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NewCity Orlando Sermons
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NewCity Orlando Sermons
Hebrews: Unshakeable | Hebrews 5:11-6:20
Assistant Pastor Ryan Gawrych continues our Hebrews series, preaching from Hebrews 5:11-6:20. Pastor Ryan challenges listeners to confront barriers that hinder spiritual maturity, identifying complacency, empty religious practices, isolation, self-reliance, and skepticism as significant obstacles. He encourages the congregation to move beyond spiritual infancy and complacency by actively engaging in their faith through practice and community involvement.
The sermon underscores that spiritual maturity comes from active discipleship, not passive familiarity with religious rituals. Pastor Ryan emphasizes that true faith involves fully placing one's hope in Jesus, overcoming barriers that keep believers from fully trusting Him. Jesus is presented as the steadfast anchor for the soul, who overcomes every spiritual barrier—complacency, religion, isolation, self-reliance, and skepticism—ultimately securing believers' eternal hope through His unchangeable promise and priesthood.
Hello everyone. This is Pastor Damian. You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, orlando. At New City, we believe all of us need all of Jesus for all of life. For more resources, visit our website at newcityorlandocom. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2:Our scripture comes from Hebrews 5, 11 through chapter 6, 20. About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing. For, though, by this time you ought to be teachers. You need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on. Milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child, but solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment, trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.
Speaker 2:Therefore, let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith towards God and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits, for it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been 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, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to content, for land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it and produces a crop useful to those whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God, but if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned. Though we speak in this way, yet, in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things, things that belong to salvation, for God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do, and we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness, to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish but imitators of those who, through faith and patience, inherit the promises. For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying Surely I will bless you and multiply you. And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise, for people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes, an oath is final for confirmation.
Speaker 2:So, when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise, the unchangeable character of his purpose.
Speaker 2:He guaranteed it with an oath so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.
Speaker 2:We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place, behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
Speaker 2:For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying surely I will bless you and multiply you. And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained a purpose, for people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this, a sure and steadfast anchor to the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. This is God's word.
Speaker 1:Thank you, god. Thank you, josh, for reading that. That text was longer than I remember it being when I was working on this sermon. Just slide after slide, also newly minted, and I get the passage on whether or not you can lose your salvation. I don't know what's going on there. Just a heads up. This morning my family we're dealing with a cold so I may cough more than usual, so I'm going to pull a Pastor Ben here and I don't have a Starbucks cup. I have a Toy Story mug. It's my six-year-old daughter's.
Speaker 1:Anyway, speaking of childish things, I want to take you guys back 21 years ago, to the summer of eighth grade. For me transitioning into high school. I can't even believe. If I was 13, 21 years ago. That seems strange.
Speaker 1:That summer, me and my childhood best friends we all lived near a cul-de-sac together. We had this brilliant and questionable idea to build a three-story tree house, and this tree house was gonna be in the backyard of my friend's house. His parents had trees back there, so they would never know it was covered, so they couldn't see this of my friend's house. His parents had trees back there, so they would never know it was covered, so they couldn't see this three-story tree house and it was also ethically questionable because we were sourcing our resources from a neighboring subdivision and there were new houses being built. And so we decided to get on our bikes and take the biggest piece of plywood we could find and, around four or five o'clock in the evening, go load up that plywood with two by fours and all the extra nails and screws we could find, and that's what became our tree house. Well, by the time the tree house was finished three stories we nailed two by fours all the way up this tree. So we get to the third. I'm just now realizing my parents are here. I don't even know if they remember this happened.
Speaker 1:We get to the third floor. It's finished, we can relax. This is where we're going to do our homework after school. And one of our friends said you know, we really need a zip line to get down from this. We can't come back down the way we came up. We've got to get a zip line. So one of our friends somehow got his parents to get a canned box of bungee cords from Home Depot which those are not the bungee cords you want for a zip line and a two-inch pulley that we put some wooden dowels in and I can still remember one of our friends, little Alan Ford, looking back at us and he looked up and he said do you think it will hold? And to which we all said absolutely. And he plummeted straight down three stories and we didn't see him for a week after that.
