Persevere

Today on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. 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? Here on Summit Life with Pastor J.D. Greer.

As always, I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. Today, Pastor J.D. is tackling a big question, one that Christians have debated for hundreds of years. Once you've been saved, you're secure forever and you can't ever lose that salvation, right?

Or can you? Pastor J.D. talks about this important question, describing the proof of true saving faith. It may not be the most comfortable topic, but it's absolutely essential for each of us. To evaluate where we stand with God. Today, Pastor J.D.

titled this message Persevere. It seemed like every word that came out of his mouth or every sentence needed a few expletives before it made sense to him. He bragged the entire time about girls that he was sleeping with.

Now, this is not to say that I have anything against guys with ponytails or tattoos or piercings. That's not the point of that. But just to say that this guy did not fit the profile of a normal church person. If you're gonna think profile of the unchurched, this guy would be pretty much what you would think about. And so about halfway through the game, I started to share my testimony with him about how I'd come to Christ the way you would share it with somebody who's never been in church before. And about three sentences into my story, he stops, he grabs the basketball, and he says, dude, are you trying to witness to me? And it threw me off a little bit, first of all, that he just knew the word witness. I was like, well, that's a church word.

How do you know that thing? He goes, you're trying to witness to me. He says, bro, that is so awesome. He says, nobody's tried to witness to me in several years.

He goes, this is the first time. He said, I guess I don't look the part anymore. He said, well, let me tell you a little bit about my background. He said, I grew up in a church, going with my grandmother to church. And he said, I went to vacation Bible schools, and I was always in church.

He said, when I was 14 years old, I went to a middle school student camp. He said, and man, that preacher got up there, and he preached a killer sermon. And I was so convicted about my sin, and I came forward at the response time, and I prayed, and I asked Jesus to come into my heart.

He said, man, I must have cried a thousand tears. He said, I got baptized at the end of the week. I started to read my Bible every day. I started an FCA group on my school campus. He said, I started going to youth group all the time. I went on mission trips. I memorized verses.

I even led two of my friends to Christ the first two years after I'd become a Christian. He said, then I hit my 16th year of high school, or not 16th year of high school, 16th year when I was in high school. He said, and his words were, I discovered sex. He said, I discovered sex, and I decided I liked sex, and I didn't want God telling me when I could have sex and when I couldn't have sex. He said, so I decided to put my relationship with God on hold for a little while.

He said, and that kind of went all the way through college. Then when I got to college, he said, I just decided I didn't believe in God anymore, period. He said, to be honest with you, he says, the reason I probably started to believe that God didn't exist, because I didn't want him to exist. He says, but, you know, however, now, he says, I don't even believe there's a God. He says, I live however I want. He said, that is such a faint and distant memory for me.

He said, but here is what is awesome. He said, I was raised, he says, the church that I was saved in was a Southern Baptist church. He said, and they have this doctrine called eternal security, which believes that once you've been saved, you're always saved. He said, and he looked at me, he said, aren't you a Baptist?

You know, awkward silence for me, and I didn't say anything. He said, I think I remember something like the church you go to is a Baptist church. He said, so here's what's awesome. He goes, even if you're right, even if there is a God, and even if Jesus is the only way, I'm still covered. He said, because I got saved. He says, clearly I'm in it because I prayed this really sincere prayer and I was a Jesus freak for like two years. He said, so even if you're right and there is a God and I'm wrong, I'm still okay, I'm still covered.

Isn't that awesome? He takes a basketball and he throws it to me and he's like, it's your shot. Now what do you say back to a person like that?

What do you say? I mean, just for the record, I do believe the Bible teaches eternal security. And here he had asked, he had prayed to ask Jesus into his heart. All indications were that he was sincere.

He showed immediate fruit, getting excited about Jesus, getting busy for him. Like I said, I believe the Bible teaches eternal security. I'll show you that here in just a minute. So was he right?

