Rosie Ruiz” Hebrews 6:10-12 November 01, 2020
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South Congregational Church Dr. Adam Söderberg November 01, 2020 Sermon Series: Giving It All to God Part 4: “Rosie Ruiz” Hebrews 6:10-12 November 01, 2020 Alright my friends, I am in the fourth and final message in my sermon series entitled, “Giving It All to God.” We are in the letter to the Hebrews this morning. Let’s talk a little bit about the letter to the Hebrews first. One of the reasons that the letter to the Hebrews was written was to tell these new believers – we have to put ourselves in these folks’ shoes for a moment. Christianity is new. It hadn’t been on the scene before. So, they had been Jewish for their whole lives; their fathers had been Jewish, their mothers, their grandparents had been Jewish and their great grandparents had been Jewish as far back as they can remember. And now, all of a sudden, the fulfillment of all the Old Testament Jewish prophecies had come true, and that meant some things were going to change. We don’t do good with change, especially in the church. Let me tell you firsthand. One of the things the church despises the most is the one thing that it cannot avoid – change. So, I understand these folks here in Jerusalem, in the Jerusalem church. Things had changed, and Paul was writing this letter to remind them that, hey, you know this animal sacrifice thing (to which they had been so connected, was such a part of their worship)? It was no longer of any use. The idea that the death of a bull or a lamb or a sheep or a goat or a dove covering their sins – no, it doesn’t work. That’s not how it works. Those sacrifices were not intended to be forever. They were a precursor, a picture of the coming sacrifice of Christ. The idea that a living thing had to lose its life in order to cover the sins of the living started in the Garden of Eden, remember? They were naked in the beginning, and then they sinned and they realized their nakedness. So, to cover their nakedness, to cover their sin, God gives them what? Animal skins. An animal cannot live after it’s been skinned. So, for the first time, when Adam and Eve waked over to that rock and picked off the animal skins which God had prepared for them, perhaps they saw not to far off, the dead carcasses of two animals who had given their lives so that their sin could be covered. Well, that was institutionalized in the church, and the death of an animal covering sin continued on for thousands of years. But suddenly, they understood it was a precursor, it was a picture of the coming sacrifice of Christ. Now that Christ is here, they had served their purpose, these animal sacrifices. They were no longer needed. God’s people must now look only to Christ for redemption and salvation. The problem is, we are creatures of habit. We like order. We like stability. Don’t you hate it when you have to get a new phone? I know I am! You’ve got to learn how this old phone works. You knew how your old phone worked, why can’t they just make my old phone faster! But they have to change it. I don’t know about you, but I still haven’t gone up to Windows 10. I don’t want to have to learn something new. Change is hard. We are creatures of habit, and when something works for us, we want to continue to use it. (This is going to date me a little bit, but surprise surprise…) You know what technology this guy fought against? Cassette tapes. I was an 8-track tape man! And I was not going to give up my 8-track tapes for this newfangled technology of cassette tapes! It took me so long to realize the stupidity of that position and the error of my ways. I finally gave in and started repurchasing my music collection in cassette form about a month before CDs came out. I still have cassette tapes. I have a cassette player in my office, and one in my car. We like the way things used to be, and the Jews were very comfortable with the idea of animal sacrifice. That happens to a lot of Christians too. There are a lot of similarities here. I know when I first came here, there was a gentleman who had been a long-time member here. Let’s call him Joe because I don’t want to name his name. He no longer worships here. Joe and I hit it off. We were friends… at first. And then we came to a place in our theology where we butted heads, and I could not convince Joe of the truth. The conflict South Congregational Church Dr. Adam Söderberg November 01, 2020 was this: Joe was one of those people, and there are many, who believe as long as you’re a good person and as long as you do good things, you will be able to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. And I understand that thought process, but that’s not in here. In here, it has nothing to do with what you do. It is only and completely based upon what Christ did. Only because of Jesus and His sacrifice on the cross can we be saved. John 6:29 says, The only work I require from you is to believe in the one I have sent. Our faith in Jesus is what saves us. John 14:6, very clear: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” Now, I understand why Joe wanted to believe this. Because there were people he loved that were not Christians. And he couldn’t wrap his head around the idea that those beautiful, special, good people that he loved wouldn’t enter the Kingdom of Heaven. I’m sorry, Joe. I’m in sales, not management. I didn’t write the Book; I just read it. The offer for salvation is for everyone, but it needs to be received, it needs to be accepted. It’s only through Christ that we are saved. Now, these folks thought, I like animal sacrifice, I’m used to animal sacrifice, I understand animal sacrifice. I just want to keep doing animal sacrifice. Now, there were a couple reasons for that, which we’re going to talk about in a minute. But you have to hear me, folks. It’s important. Jesus Christ, and only Jesus Christ and what He accomplished on Calvary is what opens the gates to salvation. Now, I am not saying it doesn’t mean we have to do good things. Not in the least! Of course not! Of course we do good things. It just doesn’t earn us our way into heaven. We don’t do good things to be saved; we do good things because we are saved. Because once God takes our stony hearts out and replaces it with a heart of Christ, we can’t stop ourselves now. We are kinder. We are more patient. We are more loving and forgiving. We want to serve our community. We want to help those in need. We can’t stop it. It’s instinctive because now it is a part of us. So, yes, we still do good things, and we need to do good things as evidence of our conversion. And God is paying attention to the evidence. That’s where we’re going to be going this morning, so please join me in the unison prayer as we prepare to study the Word of God. Let us pray. Lord, upon the pages of this book is Your story. It is also our story. Open our eyes that we may see, our ears that we may hear, our minds that we may understand, and our hearts that they may be transformed. In Jesus’ name. Amen. 10 For God is not unjust. He will not forget how hard you have worked for him and how you have shown your love to him by caring for other believers, as you still do. 11 Our great desire is that you will keep on loving others as long as life lasts, in order to make certain that what you hope for will come true. 12 Then you will not become spiritually dull and indifferent. Instead, you will follow the example of those who are going to inherit God’s promise because of their faith and endurance. [Hebrews 6:10-12] God will not forget how hard you are working for Him. He will not overlook that which you are doing with your new life in Christ. Now, one of the things that jumped out to me when I read this preparing this message was in verse 11, it says, our great desire. I always wonder, who is our? Who is the group whose desire this is? Could be Paul, who wrote Hebrews. Could be Luke or Barnabas or Silas or Timothy who often traveled with Paul, they could be part of the our. It could be Priscilla, Aquila, Apollos, Philip. I don’t know. But there was a group of believers whose desire for the Jerusalem church was that these new Christians would keep the faith – the new faith in Christ – and not turn back to their old practices of animal sacrifice and the belief that if I do something I can earn my way into heaven.