I'm going to be reading from Hebrews chapter 6, verses 4-8. For in case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucified to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame.

For ground that drinks the rain, which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful to those, for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God. But if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we pray that Your word would be anointed this morning, that our hearts may be softened, that our ears may be opened to You. May Christ be exalted. Help us, Lord God, to glean and understand Your intent of this text, that we may not turn from it to the left or to the right, that we would not subtract from it or to add to it.

May Christ, His love, His glory be magnified this morning. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right, so the text that we're in, if you've ever studied through the New Testament or this passage, if you had a chance to look at it, you know that this is one of the passages that is probably the most talked about, or one of the most passages that are talked about.

In fact, Martin Lowe Jones, if you know who he is, says about this text that this is probably one of the most debated texts in the New Testament, not because it's difficult to understand, but because of the consequence of the meaning. The question that we pose from this text is, can Christians lose their salvation?

This is a very, very important text for us to understand, because this is where, again, there's many other texts that we would look at to try to answer that question, but this is probably at the heart of the issue. So depending on how you understand this text, how you interpret it properly, you're going to lean one way or the other.

Now the reason why this is so crucial is because if you, again, and I'm telling you ahead of time my opinion, which I believe is true, and I'm going to try to convince you of that, that Christians cannot lose their salvation. If you were not aware of that, you want to make aware clear today that Christians cannot lose their salvation.

And if you misinterpret passages like this to say that a genuine Christian who was chosen and elected by God, that by not living up to what God called them to, making too many mistakes in their life, that somehow they're going to be falling from grace and there's no repentance for them.

That false understanding of Scripture can lead you to live in fear, much like the Jehovah Witnesses who every Saturday morning are going door to door, and if you ask them, "Do you have assurance of salvation?" They will tell you that they cannot know. The best that they can do is to work as hard as they can and hope that their good works outweigh their bad works.

And if you're not careful, a false understanding of our salvation will lead to a life that has lived in constant fear, that maybe I made too many mistakes, maybe I've exhausted the grace of God, and maybe God gave me a number of times that I'm able to repent, and I've exhausted that, so therefore I cannot be saved.

It is absolutely crucial, it is essential for the foundation of our faith to have assurance of salvation that is firm. You cannot pray in confidence, you cannot come to Christ in confidence. How can you ever enter the throne of grace with confidence if your assurance of salvation is not clear?

But on the other end, if you confess that one saved always saved, that you cannot lose your salvation, and a false and superficial and incomplete understanding of God's sovereignty leads us to think and apply that since our salvation is not by our works, it doesn't matter what we do.

It'd be nice if we lived holy lives and bore fruit, but it doesn't matter. So the other end is to kind of live a nominal Christian life all their life, and then hold on to something that they heard, one saved always saved, salvation by grace alone, so our life doesn't matter.

Absolutely false. And that's what we've been talking about in the book of Hebrews. The either end of false understanding or incomplete understanding of our salvation will either lead to living in constant fear and questioning our connection with God, or living in licentiousness. And there is no distinction between the world and a nominal Christian, other than the fact that he may attend church on a regular basis.

This is why this question is so important. Now I've already told you what I believe, but what I believe doesn't matter, right? Because my goal here this morning is to show you through the text that he is not saying that a Christian can lose his salvation. Now when you're studying the Bible, right, if you're a faithful Berean, what is at the core, in interpretation, how important, what is the number one thing that you need to understand in properly interpreting that passage?

Starts with a C. Context, right? You have to know the context. You can't, if somebody writes you a five page letter, you can't go to page three and take a paragraph out and say, "Ah, I understand this letter." You cannot, right? You have to understand that passage in the context of the rest of the letter.

Why was that letter written? Who is it written to? What is the purpose? What is the goal? And so that paragraph needs to be understood in the context of what he says. And so a lot of times people get misquoted because they don't look at the whole context and they only take words.

You said this, but you don't quote the whole context. So can a Christian lose his salvation? Absolutely not, because it contradicts the context or the theology of rest of Scripture. And I'm going to just read you a couple. I can take dozens and dozens, but I'm just going to, for the sake of time, John chapter 10, 27 and 30.