Was he right? Can't he, because he made a decision at some point in the past, live with the assurance that he is saved forever regardless of how he lives now? We're going to look at a passage of scripture today that addresses that very question. It is Hebrews chapter six. So if you have your Bible, I would invite you to take it out and open it to Hebrews six. Hebrews six, as you're turning there, let me first explain to you why it is that I do believe in what Christian theologians call eternal security, which is, again, the idea that once you've been saved by Christ, you are saved forever.

Here's why I believe that. John chapter six, verse 37. I'm going to give you a couple of verses here. You may just jot the references down.

You can study them more in depth later. John six, 37. All the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me, I will. Never.

That's a lot better. Never cast out. This is the will of him who sent me that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise all of them up on the last day. All that the Father gives to Jesus will come. All that come are saved.

None of them are lost. John 10, 27. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. Jesus gives his sheep eternal life, he says here, and they never perish, and the enemy, try as he may, not even the enemy can snatch them from the hand of Jesus. Romans chapter eight, verse 29. For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, and those whom he predestined, he also called, and those whom he called, he also justified, and those whom he justified, he also glorified.

Again, there is not one shred of room for anybody to be lost in that chain. He doesn't say some of those he predestined, he went on to justify, and then some of them he glorified. Like, you know, God's got a pretty good recidivism rate, and once he starts a process, he's got like 90 percent. He says all of them. Once God puts you on that train, you never get off.

And the conductor makes sure that you make it all the way to the station. So all those he predestined and called, they're the ones he justified, and all the ones he justified, they're the ones that he glorified. That's why I believe in eternal security. But with that knowledge, with that knowledge, knowing that we believe that, knowing that I believe that, I want us to read a warning in Hebrews six that seems, on the surface at least, like it's saying the opposite. Hebrews six, verse four. For it is impossible, in the case of those who have been once enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift and have shared in the Holy Spirit and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it's impossible 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. Now, before we unpack that verse or that set of verses, let's make sure that you understand the context, because it always helps whenever you're interpreting any verse to know the context of that verse. Last week I told you that the author of Hebrews brings up, in chapter five of Hebrews, a pretty obscure Old Testament prophet by the name of Melchizedek.

That's right. And right after he brings him up, remember I told you that the author seems to get hacked off that the people he's writing to don't already understand the stuff about Melchizedek? I mean, after all, these are Hebrew people. The Old Testament had been written in their language. They were the ones that were supposed to not only understand it, they were supposed to teach the rest of the world that. You're like, how do you know it's written to Hebrew people? Because the name is Hebrews.

That's how we know. So they were supposed to understand it, they were supposed to teach it to everybody else, and here they don't even understand their own Bible. And so he gets really hacked off at these people, and he goes off on this rant, starting in verse 11, chapter five, about this, Melchizedek, we got much to say, and it's hard to explain, since you people have become so dull of hearing, for though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need somebody to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. Then he starts talking about the difference between milk and meat, and he says to them that by this point in their lives, they really ought to be eating spiritual meat, but they still need to be bottle-fed milk. You know, when you're an infant, all you get is milk and pureed food. But if you're 15 years old and your mom's still cutting up your hot dog for you, or you're still nursing at 15, I mean, that's not, that's creepy. It's okay if you're an infant, but if you're older and you're still doing that, there's a problem.

And he's like, you know, here you are. You're not supposed to be infants anymore. And you're still infants, and you can't even take solid food.

We got to keep bottle-feeding you milk. So chapter six, verse one, Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrines of Christ, and 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. Now, real quick, just so you don't misinterpret that, he's not saying that we need to move on from Christ, right? Because I've told you this before, that spiritual growth is never growth beyond Christ. It's always growth deeper into Christ, right?