Speaker 1:But I tell you this story from my childhood because we all have that question at some point in our lives. Will this hold? Can I trust this? And as we age that question becomes more important. It may no longer be tree houses, but it's relationships and jobs and investments, spiritual and material investments. So can I trust this? Can I really put the full weight of my hope into this? Can I put all of who I am into this?
Speaker 1:And as we come to our text this morning, I believe that what we find is that that's really the question that the Hebrews are wrestling with. Can I put the full weight of my hope on Jesus? Some of them were tempted to remain in the safe zone of familiar religious practices and old ways of thinking, but in essence they weren't sure if Jesus had the load-bearing capacity to sustain their faith, and that question never really gets old. You know there's a vast expanse of time between us and the Hebrews, but we share the common experience of what it means to be human. We can hope a little bit harder in visible things and invisible things. We know what it's like to mitigate risk, to hesitate, to hold back, to keep part of our hope anchored elsewhere, just in case Jesus doesn't turn out to be who he says he is. And so it wouldn't be surprising if many of us came here even this morning with that very question on our minds and hearts. Can I put the full weight of my hope on you, jesus? See, for the Hebrews the invisible reality of Christ didn't feel as certain as the visible rituals of the old covenant, or at least that's what they were tempted with. But we're not so far off from them as we would like to think.
Speaker 1:For us, maybe, it shows up in the realm of career and success. You believe in Jesus. But deep down, your real sense of security comes from knowing your career is stable and your resume is growing. Maybe it's in the realm of wealth and lifestyle. You trust in Jesus. But your financial cushion that's what gives you a real sense of peace your investments, your 401k. What does your savings account look like? Maybe it's in the realm of families and relationships. You love Jesus, but your real sense of identity is wrapped up in your family's success, how your kids turn out, how they're excelling, maintaining a good home.
Speaker 1:These all represent what I'm calling spiritual comfort zones. And spiritual comfort zones are those places in our lives where we go to avoid risk, where we flock to to avoid pressing further and deeper into our faith because spiritual growth is uncomfortable. So we mitigate our risk and we hedge our bets and we have those backup plans. But here's the thing Every spiritual comfort zone is simultaneously a barrier to Jesus. Every spiritual comfort zone is simultaneously a barrier to Jesus. Every spiritual comfort zone is simultaneously a barrier to Jesus. And so this morning I want to look at our passage from that perspective, from the perspective of barriers. I think there's five barriers in our text this morning. So we're going to go through five barriers. The last one will be our conclusion, and the first barrier is the barrier of complacency, and I get that from verses 5, 11 to 14. So if you want to turn to your Bible there now, we'll be working through that. So we're in chapter 5 and then the front half of 6. So we're working through 5, 11 to 14 right now.
Speaker 1:Now, one of the most interesting things about this passage, our text this morning, particularly 6, as we head up to the opening verses of 6, is that it shouldn't even really be here. It shouldn't even really be part of the book of Hebrews. This section the back half of 5 and the first half of 6, is actually a detour. What the author wants to be doing is he wants to be unfolding the riches of Christ's priesthood and connecting it to Melchizedek, but he can't do it. He can't do it why? Because the Hebrews have become complacent or, as we'll see, dull. Look with me at 5, 8 to 11. So 8 to 11 precedes just a couple verses our text this morning, but it sets up the point that I'm making here.
Speaker 1:8 to 11 in chapter 5, it says and being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest, that is, jesus, after the order of Melchizedek. And then our passage begins in verse 11. About this we have much to say, but it's hard to explain because you have become dull. So these people are apparently sluggish, they're slow to engage. But more than that, excuse me, the author says they're spiritual infants, people who should be able to talk about things like christ and melchizedek, but unfortunately they can't because they still need milk. Verse 12 now here's the thing. The hebrews don't lack intelligence. What they lack is engagement. Some beautiful things about jesus are right in front of them, but they're not able to respond to it. And this is actually a really big deal to jesus. Think about revelation 3, when he's talking to the churches, the church at sardis, jesus says you have the reputation of being alive, but you're dead.
Speaker 1:Jesus says in matthew's gospel that there will be a day where people will stand before him on the last day, fully expecting to be welcomed in, only to hear the words depart from me. I never knew you Listen. Jesus makes it clear that one of the most dangerous spiritual conditions is not rebellion, it's complacency. In other words, it's possible to feel spiritually safe while actually being in great danger. Our physical realities and bodies will tell us even. It's possible to be comfortable and near death at the same time. And the reason complacency this is important, the reason complacency is so dangerous is because it doesn't feel dangerous. It doesn't feel like rebellion, complacency, just feels like nothing. How wrong could it be?