Jesus says, "My sheep, they hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me." Jesus is saying this before they follow him, right? He calls them "my sheep" before they follow him. My sheep, when they hear my voice, if they're really my sheep, they will come. If they hear the gospel.

"And I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand, and I and the Father are one." Now, that text alone is clear enough and strong enough to say that there's no way that a Christian can lose his salvation, because that's what Jesus says.

But again, I could give you countless number of passages. First Peter 1, 3-5, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy has caused us to be born again." He caused us to be born again, "and to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, and will not fade away." Reserved in heaven for you, why is it imperishable, undefiled, and not fade away?

Verse 5, "Who are protected by the power of God through faith, for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time." In other words, our salvation is securely in his hand. Jesus is not simply the author of our salvation. He says he's the perfecter of our salvation. He doesn't just begin and call us, he makes sure that we are completed.

That's exactly what it says in Philippians 1, 6, right? "He who began a good work in you will carry it onto completion until the day of Christ." Again, the last verse I want to quote, Romans 8, 38-39, "For I am convinced that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor things present nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor any other created things will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Nothing, nothing can separate us.

I mean, he goes on and on and on, saying nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. Again, I could just probably just spend the rest of the year just talking about our security in Christ because our salvation is by God's choice. We are elected, right? We are chosen by God.

So one, it contradicts the larger theology, right, that our salvation is secure in his hand. But it also contradicts the immediate context of what he says. Because in verse 6, he describes that he, there's a description of these people in verse 4 and 5, and it says, "If you have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance." Now why would somebody who falls away because of his sin not be able to repent?

That is inconsistent with anything else we see in Scripture. The Scripture clearly says in 1 John, "If you confess your sins, he is faithful and just to forgive you of all your unrighteousness." How many times do you forgive your brother? Seven times? No, seven times seventy, as long as he repents.

So why would he say here, if a Christian can lose his salvation, if that's what he's referring to, why will he not be forgiven of his sins if he repents again? So think about our particular situation without even looking at the text. How many of you, how many of you at some point after you became a Christian, lived a period of life, whether it was a month, whether it was a week, whether it was for years, that you were in rebellion against God?

Maybe living in sin and unrepentant, maybe. Does that mean that if you did that, that you couldn't repent, that God didn't forgive you of your sins? So if you've made that mistake and you lived any period of your life fallen away, that there is no repentance for you? Is that what he means by that?

He could not possibly mean that because that again contradicts the rest of Scripture. I hope this isn't too early for you. This is essential. So if you're half falling asleep, which you're not, I don't see it yet, I'm just saying it just in case it comes in. Let the spirit of sleep be cast away.

This is very important. So it contradicts the immediate context. In verse 8, it ends by saying, "But if it heals," after all of this, after all the benefits have been given, "If it heals thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned." In other words, he's talking about an individual after everything that they've been given, there is no fruit.

How can that be a description of a Christian? So this cannot be in reference to a Christian who is falling because it contradicts the larger context, it contradicts the immediate context. Then who is he referring to? Again, this is why you have to understand this in the context of the rest of Hebrews.

Who has he been talking to? The church. But the church that he is talking to at one point was fervent in following Christ, but because of pressure, because of trials in life, they began to not deny Christ, but began to drift. And they weren't anchored in Christ. And the concern is that if you continue to go down this path, you may find yourself apostate.

That even though you may have never shaken your fist at God, that your unbelief, if that's who you really are, is going to cause you to drift far away. And then you're going to find yourself waking up one day that maybe you never believed to begin with. And so the purpose of Hebrews chapter 6 verses 4 through 8 is, one, to get the church to wake up.

To get the church to wake up. So if you, or the readers of Hebrews, have been just kind of drifting along thinking, you know what, it's safe for me to have some Judaism and some Christianity, live right in the middle, and not avoid as much persecution from the Judaistic world as possible, avoid as much discomfort for being a follower of Christ as possible, and kind of, you know, trying to gain both sides.