I mean, keep in mind, what he's saying is he wants them to go to Melchizedek to see how he is, how all the Old Testament points to Christ. So he's not talking about going beyond Christ. He's talking about learning to see Christ in everything. You never really grow in maturity beyond the gospel. He's talking about getting beyond the elementary things of the gospel. Are you getting a clear picture of what your faith looks like today? We'll get right back to our teaching in just a moment here on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. You know, we work hard here at Summit Life to stay engaged with you, our faithful listeners. And one way to be sure to stay plugged in is by following Pastor J.D. on social media. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, these are all tools that can help spread the good news of the gospel each and every day. With daily encouragement and shareable wisdom, you can send the message of hope to those you love simply by following us today. Search for Pastor J.D.

Greer on all your social platforms or visit our website for links to his daily content. Now let's return to our teaching for some more wisdom from God's word. Once again, here's Pastor J.D. Verse three, this we will do if God permits. So he's going to go back to discussing Melchizedek.

That's his point. I'm going to go back and start discussing Melchizedek. But then he says this, verse four, almost in passing. It's almost like, oh, you know, like a little mental, you know, what do you call that, stream of consciousness. Verse four, 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 crucified and once again the Son of God with their own harm and holding them up to contempt. All right. Wow. What does that mean? There's a number of problems, but there's 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 some people say, well, he's got to be talking to unsaved people because truly saved people cannot lose their salvation. Yet, it sure sounds like he's talking about a saved person, doesn't it? I mean, enlightened, tasted the heavenly gift, shared in the Holy Spirit, tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come.

That sounds like a saved person. So is he teaching that people who've been saved can lose their salvation and that if you lose it, you can never get it back? Well, that can be true because there are too many other places in the Bible that teach exactly the opposite from that. I start, when I study the Bible, I start with the assumption that the Bible doesn't contradict itself because I believe that the Bible is written by one author.

Yes, 40 different human authors, but one author through all of them, and I believe that one author never contradicts himself. So I start with the assumption that what looks like a contradiction is not a contradiction, and what I will tell you is this. In those places where you see an apparent contradiction in the Bible, those are the places that when you press on them, you'll find that the deepest, richest truth is usually underneath what looks like a contradiction. So I encourage you to press into it.

That's what I think you're going to see here. For me, having studied the Bible now for nearly 20 years, I will tell you that the Bible, discovering the Bible to me is like discovering a huge body of water. The first thing that you would notice when you come up on a body of water is you step and you're like, oh, it's wet. It's different than the ground I was just walking on. Then if you pick it up in your hands, you see it's pure. Then if you go out into it, you see it's deep. Then if you go all the way around it, you see it's all connected. It's all one body of water.

It's all the same stuff. Studying the Bible is like that. The first thing that I encountered about the Bible is, wow, this is different.

This is the Word of God. Then I encounter it's pure. It does something for my soul.

Then I'm like, whoa, it's deeper than I ever thought. Then after I studied the Bible, I'm like, it's all interconnected. It's all telling one story. It's the Gospel that keeps being put forward everywhere. It's the Holy Spirit speaking from Genesis to Revelation saying the same thing. All that I say is I don't think these things contradict. I think what you're going to find is that they harmonize beautifully and show you some unbelievably important stuff about the nature of true faith. Let me give you kind of a thesis statement that if you take notes, and I highly encourage you to take notes, I think statistically I can prove that you're much less likely to go to hell if you take notes than if you don't.

I would encourage you to write this down. This passage does not teach that you can lose your salvation but it does teach you something important about the nature of saving faith that is, it endures to the end. This passage does not teach that you can lose your salvation but it does teach you something very important about the nature of saving faith, namely that it endures to the end. I'm going to make two observations about this passage that I would encourage you to write down. Now, this first one, the actual sentence that I'm going to give you as my first point might be the longest point I've ever given at the Summit Church, all right? And I know that anybody who's a speech teacher in here will say this is not how you're supposed to, you're supposed to have short, punchy points.

I tried to shorten this one and I couldn't, so you're just gonna have to deal with it. Number one, number one, the writer is not trying to make a definitive statement about any one person's salvation. He is giving a general pastoral warning to a congregation made up of both genuine and superficial believers.