Speaker 1:My wife and I, many of you may know, just welcomed our fifth child, isla. She's strapped to her right now, as she is most Sunday mornings, and that was late December, so I guess she's almost three months old now, and one of my favorite things to do is to get home from work and I ask Sierra if she's fed Isla, and if she has, I'm in luck because that means I get a milk-drunk baby, and if anyone has ever had a milk-drunk baby, I get a milk drunk baby, and if anyone has ever had a milk drunk baby, it's one of God's greatest gifts in the world. There's smiles, there's giggles and there's long naps, and that's that's really what I'm looking for. So I get home, I get on the couch and I take Isla and I'll put her on my chest and she'll start to go to sleep and I'm thinking maybe I'll be there for 30 minutes or so, then I'll get back to doing what I need to do typically. Typically, I'll throw on a show, maybe Netflix, or something like that. Before I know it though, I'm six episodes deep into a baking competition. I care nothing about Every single one of my limbs lost, circulation and responsibility is but a distant memory to me. Sierra's actually said we've had this discussion. She thinks I do this so that I can get out of the nighttime bedtime routine with our four other kids, and I do so public confession.
Speaker 1:But spiritual complacency is a lot like that it doesn't announce itself, there's no flashing red lights and before you know it you're spiritually motionless. And if there's one thing our text makes clear up to this point, it's this, and it's important you don't just drift into maturity. You can drift away from maturity, but you don't drift into maturity, you have to work at it. One pastor I admire said this before. He said it's easy to be a fan of Jesus. He goes on to say in many parts of the Western world Jesus still has cultural appeal. Some admire his ethical teaching, others appreciate his love for the marginalized and some even see him as an inspiring historical figure. You guys may even have friends and know people in your own life who that's true of. But here's the thing A fan is not a Christian because a fan is not a disciple. A fan is not a Christian because a fan is not a disciple. And that's exactly the problem.
Speaker 1:Here, like so many other places in scripture, hebrews is telling us that spiritual maturity comes not just through hearing but through doing. Look with me at verse 14, it says the mature have their powers of discernment trained by what? Constant practice, constant practice. Listen, you won't ever experience the fullness of Jesus if your understanding of the Christian life is mostly characterized by absorbing information. You have to follow Jesus with your hands, with your feet and, most importantly, this text is telling us with our hearts. In other words, the antidote to dullness of hearing is zealous doing. You need both of those things to live a flourishing Christian life and to experience the fullness of Christ Hearing and doing so.
Speaker 1:At least one question we have to ask ourselves this morning before we move on, is am I just a fan of Jesus or am I following him? Where have you stopped responding to Christ's call in your life? Because the warning of Jesus in these opening verses is very clear If Jesus no longer moves us, it's not because he's changed, it's because we have. Maturity comes through practice, trust grows through use and discipleship happens when we stop settling and we start seeking. So that's the barrier of complacency. But there's another barrier and that's the barrier of religion.
Speaker 1:And now we'll get into chapter six. I get this from six, one to eight Again, if you want to look there. Chapter six, verses one to eight barrier of complacency. Now the barrier of religion. And I want to be up front with what I mean by that before we get too far into this, just so we're not building anything up and you have a clear idea of where I'm going with this. What I mean by the barrier of religion is it's possible to be really close to spiritual things and be spiritless. It's possible to be near the family of God and far from the Father. Look with me at the first two verses of chapter 6.
Speaker 1:Therefore, the author says Therefore, let us leave the elementary or basic doctrines of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washing, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment. The author lists foundational teachings here Repentance, faith, teachings about washing excuse me prayer, resurrection, judgment. These are all good things. But here's the issue None of these things are uniquely Christian, are they? Remember the audience here? Likely Jewish Christians. Every Orthodox Jew in the first century would have affirmed all of these things. These are all things they would have been cool with.
Speaker 1:See, the problem wasn't that they were rejecting Jesus. It's that they weren't quite sure he alone was enough, or at least that's what they were being tempted with the idea of that. They wanted him, but they also wanted their rituals, just in case. In other words, religion had become a way to hedge their bets and in the process, religion itself, a gift from God, had become a barrier to God. Now notice also that the author doesn't say okay, since you're still immature, let me give you more milk.
