrast between that which is cultivated and that which is burned up because you cannot cultivate it. And he was saying that there are those whose hearts God can cultivate, and they will be blessed. And then there are those whose hearts God cannot cultivate. They refuse to let Him do it, and they will be burned up. And now he turns his attention, beginning in verse 9, he starts to address all who profess and don't refuse Christ but want to hear.

And he changes his tone a little bit. And so you can imagine he's gotten word that there are issues. He's not present with this body of believers were, but he's gotten word that there were issues there, big ones.

The church, many of the congregants were looking to go back to Judaism. So he takes to writing, to addressing this. He's not going to give this a pass.

He's not going to look the other way. There are souls involved that will be damned if they continue on this course. And so he writes what we know as this letter to the Hebrews. And as he's writing, he begins talking about the superlative nature of Jesus Christ, that He is superior to all. And then he sort of gets moved by the Holy Spirit to pinpoint some of the things that they were doing wrong. And he says, you're babies. You still need milk.

You're not growing. You're still discussing about repentance and baptism, faith, and laying on the hands, judgment, eternal life, and you should be moving past these things. And then he sort of settles down again. And that's where he begins at verse 9. He says, but beloved. He's not scolding them because he's against them.

He loves them. But he cannot dictate God's word. God dictates God's word. And he is certainly a servant of the Lord, and he is going to uphold what God says as best he can on their behalf. And so he says, verse 9, but beloved, we are confident of better things concerning you. Yes, things that accompany salvation, though we speak in this manner. We're taking this verse just for a moment from the bottom up. This, though we speak in this manner. He's referencing all that he had just said previously. The hard-hitting stuff, calling them babes and saying, listen, if you taste the Lord and you throw it away, you are going to line up for judgment. He's not apologizing.

He's just saying, he's drawing this contrast. And so this gentle word, they're being lured back to Judaism, which was an indication that they did not surrender. They were not surrendered to their Messiah. They were at one point, according to the information we have from this entire Hebrew document, but there were those there that were now drifting, and he is going at them as best he can with truth, with firmness, and in love.

They had become confused, and that confusion was very dangerous. Writing to the Romans, this was dealt with already, years before. By now that Roman letter had circulated throughout Christianity. In that letter, Paul said, Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. They had embraced that, but now, again, I am purposely repeating this throughout the beginning of this message.

They were walking away from it. Very serious. He says, yes, things that accompany salvation. The better things, better than all the other religions of the world is Christianity. Our Savior loved us enough to die for us. As much truth in those four words, things that accompany our salvation.

How much is compacted into that? Now Satan baits people into piling onto their salvation things that insult God. That is why we have these epistles from Romans right through Jude. They are all correcting aberrant Christian behavior.

They are all dealing with problems that Christians are bringing into the church, because Satan again had been luring them to do these things. Galatians, the letter to the Galatians, also a letter that dealt with this very thing, that Christ is sufficient. You cannot mingle him with something else and still have Christianity. Galatians 1, verse 6, I marvel that you are turning away so soon from him who called you in the grace of Christ to a different gospel, which is not another. But there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.

And so he says, I'm amazed. You're following Christ one day, now you're turning away from him to some other junk that doesn't come from God. It is an insult to God.

And yet you're putting his name all over it. That's forgery. It's spiritual forgery. Revelation, the 22nd chapter, John had to close the Revelation, writing to Christians. He says, I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book, if anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in the book.

This is quite severe. This is nothing in that verse that makes you scratch your head and say, I don't know what that means. We know everything that verse means. It's inescapable.

It's a fact. And yet there are those that behave as though this will be excuse this type of behavior. The letter to the Hebrews is saying God will not excuse such things. He loves you.

He wants you on his terms. So scripture alerts us about dupes and devils who spoil salvation's better things by trying to add to it things that Christ has forbidden. Many become bored with Christianity, even disillusioned or first bored and then disillusioned.

They expected this, but they got that. And they blame Christianity for not satisfying them, for not giving them that joy that never, ever goes away, as they had been promised in so many sermons and by so many authors of so many books. Incidentally, because you can write a book doesn't mean you should.

Solomon said to writing books, there's no end. But they thought that following Christ would make joy a regular feature of life, that every day you'd put on joy like you put on your, you know, shoes or your pants, whatever you're wearing that day, that is not joy. There is a joy for us and we are to go at it and we are to have it.

But I'm afraid it's not what the world thinks and it's not what many Christians think. Jesus said, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Not a lot of joy is the world defines joy in those words.