Trying to live as comfortable as you can, get as much as you can from the church, get as much as you can from the world, and just kind of drift. And he's drawing the line very clear that that is not a Christian. You cannot be in this middle ground, because Jesus clearly said, you cannot serve God and Mammon.

No matter how hard you try, no matter how wise we think we are, it is not possible. Either you are with him gathering, or you are against him scattering. There is no middle ground. So he's warning the church. In case wrong thinking has penetrated into the church to believe that it is possible to do that.

That maybe you think, well, you know, Berean is too serious. Maybe if I didn't go to Berean, I would never hear this. It's not about being Berean, it's not about what's coming off of my mouth, but what does the scripture say. If you're going to argue, don't argue against the church.

Don't argue against, I don't like this church, or I like that church. If you're going to have a debate, make sure it's a biblical debate. Because all of our authority is coming from the word of God. Now having said all of that, how do we explain this description? How do we explain these five, six things that are described that sound a lot like Christians?

Talking about being enlightened, tasting the heavenly gift, may partakers of the Holy Spirit taste the good word of God and the powers of the age to come. How can that not be a Christian? So what we want to do this morning is examine what he means by these things.

So first, he says they are enlightened. If after having all of these things and then you reject God, there is no repentance. What does he mean by that? So one, this is a description of somebody who is enlightened. Now he's not talking about a born again Christian where his eyes are open, he sees the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

When he says enlightened, he's talking about somebody who has been given the truth. He has been given the truth. Just like the demons in the book of James, who says you believe that God is one. Even the demons believe that and they shudder. So basically, all they're doing is acknowledging facts.

So they've been given facts and information. So these are people who are in the church who can regurgitate the gospel. Because they've been taught since they were little kids. It's just Sunday school, they memorize scripture. And your whole world centers around Christianity. So if you want to participate in the community that you belong to, you need to be educated in the gospel.

And if you're not interested in being educated in the gospel, you probably would have left a long time ago. But there's just enough interest. But the interest is not Christ. Interest is the church. So you will do what is necessary to be a part of the church. And so that's who he's describing.

Someone who is enlightened, information has been given, and somebody who the Bible describes as always learning but never able to come to the truth. Always learning. They're always adding more information. And because you are able to regurgitate information that you have heard, eventually if you stay in the church long enough, you can become a teacher.

Possibly a leader. Maybe even a pastor or an elder. Because you have been enlightened. Information has been given to you and poured into you. So you know how to answer certain things. And you know how to talk about the Bible. I think a good example of this are the 5,000 people who are fed.

And they saw who Jesus was. They believed that he was the Messiah. And they want to forcefully make him king. But Jesus saw right through them that their view of Christ was deficient. You're coming to me because you want to eat and you want more of it. But Jesus is saying, I don't just give bread.

Only reason why I give you bread is because I want you to know that I am the bread of life. And when he began to speak in those terms, they said, this is too hard. In other words, we don't believe him. How can a man be saying this? And as a result of that, John 6, 66, they all turn away from Christ.

See they were enlightened. They were given opportunity to see Jesus and his miracles. But they didn't come all the way to Christ. John chapter 8, 31. After presenting the gospel and who he is to the Jews, it says, so Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed him.

Pay very close attention to this. He's talking to Jews who had believed him. If you continue in my word, then you are truly my disciples. And you will know the truth and truth shall set you free. What does Jesus call these Jewish believers here in John 8, 44? Children of the devil.

How can he call Jews who believed in the very next passage in John 8, 44, he says, you don't know me because you're not from my father. It's because you're from your father, the devil. So what was deficient? Even though they believed him, there was something deficient. They did not believe Christ all the way.

There was certain aspect of Christ that they wanted, but they didn't want Christ himself. When you get married to somebody, you can't get married and say, you know what? I want to be married to this, this, and this. I love the way she serves me. I like her personality, but I don't like what she does for a living.

I don't like her family. I don't like the way she talks. You can't just pick and choose and say, I'm going to be married to these four qualities, and I don't want to be married to these eight qualities. You can't do that. When you marry that somebody, you marry all of it.