Speaker 1:Paul does that elsewhere in scripture, in 1 Corinthians, 2 or 3. I can't remember where it is. He says to the spiritually immature in Corinth he says I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it and you still aren't ready for it. But here the author's remedy isn't to stoop down, it's to lift them up. It's a different approach altogether. At verse one look at verse one he says let us go on or let us press on. It was in our call to worship this morning from Paul and Philippians. Let us press on. See, the Christian life ought to be one of constant self-assessment, both of ourselves and of our brothers and sisters, and that's not judgment. The and of our brothers and sisters, and that's not judgment. The sign of a spiritually mature body is that we can speak truth and love to one another and receive it. Well, jude tells us this at the end of his letter. If you guys have, if it's been a while since you've been in Jude, it's very short, you can go home and read it today.
Speaker 1:At the end of Jude there's one of my favorite lines in all of scripture. He tells us what our responsibility is to one another. We have one responsibility and that is to keep one another in the love of God. Ultimately, jesus does that, but he's given us the responsibility and the gift and privilege of doing that as well. And Jude says there's two ways of doing that. There's two ways we keep one another in the love of God. He says well, one, you can have mercy on those who doubt. Or two, you can save others by snatching them out of the fire. That's what the author of Hebrews is doing here. Sometimes we stoop down, other times we call up, but the author of Hebrewsrews is is calling them to press onward towards the barrier of religion. He's snatching them out of the fire and that really is the danger of verses four to six.
Speaker 1:If you've ever had the question, can I lose my salvation? You've most likely been pointed to this passage. But four to six isn't really talking about whether or not we can lose our salvation. Look, look with me real quick at verses four to six isn't really talking about whether or not we can lose our salvation. Look with me real quick at verses four to six. We'll read through some of those things there. These people had been enlightened okay, likely baptized, tasted of the heavenly gift, possibly the Lord's Supper, shared in the Holy Spirit okay, at the very least, if it wasn't the Holy Spirit, they at least shared in the gifts of the covenant community a spirit-filled covenant community, and experienced the powers of the age to come. They witnessed miracles. They were not void of Jesus entirely, but they were at risk of not experiencing him in the way that Jesus desires all of us to experience him, which is with richness and a fullness and a depth of both mind and heart.
Speaker 1:Look, I intentionally decided not to make my sermon this morning about centered around the question whether or not you can lose your salvation, and I did that because this text isn't trying to answer that question either. It's not even suggesting that you can. But I do want to say this very briefly about that whether or not, you can lose your salvation. The reason you can't lose your salvation is because you can't lose what Jesus has given you in terms of salvation. You can't lose what Jesus has given you. More importantly, jesus can't lose what the Father has given him. You can't lose what Jesus has given you. Jesus can't lose what the Father has given him. You can't lose what Jesus has given you. Jesus can't lose what the Father has given him. John 10. Go home today and spend 10 minutes in John 10. I am the good shepherd. I leave the 99 to go after the one. My sheep know my voice. I will not lose any of them. Jesus can't lose what's been given to him. This text isn't about the possibility of losing your salvation. It's the possibility of the barrier of religion. The real warning of this passage is that you can be surrounded by the things of Jesus and still miss him.
Speaker 1:A helpful way to think about this and it's kind of relevant when we talk about falling away, potentially falling away is there was a falling away of sorts that happened around COVID. We all had to leave some version of leaving the church or experiencing it in a new way. Some never returned. We got comfortable, you know, with church from a distance. Some never returned, some did, and you know.
Speaker 1:Another hot topic during that time was vaccines. Of course it still is to this day. But the point of a vaccine is it's helpful here. A point of a vaccine is it's supposed to give you a weakened form of the disease itself so that hopefully, your body creates antibodies and by the time you come, or whenever, that is, whenever you come into contact with the disease itself, you either are symptomless or you experience it to a lesser extent than you would have otherwise, it, to a lesser extent than you would have otherwise. Spiritually speaking, it's possible to be immunized against Jesus. You can be exposed to just enough Christianity to feel safe when in reality you're still very much exposed.
