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Hebrews 6:13-20

Last week Joey talked about salvation, which is a theological term that’s about being saved from the wrath of God - and that’s something we’ll get into a bit later ​ ​ in the sermon. But for today I’d like to start out by revisiting Joey’s main question from last week...

Can someone lose their salvation?

Well, my family and I listened to Joey’s sermon while we were at the beach, and I completely agreed with him… Can someone lose their salvation? Absolutely not! It’s impossible for a believer to lose their salvation because...

Salvation is a gift from God. You cannot lose a gift that God gives you. However, you can reject that gift. ​ ​

[pic of I Kissed Dating Goodbye] I think of Harris. He’s a former pastor ​ and Christian author who last year publicly admitted that he’s no longer a Christian. You might remember that I talked about him and his faith deconstruction during our 1 Timothy series back in November.

Josh no longer believes in the gospel of . There were years where Josh did believe. And God’s word gives us a certainty that those who believe will inherit the gift of eternal life.

Does this mean that because Josh believed at one point in his life that he’s still good to go even though he doesn’t believe now?

No! Josh decided to reject the gift of salvation. He didn’t lose the gift - he’s rejecting it - and, I’m not here to pick on Josh… It’s just that he’s a good example because he’s rejecting the gospel publicly, and I know his books had an impact on many of us, including myself.

So again, Josh didn’t lose his salvation. He rejected it. And that’s what the writer of Hebrews is getting at…

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A believer cannot lose their salvation. Their eternal destiny is secure because of their loyalty to Jesus, who is our High Priest.

Now, what if Josh were to put his faith back in Jesus?

Well, the earlier chapters of Hebrews shouts from the rooftops that God’s ​ promise still stands! It remains open for anyone to come and receive the gift of ​ eternal life by putting their faith in Jesus. It’s all about a believing loyalty in Jesus.

But what about the popular saying: ‘Once saved, always saved’, as Joey ​ ​ mentioned last week?

‘Once saved, always saved’ is true of the believer who doesn’t reject Jesus and His gospel message.

If someone is rejecting Jesus’ gospel message… in other words, if someone ​ rejects…

● That Jesus is fully God and fully man ● That Jesus died for your sins ● Your own inability to be good enough for God ● The fact that Jesus is the only way to God

If someone rejects any or all of that, then that person doesn’t have the gift of salvation. Because to reject the gospel message is to reject the gift of ​ eternal life with God.

But if you believe the message of Jesus… If you are only loyal to Him, then ​ yes, you were once saved at the moment you first believed, and you are always saved, so long as you remain a believer.

That brings us to Hebrews 6:13-20.

The main idea here is that God’s promise of eternal life is clear, it’s ​ unchanging, and it’s confirmed with an oath. Those of us who believe in ​ 3

Jesus can be confident that our promised eternal life with God is a certainty. We will enter God’s rest.

The writer says in verse 19 that the hope (assurance) we have in God’s promise is like an anchor for the soul. [The boat is our soul, anchored on stormy waters that lead us away from our belief in Jesus]

Our anchor of hope is firm and secure. It’s not moving! It’s unchanging! Why? So that we don’t make a shipwreck of our faith.

And we can be certain of our eternal security because we have a High Priest who went behind the curtain on our behalf. Remember, we learned in previous sermons that going behind the curtain is just talking about being able to approach God.

Jesus approached God on our behalf and became our High Priest. That means He’s now our go-between, our mediator, between us and God.

And interestingly, Jesus became our High Priest forever in the order of .

So that brings us to chapter 7, a chapter that Joey so desperately wanted to avoid teaching! Why? Because scholars say that the topic of Melchizedek is the most complex topic in all of Scripture! There are so many rabbit trails to go down, and most of them only lead to more questions.

And, as much as I would love to just give you an information dump, I decided it would be wise to focus on the writer’s main idea for chapter 7.

So, that means I’m not going to go through this passage and try to explain everything that’s there. I’m just going to do my best to give you a general idea of what’s going on and why all of it matters for us today.

Let’s start by looking at chapter 7, verses 1-10

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The writer of Hebrews is referencing an Old Testament story from Genesis 14 where defeats some armies and rescues his nephew, Lot. So then after the battle, Abraham and the allied kings celebrated their victory in the Valley of Shaveh (Kings Valley).

One of these allied kings was Melchizedek. He was the king of Salem. Now, there are varying theories on this but the one that makes the most sense to me is that Melchizedek was the king of the area that we now call .

Jerusalem wasn’t always Jerusalem as we know it. In fact, before King conquered the city, it was under the control of the Canaanites.