So these are people who have been enlightened, who have been shown, but they're kind of picking and choosing. They didn't come to Christ all the way. So they've just been given the opportunity. That's what enlightened means. Enlightenment says they have tasted of the heavenly gift. Tasted. Now when Christ offers himself as the living water or as the bread of life, imagine if they said, you know what?

Give me a taste. What is the purpose of tasting? Let me give you an example. Now when Costco opened up, I forgot how long it was. It was almost 20 some years, 30 some years. Before Costco, what was it called? Price Club. Okay. So those of you who are a little bit older, remember.

So it used to be called Price Club. So when they first opened up, people flocked to it. Obviously the prices were good, but there was a lot of people, including myself, who used to love going to Price Club because of the free food, the samples. And they would just give samples.

I mean, they give samples now, but at that time, that was kind of like their main marketing tool to get people into Costco. And so, yeah, I hate shopping, but I love Costco for that purpose. And I had, you know, as a college student or, you know, young person, I had no money and I had no intention to buy any of this stuff, right?

Because that was my lunch. That was my, the samples were my lunch. So I would go and grab this and pretend like walking around and come back. Hopefully they forgot me and then I would eat it again. And then I'd go pretend like I'm going to buy some stuff and then come back and eat it again if I liked it, right?

But I never had any intention of purchasing that. But the purpose of why they're giving samples is that so you would taste and see that it is good and that you would buy it. See the description of somebody who have tasted the heavenly gift is somebody who has tasted the water, who has tasted the bread, but you have never intended to purchase.

You don't come all the way to Christ. You've tasted it and you can say, "Yeah, Christ is great. The gospel is awesome." But that's about where you stay. You're always just kind of roaming around in the world and you're just nibbling. But you don't understand when Christ says, "I have come to give life and to give this life abundantly." You don't know what that means because all you've been doing is nibbling.

So he's talking about somebody on the outside looks a lot like a Christian, but the church is something that they have to get out of the way to get to what they really want, BBA, softball, hangout, football. So church, Bible study, prayer meetings are things that needs to get done because that's the price you need to pay to be a part of this group.

So you nibble and you serve and you give a little, but that's not where you find Christ. That's not where you find true joy. So church is where you come to serve, but to find life, you have to go out to the world. That's what he's talking about, an individual who has tasted the heavenly gift.

He has not feasted. He didn't drink of it, so he's no longer thirsty. He's still thirsty because he's only tasted it. He's only nibbled in the bread, so he's still hungry. And this hunger is leading him always to something else. There's a little thing that I found years ago that I think that describes many people in the church.

I'll have 10 cents worth of God. I want enough to get a taste to actually have him or to think that I have him, but not so much that it costs me much. I don't want to get distracted from the things that I really want. I don't want to be consumed by a huge dose of God.

I want enough to feel pretty good about myself, enough to make my life respectable and manageable, enough to get me through the pearly gates. I'll have 10 cents worth of God, please. This is the person that he is describing here. Somebody who has tasted the heavenly gift. Somebody who has ultimately never purchased, only been enlightened.

He is a partaker of the Holy Spirit. Now that's really confusing. How can a non-Christian be a partaker of the Holy Spirit? You remember in the Old Testament the difference between the Old Testament saints and the New Testament saints? He says John the Baptist, of all the men born of a woman, John the Baptist is the greatest from the Old Covenant.

But he says in the New Kingdom he is the least. Why is he the least? What was the distinction between the Old Covenant people and the New Covenant people? It was the Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit never made an indwelling. It never made an indwelling because we were sinful.

Even though Christ was going to come and he was going to cover us by his blood, the Holy Spirit would come upon people and then he would leave. You see that with King Saul. Although he was a man who was rejected, the Holy Spirit would come upon him and he would be able to prophesy and then he would be gone.

God never saw him as his man. And yet the Holy Spirit was moving with people in the Old Testament. The distinction between the Old Testament people and the New Testament people, when we come to the New Testament, where is the Holy Spirit indwelling? In us. Inside of us. It makes an indwelling in us.