Speaker 1:Listen, it's possible for people who think they're closest to God to be furthest from Him. That is a warning. And it's possible for people who think they're closest to God to be furthest from him. That is a warning and it's scary. It's every bit as scary as the question of whether or not you can lose your salvation.
Speaker 1:But that's not what this text is about. It's about the barriers that we put in front of Jesus, between us and Jesus, particularly here the barrier of religion. So the last thing I'll say here is Jesus gives us two things to counteract every barrier we come up against in our lives. He gives us his spirit, which we can't spend as much time as I'd like to this morning talking about, but he gives us each other. He gives us the church, he gives us brothers and sisters and spiritual mothers and fathers. And so that'll lead us into our next point, which is the barrier of isolation.
Speaker 1:So we've looked at the barrier of complacency, religion and now isolation. And I get this from verse nine to 11. Six, nine to 11. We weren't meant to follow Jesus alone. That may seem obvious, but I think it's worth repeating. We weren't meant to follow Jesus alone. That may seem obvious, but I think it's worth repeating. We weren't meant to follow Jesus alone. We need one another to call us back when we drift, to challenge us when we start clinging to old patterns.
Speaker 1:Now, this point might not be obviously apparent when you look at this text at first glance, but I do think it's here. Look with me at verse 9. It says Though we speak this way, yet in your case beloved, though we speak this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things, things that belong to salvation. This is the only time in the entire letter that the author refers to the Hebrews as beloved. It's the only time entire letter that the author refers to the Hebrews as beloved. It's the only time and that's significant because after all the strong warnings, he stops and reminds them of who they are. That's because he knows he's not just speaking to individuals, he's speaking to brothers and sisters and what he's doing is he's anchoring them back into the body of believers, he's giving them some of their identity back. And that's because he knows that the Christian life and Christian growth in the Christian life doesn't happen in isolation.
Speaker 1:Springtime is here or about. I don't know what goes on with that. What is that thing up north that's like, yeah, the groundhog. I can never remember that. I don't know if it's winter or spring. In Florida it's always spring or summer. Anyway, weather is warm. It was hot yesterday, and so barbecues are out, people are grilling, and you'll know if you've ever used a charcoal grill before.
Speaker 1:One of the things you'll notice is that when you pull a coal from the fire, it doesn't go out instantly. So it might be a little red. You can tell it's hot. It's still burning, but it will eventually go out. And that's what happens when you try to do Christianity alone. At first we might feel fine, we're still glowing, still warm, maybe even for a season on fire. But if you give it enough time, the coal cools, the flame fades and the light will die. That's what happens when we pull away from the Christian community. It might not happen overnight, but over time our faith cools, convictions fade and we forget who we really are.
Speaker 1:You know, one of the most common lies we believe when we struggle spiritually is I just need to work this out on my own. It's a busy week. It's been a busy month. I've got this project. It's going to be finalized in a couple weeks. I just need to get to that finish line. I can do this myself. I'll work it out on my own and then I can come back into community.
Speaker 1:But faith was never meant to be a private project. It it's always meant to be. It was designed by God to be a communal pursuit. When we isolate, we forget who we are. When we isolate, we drift toward false identities. When we isolate, we stagnate. And that is why this community right here, all of us in this room is so essential, and this community is different than any other community you will ever experience in this life.
Speaker 1:Herman Bovink is a theologian from the late 19th century, early 20th century, and he has many of you may be familiar with this works in here, but he has this really great essay that he wrote early on in his career. It's called the Kingdom of God, the Highest Good, and in that essay he says this about the community of God. He says the kingdom of God is a kingdom of free personalities where each personality has reached its full development. But it is also a kingdom of free personalities who do not live separated from each other like individuals, but who together constitute a kingdom and are bound to each other in the most complete and purest community. Listen, we're not just a club of shared interests. We're not connected to one another by mere hobbies and backgrounds and careers. We may share some of those things, but that's not what is bringing us here. Those things haven't formed this community. We are bound by Jesus himself. No other community in the world can claim that. Listen, every single one of you is here this morning, not because of what you're interested, but because of who capital W is interested in you. Jesus made this, jesus made New City. He's continuing to make New City and because of that our unity is not fragile. We can have confidence as we move forward in life together, even amidst transitions. Jesus has made this community, so are you trying to follow Jesus alone? Have you drifted from community? You know, community started about a month ago, month and a half ago.