[Diagram in Notes] That’s important because the people of the ancient world ​ would often name their kings after the gods they worshiped. So look at the name Melchizedek - Melchi means ‘king of’, and zedek means ‘righteousness.’ But Zedek is also at the same time the name of a main Canaanite god who was worshiped during the time of Abraham in the city of Salem (pre-Israelite Jerusalem).

So the author of Hebrews is right - Melchizedek means ‘king of righteousness’, but at the same time Melchizedek also means ‘my king is Zedek’.

Now, even though Melchizedek was most likely named after the Canaanite god, ​ ​ Zedek, the Scriptures tell us that Melchizedek worshiped Yahweh, the God ​ ​ ​ Most High. In fact…

Melchizedek (He) was a priest of Yahweh God! And that’s really significant! ​ ​

Let’s talk about priests for a couple minutes. In the minds of the original readers of Hebrews, priests of Yahweh God only came from one people group.

[display the chart below as I walk through it]

It goes all the way back to when God made a promise to Abraham. The promise was that Abraham would have descendants as numerous as the stars. That meant that God’s promise would continue on through Abraham’s lineage. 5

So then Abraham had his son , and Isaac had his son Jacob. Then God renamed Jacob as Israel. And Israel had 12 sons, who then became the 12 tribes of Israel.

Abraham → Isaac → Jacob (Israel) ↓ 12 Tribes of Israel

[add divided kingdom image] At one point in history, those 12 tribes split so ​ that there were the 10 in the North (called The Kingdom of Israel), and 2 in the South (called the Kingdom of ).

[add Levites to chart] One of the 10 tribes in the Kingdom of Israel were the ​ Levites. They were chosen to be the priests of Israel.

Abraham → Isaac → Jacob (Israel) ↓ 12 Tribes of Israel ↓ Tribe of (Priests)

So, the reason that the writer of Hebrews brings all of this up is because his ​ readers were thinking that for anyone to be a true priest of God, you needed to descend from the tribe of Levi.

The problem in their minds was that Jesus descended from the tribe of Judah, so how could He be a real priest?

Well, look at Melchizedek! He was around LONG before the Levites, and yet he was a priest of God.

And Melchizedek wasn’t a priest because of his family line. Look at verses 14-17...

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“For it is clear that our Lord descended from Judah, and in regard to that tribe said nothing about priests. 15 And what we have said is even more clear if another priest like Melchizedek appears, 16 one who has become a priest not ​ on the basis of a regulation as to his ancestry but on the basis of the power of an indestructible life. 17 For it is declared: “You are a priest forever, in the ​ order of Melchizedek.””

The writer of Hebrews is saying that Jesus is our legitimate High Priest ​ because He ordained Himself with an oath, and He can do that because He is God! It doesn’t matter what lineage Jesus came from, God declared it, and ​ that’s that!

So that’s what it means when the text says that Jesus is a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek. He’s a priest in the same way that Melchizedek was made a priest. Their priesthood was ordained by God and not man. The difference here is that Jesus will be our High Priest, forever.

But so what? Isn’t that all just a bunch of Bible history? How does any of this matter to us today?

Well, check out verses 18-25...

“The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless 19 (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw ​ near to God. 20 And it was not without an oath! Others became priests without ​ any oath [because of their family line], 21 but he became a priest with an oath ​ ​ when God said to him:

“The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: ‘You are a priest forever.’ ” (:4)

22 Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantor of a better covenant [promise]. 23 Now there have been many of those priests, since death ​ prevented them from continuing in office; 24 but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. 25 Therefore he is able to save completely ​ 7 those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.

Here’s the thing: God made a threefold promise to Abraham, but that’s not the only promise God ever made. There’s now an even better promise, and it’s through Jesus.

It’s a better promise because during the time of the Israelites, God set up a priesthood system through the Tribe of Levi. But none of those priests were exempt from death! None of them could be priests forever.

Jesus, on the other hand, conquered death! And because He lives forever, He is our permanent High Priest.

Therefore - check out verse 25 again: “Therefore he [Jesus] is able to save ​ completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.” ​

This verse is crucial! In fact, I would say this is the main verse of the entire passage. And in this verse there are three things I want you to notice…

1. Jesus is able to save completely!

So… what are people being saved from? ​ ​

Are people being saved from themselves? Are they being saved from this world? Are they being saved from an evil guy in a red suit with a pitchfork???

NO! People are being saved from the wrath of God! They’re being saved ​ ​ from God Himself. Jesus, who is God, is the only one who can save us from God.

Again, this all goes back to the gospel. But let me explain it this way… if you’ve seen the second American Gospel documentary then you’ve heard this before…

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We’re all sinners who cannot stand before a perfectly holy God - but what does that really mean?