Why don't I read it again? The writer is not trying to make a definitive statement about any one person's salvation. Rather, he is giving a general pastoral warning to a congregation made up of both genuine and superficial believers. See, I believe those words, enlightened, shared in the Holy Spirit, tasted the goodness of God's word, I believe that these are more descriptions of the movement as a whole than they are of any one particular person. As people who are part of this movement, they have all shared, at least in some aspect, in each of those things. You see, in every congregation, including this one, there are people who get caught up in the movement but never really deal with Jesus Christ.

They participate externally. They come, they get excited, they learn the songs, they pray a sinner's prayer, they get baptized, they maybe join a small group, maybe even go on a mission trip, but it never represents for them a deep embrace of Jesus Christ. 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, what's humiliated and tortured for you?

If that does not move you, then what else is there left for me to say? You see the analogy he gives in the next verse? Go down to verse seven, look at this. For land that is drunk, the rain that often falls on it and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, that receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it's worthless, near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned. In other words, if you've got a piece of ground and you're a farmer, and after you plow the ground, after you fertilize the ground, after you properly seed the ground and it's watered and the environment is right, if that piece of ground only produces thorns and thistles, then what else do you conclude?

But then that piece of ground is worthless and just needs to be thrown away, needs to be cast out. In the same way, he says, right, 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 it. 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 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. You see the Bible teaches that once you've been truly saved you cannot lose it. But it also teaches that one of the signs of genuine faith is that it endures forever.

That's a big thing throughout the book of Hebrews. We have come to share in Christ if we hold our original confidence firm to the end. Hebrews 12, 15, see to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble and by it many become defiled or destroyed, bitterness and unforgiveness can grow up in somebody's heart and kill their faith.

I've watched that happen several times at this church and it causes you to fail to obtain the grace of God. Hebrews chapter 10 verse 38, my righteous one, God says, shall live by faith but if he shrinks back my soul has no pleasure in him. We are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed but of those who have faith and preserve their souls. Then Hebrews chapter six, the chapter you're in right now, jump down to verse 11, look at this, Hebrews six verse 11. We desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end.

You see that? You will have the full assurance of hope if you endure to the end. You will have the full assurance of hope only if you endure to the end. So on the one hand, I believe that once saved, always saved but on the other hand, that only those who endure to the end will be saved and that if you shrink back or fall away, you will not be saved. The only way that both of those can be true, that once saved, always saved and then those verses right there in Hebrews and that those can be true too, the only way they can both be true is if one of the signs of truly saving faith is that it endures forever. The faith that saves is the faith that endures. So how does your endurance look today? With a message about the importance of perseverance, you're listening to Summit Life with Pastor J.D.

Greer. J.D., can you tell us about our newest resource that we're actually offering completely free of charge? You know, when you get up in the morning, I feel like the first thing you could use if you're like me is some encouragement from God's word about His promises, His faithfulness and how when you feel overwhelmed and you feel defeated, He never feels that way and that He's already secured the victory. And so we have a new daily email devotional that will align with what you're learning and hearing here on the program Summit Life. It'll just reinforce some of the concepts, gives you some scriptures to begin your day meditating on.

What a great way to start the day. I don't like excess email, but when somebody's gonna put in front of me God's word and God's promises, that's a great way to start the day. So I'd love for you to go to jdgreer.com and sign up for this daily devotional.

It's a great way to catalyze that daily quiet time. So again, sign up for this free resource at jdgreer.com slash resources. After you sign up for Pastor JD's free daily devotional, take a look at our beautiful new Bible study through the book of Hebrews. It's a new 10-part Bible study based on our current teaching series. It's our way of saying thanks when you donate today to support the ministry of Summit Life at the suggested level of $35 or more.

Call 866-335-5220, or give and request this new resource online at jdgreer.com. I'm Molly Vidovich. Well, tomorrow we're continuing this important discussion about the assurance of salvation.

So please persevere with us to the end of this teaching. We'll see you again Thursday right here on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.