We have this union with Christ that is permanent and eternal. That's why 1 Corinthians 6.19 says, "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit?" Our body itself is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you whom you have from God and that you are not your own.

In the Bible again, in John chapter 3, Jesus says to Nicodemus, "The only way that you can be in the kingdom of God is to be born again." Well how was a man born again? He says, "By the Holy Spirit." So the Holy Spirit is the agent in which we are born again and when we are born again, the Holy Spirit makes an indwelling in us.

So we don't just partake of the Holy Spirit. We are united with the Holy Spirit and that's what guarantees our salvation because the Holy Spirit in us is constantly groaning on our behalf to what? To bring us to the Father. And that's why a Christian, a genuine Christian who has the Holy Spirit in him cannot continue to live in sin because the Holy Spirit is grieved.

We're constantly convict. And that's why an individual who is constantly living in sin, maybe, and I'm not talking about somebody who is struggling. Every Christian struggles with sin. But somebody who is living in sin and feels perfectly fine and there is no grieving in their heart, it may be evidence that the Holy Spirit is not in them.

And so he's describing it not an individual who has the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit leaves him because he foresees God, but somebody who is in the church, who has tasted the heavenly gift, who has been enlightened, who participates in the work of the Holy Spirit.

What's happening in our church, in every church, every genuine church is the work of the Holy Spirit. And so a non-Christian could be in the midst of this, enjoying the benefits of the work of the Holy Spirit. The work of the Holy Spirit could benefit you because of the sanctification, because of the nice people around you.

But he does not have an indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And the most obvious evidence of that is there is no power. Because in Acts 1.8 it says when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you will receive what? Power. Power. Power and the Holy Spirit go hand in hand, but this is an individual who is just kind of partaking of it.

He's kind of joined himself with other people with power. That's why this individual always has testimonies of other people to regurgitate. So it sounds like they have power, but it's never about themselves. It's not what God did to them. It's not how God saved them from darkness. God saved them from an empty way of life.

It's always about that person. My pastor, my leaders, my friends, the missionaries. And there's always a testimony about other people. But they've never experienced the power of themselves. The transforming power of the Holy Spirit that convicts us, revives us, renews us, and at times rebukes us to bring us to Christ.

So this is somebody who is saturated with a church. Maybe it's somebody who was raised in the church, had convinced themselves, even though their life looks nothing like what they see in the New Testament, but it looks a lot like what they see in the church. And so their confidence doesn't come from what they read in the scripture.

Their confidence comes from whatever community that they have belonged to. Fourthly, again, taste it, the good word of God, and the power of the age to come. Taste it. The Greek word for the word here is not logos. Typically, when we think about Christ and his manifestation and his very breath that he invested in the word, it's the word logos.

The word logos is almost equated with God himself. But the word here is not logos, but rhema. And the word rhema is oftentimes spoken of the spoken word. So this is talking about people who are in the church who is hearing. The word of God is not in them.

They're just tasting the word. In other words, they're hearing sermons, they're participating in Bible studies, maybe even memorizing scripture. And the word of God is coming to them, but they've only tasted it. They've tasted the powers of the age to come. They know what it's like, but they themselves do not know.

In Jeremiah chapter 15, 16, it says, "The words were found and I ate them." He didn't just taste them, he said, "I ate them. And your words became for me a joy and a delight of my heart, for I have been called by your name, O Lord God of hosts." Let me say something.

This is personal. I've been preaching up on a pulpit since I was 19. I probably shouldn't have, but I did. I've been preaching since I was 19, so there was only a stretch of about six months before this church was started where I wasn't preaching up on a pulpit.

So I don't know how many sermons that is, but it's a lot of sermons. In some weeks, I preach three or four times, and then I would go to retreat. So if you calculate all of that, it probably comes out to thousands of sermons. So one thing that I can tell you, and I'm not saying it's accurate, but just from what I've observed through the years, I can tell where you are in your walk with God by the way you react to the Word of God.