Speaker 1:Do a quick self-assessment. This is about the time that we start to pull away a little bit, because life gets busy and we tell ourselves we'll come back at the end of the semester. How's your attendance in your community? How faithful are you being to your circle? Press on. We were never meant to survive in isolation, which leads us to our next barrier. So complacency, religion, isolation and self-reliance.
Speaker 1:Look with me at verse 12. The author says so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who, through faith and patience, inherit the promises. You know, it's fascinating that the remedy to spiritual sluggishness isn't more independence, more private time, more alone time, more self-determination. It's imitation. And it's fascinating that it's imitation, because imitation is something that we deeply resist. In our culture. Imitation feels like a step backwards. We celebrate originality, self-expression, authenticity, carving your own path, and one of the most overused phrases, and it's beaten to death at this point is be true to yourself, follow your heart. We've heard it all before, but it's the time in which we live and we know it well. Find your own way, don't conform.
Speaker 1:Now there's a way in which, with this illustration, I'm going to contradict what I'm saying. I hope it doesn't come across that way, but I just said, pop culture tends to contradict the virtue of imitation, and what I'm going to do for us this morning is pull us back to the greatest cultural decade that ever existed, which is the 90s, and give you an example from the Lion King. Disney's 90 had it figured out. Disney's 90 had it figured out. So there's this scene in the Lion King. We all know it well and I'm going to give away the ending. So if you haven't seen it, I think it's been like 35 years.
Speaker 1:But there's a scene in which Mufasa dies. Simba's uncle, scar, has sort of you know, put together this extravagant plan about how he's gonna kill Simba's father. Mufasa dies and Simba leaves. He can't go back. Scar's on the throne and he goes on this little personal journey to find his identity, but also in some sense, to leave some of his responsibility behind. Eventually he comes back and you guys can picture that scene. It's nighttime, he's on the planes and the skies are shining up in the sky. It's clear sky, no clouds, just beautiful stars. And his father's face comes together in the stars Mufasa and Mufasa. And Mufasa says this this is a line from a Disney movie. He says you have forgotten who you are, so you have forgotten me also. You have forgotten who you are, and so you have forgotten me.
Speaker 1:Simba thought he could make his own way. Mufasa calls him back and what he's doing is he's reminding him of who he is. That's exactly what the author of Hebrews is doing here. He's reminding us that faith is not a self-made journey. So the next logical question is well, what does biblical imitation look like? Well, jesus doesn't say express yourself. Jesus says deny yourself. So the next logical question is well, what does biblical imitation look like? Well, jesus doesn't say express yourself. Jesus says deny yourself. And that's a hard sell because we've been conditioned to think that self-expression is the ultimate good. But Jesus says that to truly find life, you have to lose it. It's the only way that means there will be moments in life you can be sure of this if you have to deny yourself in order to find life, if you have to lose your life to find life, there will be times and moments in this life when following Jesus feels like you are dying. There will be times when obeying him feels like you're losing something essential to who you are. There will be days when the path of discipleship feels like it's stripping away something core to your identity. But here's the paradox and here's the promise. That's exactly how you become your true self. The gift of authenticity is at the end of the path of imitation. The gift of authenticity that we're all after is at the end of the path of imitation. Listen, when Jesus says follow me, he's not trying to erase you. Jesus isn't going around this world copying, pasting himself all over the place somehow. This is one of the great mysteries of our faith and I would just encourage you if you're new to Christianity and you don't know what it means to follow Jesus yet, get comfortable with mystery. One of the great mysteries of our faith is that when we follow Jesus, he's able to make us both like him and more like the version of us who he thought up in the first place. We don't become less of who we are. We become more fully who we were meant to be. You don't lose yourself when you follow Jesus. You find yourself. So Hebrews reminds us that we weren't meant to figure it all out on our own, and that Jesus knows us better than we know ourselves. What Hebrews offers us is Christ reliance as an antidote to self-reliance on the path to life. So we've looked at the barrier of complacency, religion, isolation, self-reliance. But there's one more barrier and we get that from verses 13 to 20, and that's the barrier of skepticism. And this is going to be our conclusion. I have no idea what time I'm at, okay, no, I don't know what time I'm at, but we'll conclude here. The barrier of skepticism. We get this from verses 13 to 20. We struggle with promises, we struggle with promises, we struggle to keep them, we struggle to believe them, and