Well, think about it this way…

If you took a key and scratched your neighbors remote control car, they’d probably be mad at you, and you might even need to pay a little to replace the car.

But what if you scratched your neighbors Honda Civic? The Honda Civic is worth far more than the remote control car. It’s a big deal to scratch someone’s car like this - in fact, it’s a crime!

Scratching a remote control car isn’t nice, but it doesn’t make you a criminal. But you are a criminal if you’ve purposely scratched the Honda Civic - Again, the Civic is worth so much more than the remote control car.

But what if we were really mad at our neighbor. My neighbor has some classic cars that are worth far more than a Honda Civic. What if I purposely dug my key into his classic car? My penalty would most likely be worse because the classic car is worth far more than the regular car.

Okay, but when I sin against God, I’m sinning against someone who is infinitely valuable. There’s no payment I could offer to make up for my sin against a perfectly holy God. Not even if I offered my own life! Even that wouldn’t pay the price for my sin.

And there it is. This is the gospel of Jesus. You and I sin against a perfectly holy God. Our sinfulness is a direct result of the fall of humanity in Genesis 3. But you know, it’s worse than we think. There are spiritual forces of wickedness who rebelled against God in those early Genesis chapters and still want to pull us away from God - they’re the storm that tosses the ship around as we mentioned earlier.

The truth is that we’re born into a losing battle, and without Jesus we cannot achieve victory. And by victory, I mean salvation: An eternal life with Jesus. 9

We can’t have victory through our own performance in this life because none of us are perfect. We cannot pay the penalty that God requires of us because of our sin. But rather than us taking on the penalty that we deserve, Jesus took it on for us.

After all: Only a perfectly holy God could fully repay the penalty that our ​ ​ perfectly holy God requires.

That’s how Jesus was able to save completely, because He is God!

Point #2 from verse 25 is this…

2. Jesus only saves those who come to God through Him

That’s the definition of a real believer. Someone who actually believes in Jesus is someone who continually comes to God through Him. This is someone who continually draws near to God (as 7:19 says).

Actually the greek behind the phrase, ‘draw near to God’, is in a tense that indicates present continuous action. In other words, drawing near to God isn’t a one time thing that happened in the past!

So, have you ever heard the idea that if someone says a prayer to accept Jesus into their life, then they’re good to go forever? As if it doesn’t matter if they end up losing their faith or not? If you’ve heard that, I need you to know that that idea is not biblical.

Listen to what Pastor John Piper has to say about this. He says, “If we do not ​ ​ ​ go on drawing near to God we have no warrant for thinking that we are being saved by the Lord Jesus.” ​ ​

Again, we’ve been saying this a lot in our study of Hebrews. A real believer is one who keeps on being a believer. They remain loyal to Jesus. If at any point they reject Jesus, they are then rejecting their gift of salvation.

That leads us to point #3 in verse 25… 10

3. Jesus is always praying for us!

That’s what it means that Jesus is ‘interceding’ for us. He is praying for us!

That’s really important. Praying for the people was actually one of the jobs of a priest. But Jesus is able to pray for us continually because He lives forever! His prayer for us never ceases.

Paul gets at this in Romans 8:34 where he says that Jesus is at the right hand of God and is interceding for us.

Honestly, for me.. This is the most impactful point of today’s study. Just knowing that Jesus is continually praying for me… the feeling is hard to describe.

The God who created all things, who holds all things together, is continually praying for those who continually draw near to Him.

As one scholar puts it, our eternal security as believers is “established ​ beyond question.” If we are drawing near to God throughout our lives, then we ​ have no reason to worry that we could ever lose our gift of salvation.

So… the sermon series is titled Why Jesus?

Why Jesus? Because He’s the only one who was able to provide a path for people to be made right with God. As the writer of Hebrews says...

26 Such a high priest truly meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. 27 Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all ​ when he offered himself.

This is why we need to choose to put our faith in Jesus. He is able to save those of us who continually draw near to Him, and when we draw near to Him, He continually prays for us on our behalf. 11

And as Pastor John Piper concludes…

“Is it not a wonderful thing ... to know that God bids us come? That this great, holy God of righteousness and wrath says, "Draw near to me through my Son, your High Priest. Draw near to me. Draw near to me."

This is God’s closing invitation this morning. His Word is saying: "Draw near to me through your High Priest. Draw near to me in confession… draw near to me in prayer… draw near to me as you meditate on my Word… draw near to me in trust and in joyous praise! Come. I will not cast you out." (my additions)

Let’s Pray