Now, it's like, "Okay, now I better pay attention," because I see you. I can tell. Before you ever come to me and tell me something's going on in your life, I can tell. By the way the Word of God is getting in you. And again, you could say, "Well, I mean, maybe I'm just boring." That could very well be the case, and I've given flops in the past, so I'm not saying that that's not possible, right?

But I'm not talking about how you react to me. I'm talking about how you react to God's Word, because Jesus says, "My sheep hear my voice." Even if I do a great job in packaging it or don't do a great job in packaging it, the children of God are able to hear His voice.

So when I listen to sermons, sometimes the person who does the greatest job packaging is more of a distraction to me, because that's not what I want to hear. I don't want to hear somebody who is so polished and knows how to give the best illustrations and keeps the congregation laughing and crying, and all of that stuff may be easier to listen to, but that's not what I'm attracted to.

What are you going to have is somebody who's stuttering and his point is not clear, but I can clearly sense Christ in what he says. And I get a lot more out of that sermon than I do from the packaging. So my point is, after all these years, I can observe and I can testify where you are in your walk with God based upon how you listen to the Word of God.

Again, like I said, it's not me, but to His Word. What is your interaction with God's Word? Is there a hungering and thirsting for Him, or is it for the church, or is it for the community? See, this person is an individual who has only tasted the Word of God, but he has no intention of ever eating them.

In Psalm 1, 1-3, "How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord." His delight is in the law of the Lord.

You know, I've been so thankful with Pastor Peter Chung coming back to our church because he brought Bible memory back to church. And so I know there's bits and pieces, and we're memorizing one verse for every passage that we've been trying to do that, but Pastor Peter Chung just kind of took it to the next level.

You know, we say, "Oh, his memory is ridiculous," right? But as ridiculous as his memory is, it's not just his memory. He devotes that kind of time to the memorization. Every time I come to church, he's there early in the morning, and he's got his cards out, and he's reading this, and he's memorizing this every single morning, card after card after card.

So he has a great memory, but he's maximizing the gift that God has given him. So I'm very thankful, right? You cannot do that if you do not love His Word. It doesn't matter how great your memory you have. It doesn't matter how much grit you have in saying, "I want to do this," if you do not have the love for that.

It'll last for a little bit, but it will not carry you through. It's an individual who's just putting up with Bible study because I really want to hang out with my friends. And if that is a constant state of where you are at, this is a warning. Because a non-Christian in the church looks a lot like a Christian in the church.

This is not unique to this passage. Jesus has been warning about that from the beginning. Hebrews chapter 6, 6, "And then, after having experienced all of these things, have fallen away." It is impossible to renew them again to repentance since they again crucified to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame.

Why can they not be brought to repentance? The point that he's trying to make here is you have been enlightened. You have tasted the goodness of God. You have tasted the Word and the power to come. You have every opportunity that every Christian has, and you choose to say, "He's not enough." There is no other way.

There is no plan B. If every opportunity has been given to you to lead you to the only way of salvation, and you say, "It's not enough." That's what he means. There is no way to bring that person to repentance because repentance is found in Christ and Christ alone.

In Matthew 12, 31, "Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven to people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven." Most commentaries believe that he's talking about rejecting Christ. And again, 2 Peter 2, 20, "For after they have escaped the defilement of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome.

The last day has become worse for them than the first. For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than having known it to turn away from the holy commandment handed onto them. It has happened to them according to the true Proverbs, 'A dog returns to his own vomit and so after a washing returns to wallowing in the mire.'" Can you put up the picture?

The next slide? Next one. Next one. The picture. Okay, I'm looking over there. You know, Esther showed me this picture when she was doing VBS and I thought this was really interesting. This is a picture of the wheat and the tares. Now the way that it's pictured here, you would think that you would be able to distinguish between the wheat and the tares, right?

Remember Jesus gives that parable in Matthew 13, 24-30? He gives the parable how the farmer goes out and he plants wheat and then his enemy comes to destroy his crops, he would plant tares. Tares basically are weed and it basically sucks up all the nutrients that the wheat needs to take in order to destroy the crop.