He said, therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. Where's the joy in that? The joy in that is obeying it. The joy for the Christian is being wise as a serpent, harmless as a dove, as Jabez prayed, that I would not cause pain. Though conviction has its own pain, but that is a different type and that is not what is meant by our prayer when we say that we would not cause pain.

I should put that on the side. Another verse telling us what Jesus says about this Christian life of ours, they will deliver you up to tribulation to kill you and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake. Where's the joy in that? The joy in that is in obeying the Lord no matter what.

I want to develop that a little bit. I'm going to spend most of our time on this verse and then we'll go with the other ones after. And then there's Mark 10, 21. Take up the cross, your cross, and follow me. The Christian cross represents death to our views, death to our self-will and self-life. For Christ's sake, though, it needs some definition. It's not just, you know, the dying to self.

Well, then what? For Christ's sake, the things that belong to our salvation. That's what the author is saying. That is what is provoked or stirred. What I am saying this morning, yes, things that accompany salvation. 2 Corinthians 12, Paul writes, therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distress for Christ's sake. It's not meaningless. It's not meaningless persecution or distress. It's because he's reaching souls. He's upholding truth. He's doing the work of his King and he's suffering for it.

And he has no regrets. It's for Christ's sake. And in that is joy. We don't define joy that way. We define joy as feeling good, just feeling good, not feeling bad. There's been a lot of preaching and writing about joy in Christ, which I think falls far short of reality in Christ. We cannot just drug ourselves with things that make us feel good but aren't true. And so had all of these book writers who tell us how to find joy been accurate, we would have only needed one book because we would have had the recipe. One book, here's how you find joy. Okay, we don't need any more.

We've got it. So the fact that there are so many is to me a testimony that that's not how it works. They lack the things that accompany our salvation. And I've just read a few verses that speak of those things that accompany our salvation, such as taking up the cross, sheep in the midst of wolves. These things accompany our salvation. I can groan and complain in my life to God about how I wanted a Billy Graham type ministry.

How Christians are being persecuted in other places of the world. What do you say to that? You say, not my will be done, but your will be done. Because I don't know what is right to you tell me what is right. The things that accompany my salvation are very deep and very broad. These books that talk about joy, well, not maybe every single one, but a great majority of them, they have things that people want. Things that people want without fighting for. They just hand it to me.

He said, you are like babes. You can't eat meat. You need milk.

You have to have pre-digested food. You can't handle the hard stuff. It is what happens in a world that is contested by Satan. If you want joy, yeah, I could write a book on joy. It would be one paragraph. If you want joy, you are going to have to fight for it because it is contested.

That is what this world is about. If you are going to get joy in Christ, you are going to have to have a sword. You are going to need a breastplate and a helmet. You are going to have to cover your legs a little bit.

You are going to need more stuff than just a thrill. These books, I think, teach us how to be let down, how to ignore reality and become disillusioned with the Christian faith until you have people using Jesus' name preaching things that just aren't true, that just aren't in the scripture. Joy is Christ's assurance that His will is what we are going to go after. This should encourage every believer, not frighten them how not to face facts, how not to face life, how not to face yourself, how not to face scripture.

That is where we would land if we want to live in the pretend world. There are things we don't want to face. As it says in Isaiah 33 verse 15, a righteous man stops his ears, the mention of bloodshed.

I don't want to hear all this bad stuff. If I can't do anything about it, stop drowning me in it. That is right. But then there are other areas of life that we must face and we must face with courage. That is what He is saying to them. He is saying there are things that accompany our faith and you want to walk away from it and you should not be walking away but going towards it.

We applaud firemen when they run into the burning building. How about our faith? How about faith, trusting God? Not expect a miracle.

I don't want to expect a miracle. I want to expect obedience. I want to be faithful to the Lord. That is miracle enough.

How about faith no matter what comes into my life, no matter what is contested as proof that life and Christ is contested. How many of you have been around Christ for a while and have not felt the urge to say, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthu. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you letting me down? Why did this happen?

Why, why, why? We all get there at some point. It's important that we recover from it. And after that season of anguish and struggle and grief, we get up. And so, what accompanies salvation is faith. The writer to this, of this letter is going to have a whole section on by faith, by faith, by faith and he's going to name names, single out events, faith in the face of the contest. It can be harsh. Faith can be a harsh experience with faithlessness is worse.