there's any number of reasons for this, but maybe, maybe one reason is because we've been let down before. Maybe we know what it's like to hope in something and that thing we're hoping in never fully materializes. So we don't get excited about things anymore because we don't want to be let down. Maybe, deep down, we know our own limitations because we've broken promises before, and so when God makes a promise. What we do is we map our own experience of what it's like to receive and give promises to other humans and we map that onto him and we say that must be how God works. Can I trust him? Can I put the full weight of my hope in this Jesus? That is the barrier of skepticism. And here's the problem with skepticism. What skepticism does is it keeps us on the edge of trust, close enough to consider Jesus, but never fully leaning on him. It keeps us on the edge of trust, close enough to consider Jesus, but never, ever fully leaning on him. So we never experience him the way that he intended us to, even in this life, in the land of the living, as we spoke about earlier life, and the land of the living, as we spoke about earlier. And skepticism feels safe, much like complacency. There's always a little insidious component to each one of these barriers it's that they don't feel dangerous. Skepticism works like complacency because it feels safe, because it keeps us from risk, but what it's really doing is it's keeping us from rest. And yet Hebrews is saying you don't have to wonder if Jesus will hold. Look at verse 13. For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself. God has no higher authority. He can't swear by the heavens because he made them. God can't swear by a king because he crowns them. God can't swear by a judge because he rules them. He can't swear by the stars because he named them. He can't swear by the mountains because he rules them. He can't swear by the stars because he named them. He can't swear by the mountains because he moves them. He can't swear by the nations because he names every one of them. There's no higher authority than God, and so he swears by himself. And here's why that matters. That means that the certainty of God's promises aren't resting in our ability to hold on to them, but in God's ability to hold on to us. The certainty of God's promises don't lie with us, they lie with him, and that's a good thing. That's what Hebrews is telling us. God does in Christ. In Christ, he says I will forever hold on to you. In Christ, he says I will overcome every barrier between you and I Verse 19, this is where we'll end. He says we have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul. Listen, brothers, sisters, God anchors your soul, your very soul to himself in Christ. Isn't that incredible? You're not in danger of falling away. You are anchored to the Father himself, your very soul, through his son, jesus Christ. But you know what else he does? Look at the back half of verse 19. He gives us a Jesus that enters into the inner place behind the curtain. Listen, if you hear nothing else this morning, cling to these words. Jesus takes us places we can't go on our own. Jesus takes us places we could never go on our own, namely into the presence of God. Namely into the presence of God, and this is what that means. This is why it matters for us this morning. There's no barrier between you and God that Jesus hasn't already overcome. I'm aware of naming all these barriers, the way it could make us feel internally. There's a distance that we might experience, but there's no barrier between you and God that Jesus hasn't already overcome. To complacency, jesus stayed awake in the garden while his disciples slept To religion. Jesus stood silent before the high priest because he was the sacrifice they didn't know they needed. To isolation. Jesus betrayed excuse me, judas betrayed him. No one knew isolation better than Jesus. Jesus left his place of exaltation to be with us. Judas betrayed him, matthew denied him or, excuse me, peter denied him and the father turned his face away. Denied him and the father turned his face away To self-reliance. Under the weight of the cross, jesus didn't try to muster enough energy to keep himself upright. He collapsed for you and his last words were into your hands I commit my spirit, I give myself to you and, finally, to skepticism. The crowds mocked Jesus. They said look at him, a king, a messiah. He can't even save himself. But three days later and we'll celebrate this in a few weeks three days later, jesus became the only person to ever raise himself from the dead. Brothers and sisters, jesus takes our barriers onto himself. They hang with him on the cross and they die with him on the cross. So can we put the full weight of our hope in Jesus? Hebrews tells us there's nothing more sure in this world than Jesus himself. Let's pray, father, you know our hearts better than we do. You see, where we have settled into complacency, where we've traded Jesus for empty religion, where we've pulled away in isolation, where we've relied on ourselves and where skepticism has crept into our hearts. But you have not left us to ourselves. You have given us your son, you have given us, jesus, our perfect high priest, our sure and steadfast anchor by your spirit. This morning, jesus, wake us up where we have grown dull, draw us near where we've kept our distance, and lift our eyes off of ourselves onto you, jesus. We ask this in your name, amen.