But he says you cannot pull the tares out because in doing so, you're going to end up tearing up the wheat too because it looks too similar. Now in this picture, you have a bunch of wheat and then you have a couple of the tares. But when you have these two things put together and mixed together, it is almost impossible to be able to distinguish because it looks exactly alike until it is full grown.

And that's exactly what he says. If you continue to read that parable, he says until the harvest comes. You wait for the harvest, you wait for the wheat to grow and when the wheat begins to grow in, it says it begins to bend because of the weight of the wheat.

The tares, because it does not have wheat, it just keeps going straight up. But until you allow it to bear fruit, you can't tell the difference. So he says it is impossible to separate them early on. You have to allow it to grow and you can tell by their fruit.

Now when Jesus was telling this parable, every Jew, every listener would have understood this because they knew the difference. And so the distinction that he was making is these tares in the church who have no interest in the things of God. They're just benefiting from the work of the Holy Spirit.

They have no interest in the Word of God. They're not interested in Christ. They just want to participate. They just want to play basketball. And so the things that bother them have nothing to do with Christ. He says you can't tear them apart because while you're doing that, you may end up tearing out the wheat.

But let time pass. You will be able to see what is in their hearts. That's who he's describing here. And he's warning the church, don't make your drifting feel safe because the tares are drifting with you. Don't go down that path and think, well everybody is going down that path because everybody in the church is down that path.

He's warning the Christians in the midst of the tares that this is not for you. If you have tasted that the Lord is good, then come all the way to Christ. Don't nibble at the world and don't nibble in the table of Christ and think somehow you're going to prove God wrong.

I will show him that it is possible to serve mammon and God at the same time. And you will be proven wrong at the end. And so that's why this text is here as a warning, as a wake up call, as he's been preaching for the last six chapters to take this warning seriously.

If you have been drifting and you have been feeling perfectly safe because you're surrounded by other friends who are also drifting, wake up. Wake up. Because the only standard he will measure us with is his word, the plumb line of his word. Not by the standard of this church, not by the standard of the pastor, not by the standard of your small group leaders or your small group or your group of friends, but by the word of God and word of God alone.

And the point, the end point of all of this, the end point of all of this is that Christ is the only way. Salvation is not found in small groups. Salvation is not found with your mentors. Salvation is not found in pastors. Salvation is not found in your experiences.

Salvation is not found in your education or your theology. Salvation is found in Christ and Christ alone. Do you know this Christ? Do you love this Christ? Do you follow this Christ? Do you worship this Christ? Are you somebody just enlightened? You've only just tasted. You've only observed him.

You've given him a thumbs up. You've okayed him, but you never rejected him. But you don't know him either. In Acts 4.12, "And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved." Again I ask you, because to me, and I believe many pastors will agree with me, this is the primary problem where you and I live.

This is the primary problem. This is the primary deception. Church is filled with non-Christians feeling perfectly safe on their way to hell. This is the primary problem. It is not the government. It is not the Democrats. It is not the Republicans. This is the primary problem. The truth has been muddied by a nominal Christian environment.

And we have made our church our standard. We have made our past our standard. We have made our Christian friends our standard without ever knowing Christ. So there is no joy in Christ in that. There's no celebration. There is no worship in that. And that's why these trivial things in the church, trivial things in our life matter so much.

Because we don't know Christ. My prayer is that you would know this Christ. That you would be honest with yourself. Know where you stand with God and come to Him all the way. Don't just like Him from a distance. Don't just agree with Him from a distance. In Matthew 13, 44-46, the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again.

And from joy over it, he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Do you know what he's talking about? Do you understand that joy of this farmer who found Christ and everything else became rubbish in light of that? Verse 45, again the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls.

And upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it. Do you understand this merchant? Do you understand why he would sell everything to get that pearl? Because he's tasted and all he wants now is more of it. I pray, I pray that the deception of nominal Christianity would not cause you to be blind.