Thus, we consider our persecuted brothers and sisters, the writer of this letter will say towards the end of the letter, remember those who are in chains as though you are chained with them. Stay in reality. Wake up. You get nothing done for Christ by pretending that real things aren't so. We get it done by looking at what is before us, working with what we have, finding out solutions in Scripture. So, what is the solution of faith?

Resolve. To resolve within our hearts that we will serve unconditionally, Christ, because he has given us enough proof to do that and no one else has. Obedience. A lot of Christians are afraid of obedience.

The word. We all want it, but we all discover we can't produce it all the time. Somebody's going to come along and push those buttons, whether they are buttons to lure us into something that gives us a pleasure or to react in a way that does not give God pleasure. The wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Put that on your dashboard.

Well, that was supposed to be a little funnier than what it came out to be. A little break here. Obedience as best we can. It will be contested life long, so that's okay. Jesus knows how to deal with that. In us, the solution again is perseverance. 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 16. Therefore, do not lose heart even though our outward man is perishing, yet our inward man is renewed day by day. You know, part of preaching is slamming that which is wrong and encouraging that which is right in all of us, the speaker included. That keeps the balance. It's supposed to, at least.

And there's a good example. Christ says, you want joy, go after obedience. Do my will. If you love me, keep my commandments. Do you love me, Peter? Not like you want me, Lord. Do you love me, Peter?

Yes, but not like I want you. Three times, Peter had to go through that. Peter was not fired for giving the lesser answer. Each time Peter, that Peter said, you know I love you. Peter, do you agape me. Lord, I fileo you. I don't love you like you.

I thought I did, but I just don't have it. Christ said, tend my sheep, feed my sheep. Watch out for the flock.

He used them anyway. Even though Peter could not rise to that high standard that God calls us all to rise to, we should be strengthened by this, encouraged by this, each and every one of us. Truth. You want joy? You want things that belong to our salvation, those better things?

Truth, without additives, without supplements or modifications. That's where Christians get in trouble. They want to add to the truth.

They want to prop it up and improve it. What is the solution to this? Hate lies. That is the solution to loving truth. That which is false and fake and phony.

Don't embrace it. David in one place in Psalm 119 says, through your precepts I get understanding, therefore I hate every false way. God doesn't apologize for that verse.

He's the author of it, and he does all things well. That word precepts, rules, through your rules. You know how many Christians think that they should not be held to any rules when they come into the house of God? They can do whatever they want. They find people who have put rules up, they get very upset. But rules govern us.

There should be no reason why we are offended by them. In this particular church, for instance, in the sanctuary, we believe the word of God is high and lifted up. God says, if you blaspheme my name, the penalty according to the law of Moses is death by stoning. But I will honor my word above my name.

That's pretty high, is it not? A death sentence for blaspheming the name of God? But yet the word is even higher than that. Because the word is the expressed will of God.

It is the outcome of who he is. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. And so we give special attention to the word. And if there's a distraction, we look to eliminate the distractions because this is called the sanctuary. It sort of locks out everything else for an hour or so, so we can worship with as much attention as we can muster to the one who is worthy. There are those that get very upset when you do it this way.

They think that a distraction should be promoted, permitted. But through precepts I get understanding, through rules. I'm not going to run from them. I'm going to run to them if they come from God. I'm not going to find ways to weasel around them because I'm weak.

I'm going to find ways to get stronger to line up with them. Love. Well, when you don't have love, you can't leave this one out. Love belongs to everything we do, no matter how many times we hear it. It's so difficult to love some people all the time. That's life.

That's facing the fact. But I still have to love. I might not like a person, maybe the culture, maybe I just don't like them, but I have to love them.

And there is a great difference. Love is not motivated by mood, choice, except the choice of obedience to Christ, a submitted will to Him. Because we know what happens when love is not there. All of us have at some point have been a victim of lovelessness. We raise our children and we admire how much love they have in the home.

And we are concerned about how much lovelessness they're going to find outside the home. You've been listening to Cross-Reference Radio, the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia. As we mentioned at the beginning of today's broadcast, today's teaching is available free of charge at our website. Simply log on to crossreferenceradio.com. That's crossreferenceradio.com. We'd also like to encourage you to subscribe to the Cross-Reference Radio podcast. Subscribing ensures that you stay current with all the latest teachings from Pastor Rick. You can subscribe at crossreferenceradio.com or simply search for Cross-Reference Radio in your favorite podcast app. Tune in next time as Pastor Rick continues teaching through the book of Hebrews right here on Cross-Reference Radio.