Don't compare with the person sitting to your left or to your right, behind you or in front of you. Examine the word of God carefully. Now, I don't want to finish this sermon with just yelling because I want you to understand the whole context. I'm going to get to this part next week.

But the reason why he says it so strongly is because he's trying to get the wheat to come and to separate the tares. But he says in verse 9, "But beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you," and he's talking to the wheat now, "and things that accompany salvation, though we are speaking in this way.

For God is not unjust, so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward his name in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints." In other words, all is not lost. If you're a child of God, come. If you've been drifting, come. And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end.

If your assurance is wavering because you've been wavering in your walk with Christ, he says make it sure by being diligent, committing to him, so that you will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. I told you the whole chapter 6 is kind of like he's taking a break.

He mentions Melchizedek. He said, "I want to get to Melchizedek, but before I get to Melchizedek, I need your attention." Some of you have drifted and you've become hard of hearing and you're not able to listen, so pay attention, okay? Because I'm going to get you to the meat, but in order to get you to the meat, you need to recognize who you are, right?

And then he's going to get to chapter 10. Well, I'm not going to get to chapter 7 because I'm going on a break, okay? But I'm going to finish chapter 6 before I go, okay? So we'll get back to it. It's going to be a long break, all right?

So we're going to get to chapter 7, but before we get there, before we get there, I'm going to share with you a little bit more, hopefully a bit more personally, in the next couple of weeks. Christ is everything. He's everything. I'm not just saying this because I'm a pastor.

I didn't want to be a pastor. There's a lot of things about being a pastor I still don't like today. But when I became a Christian, it was never a decision, like, "Are you going to tell other people about Christ?" How is that a question? How do you meet the living God and the only way of salvation and believing what He has done for me in the world and to struggle with, "Should I tell this to other people?" How is that even a question?

That's not a question. That's just something that happened to me. It's not something that I did. It's something that happened to me. And the only reason why you and I are here is because of what He has done. And the only reason why I persevere is because I want you to know this, Christ.

There's too many people in the church, maybe even in this church, you don't know Jesus. You think you do, but you don't know Jesus. And that's why you keep struggling with the same things over and over and over. That's why the world is so important to you because you don't know Jesus.

And you're living under a deception because you've been in the church for so long that you're not allowed to examine your faith. You were a leader at the church. How can you examine your faith? But unless we're honest with ourselves, you always appreciate Jesus. You appreciate Him, but you'll never love Him because you don't know Him.

So my prayer for all of us, for every single person that I get to preach to every Sunday, no matter how good of a job I package or not do a good job packaging, that beyond all of that, do you know this Jesus? I'm not asking do you serve this church.

I'm not asking do you give. I'm not asking how much Bible you know. I'm asking you, do you know this Jesus? Let's go back to the basics, to the fundamentals. Whether you've been a Christian for a year or decades, because until you know this Jesus, the scripture will not make any sense.

So my plea with you as I invite you to pray, if you've been living a nominal Christian life, you've been lukewarm for years, you are not safe. You are not safe. And so I pray that that passage would have spoken to you. Separate from the tears. Separate yourself from the tears and know the resurrected Christ.

Be honest with yourself. That you may be able to confess with your own mouth that he came to give me life and give this life abundantly. Let's pray. Father, I pray for revival in this desert. I pray for rain and for supernatural bread that we can only drink and eat of in Christ.

Lord, we are so distracted by trivial things that in the end we'll perish. Help us, Lord God. Help us to labor for things that are eternal. I pray for myself, that the hungering and thirsting for your righteousness would never diminish. I pray for my brothers and sisters in the church who loves the world more than loving you.

Maybe because they have drifted, I pray that you would call them back to be anchored in Christ, to be able to confess with all their hearts, Lord God, that you are all in all. And maybe for those, Lord God, who have been living in deception, that because they have been in church for so long, that though they do not know you, they've convinced themselves that that is enough.

I pray that the word that you give will not return until it has accomplished its purpose. Lord, the harvest is plentiful and the workers are few. We beseech you, Lord, to send more workers into the harvest. May Christ and Christ alone be magnified. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.