A Promise Higher Than Negligence

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

We're spending most of 2022, we will spend most of 2022, looking at the book of Hebrews. We're not just going to just look at it one after the other after the other. We're going to kind of break it up a little bit. And we had a series earlier this year, kind of in the beginning part of the spring, that covered Hebrews, chapters one through four, is called Jesus is Higher. So this idea that Jesus is above, he's above the angels, He's above the prophets, He's above everything. And really that means a lot, that carries a lot of significance. And it also kind of bleeds into this next series that we started last week called A Higher Promise. And this series is gonna cover most of Hebrews chapter five, six, seven, and eight.

Last week we looked at the first part of that in the end of four and the beginning of five, talking about a promise higher than shame. And how the promise that we have from God stands over what whatever we are feeling, like we're not worthy to bring to the Lord. So we saw at in the, we saw last week where we're saying, let's approach the throne of grace with confidence. It's at the end of chapter four. Let's approach the throne of grace with confidence. We oftentimes think that we should not approach that throne because of how we feel inside.

For this week, it's a bit of a record scratch. It's a bit of a weird thing, and it even happens in the text that we're gonna be looking at because what we find in Hebrews, Chapter five verse 11 is where we're gonna start today. Hebrews five, 11. What we find is that the pastor of Hebrews, he's like, man, we can talk about shame. Let's talk about how we can approach the throne of grace. Let's talk about how we need to have confidence. Let's put the flag high. Let's run hard. Let's go. And then he says, hey, but I really can't. The pastor actually stops himself mid-flow in the thought. And in the beginning of Hebrews 5:11, and we're going to go all the way through 6.9 today, he says about this, about a promise higher than shame, about approaching the throne of grace with confidence. So it's not like he's going to run out of stuff to say. He says, look, about this, we have much to say, verse 11.

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. The pastor in Hebrews said, I could go on, but you wouldn't get it. You're not mature enough. And discussing spiritual maturity, let me just say, in today's day and age, discussing spiritual maturity is often misunderstood, and people get super prickly about it. Okay, but let's just be clear because scripture is clear. Scripture is clear in saying that there are those that are mature and there are those that are not. Not just here, 1 Corinthians 8, you have the strong and the weak. Romans 14, you have those that are weak in the faith. Philippians 3, 15, you have those that are mature. Okay, you have the New Testament talking about this idea

that there are people who are mature, there are Christians who are mature, And then there are Christians who are weak. And what we see here in Hebrews 5 is a pretty rare instance in the entire New Testament where he's saying, he's using a specific metaphor, you need milk, not solid food. And in saying you need milk, it's actually worded in the Greek a little bit more like you need milk again. And you can actually see this in the other translations. So this is ESV, but here we go. King James, how does he describe it? He says, you are become such as have need of milk. Listen, there's a reason that was written in the 1500s because people understood it then. But New England, New English translation, which is a little bit more modern, says you have gone back to needing milk. In other words, it's not just saying you need milk, it's saying you're regressing, you are reverting back to something.

In other words, you are spiritually negligent. The pastor in Hebrews is writing to this church and he's saying, look, I could go on and on and on about this, but you wouldn't get it. And the reason you wouldn't get it is not because it's so lofty, but it's because you are spiritually negligent. This is not the case of three-week-old Christians who actually lack skill, okay, who have not had enough time to grow in the faith to get the requisite skill set to kind of understand what he's saying. Because in verse 12 he's saying you ought to be teachers. You ought to be further along but you are not. You ought to be mature but you are immature. In fact, in fact, you ought to be mature. You were immature, then you are mature again, then you were mature and now you are immature again. He says you are reverting back to needing milk, not solid food. You ought to be

teachers, but you are not. You are spiritually negligent. And he explains it further in the next couple of verses 13 and 14. He says, 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. He's helping the church here, the pastor in Hebrews is helping the church see the effects of spiritual negligence. So you've had enough time but you still you still lack the ability to distinguish good from evil. And the pastor seems to turn a corner with the next verse, right? Verse 1 of chapter 6 seems like there's a corner being turned. It says, therefore, let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity. So you're thinking, yeah, let's turn a corner, let's go on to

maturity. Let's move on from milk. It has served its purpose, but we don't really get to maturity until verse 11 in chapter 6. There's a few more things that we need to understand about spiritual negligence. And it's as if the author of Hebrews, the pastor in Hebrews, he's trying to help this church move on from milk, but But in order to do that, he needs to address and describe and correct the spiritual negligence that they are dealing with. And today, we will delve into that. We will look at that spiritual negligence, what it is, and what we kind of need to do about it. Let's read all of Hebrews chapter 6, verse 1 through 3. So we're going to read what we read, but let's keep going. It says, therefore, let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, Not laying again, again, so now we're going to describe spiritual negligence again, not

laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment, and we will do this if God permits. Okay, so if we kind of look at this with a trained eye, we can see the pastor in Hebrews is describing what this church has not moved on from. The pastor in Hebrews is saying, you have not moved on from verse one, repentance from dead works and a faith toward God. You haven't moved on from it.

So for that, for us today, what that would look like is that you are on a cycle of repenting big on Sunday, but then living exactly how you want on Monday through Saturday. And you're on a cycle. You're on a cycle. And what the pastor in Hebrews is saying, you are continually going back to laying the foundation of repentance from dead works and a faith toward God. You just keep laying that foundation again and again and again and again and you never build on it. Nothing ever happens on top of that foundation. It's just a cycle.

What else are they doing? Verse two, it says, they're doing the same thing. They haven't moved on from instructions about washing and the lay on of hands. Those are two things that you're gonna do in a worship service. Sometimes we haven't moved on from how a worship service is going. It needs to happen a certain way. It needs to look a certain way. It has to function this way and we really can't get over it. We're so worried about how a Sunday morning is gonna go that we're not able to grow past it. We just keep on dealing with that. What about the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment? Resurrection, dead and eternal judgment, not whether they're gonna happen or not, but when? When are they gonna happen? This is like, man, this is when you get into some straight, old time or end times prophecy, you know, like are the locusts, you know, in Revelation, really helicopters and I mean, you can get pretty detailed,

pretty awesome with it, but when you get caught up in needless controversy. It's going to stop you. It's going to regress you. And here's the thing, it's going to feel like you are gaining special knowledge. It's gonna feel like you're growing, but all you're doing is you're just diving headlong into a needless controversy that will not help you grow. That needless controversy that you're gonna get in, you're gonna jump in, and I don't care It's in times prophecy. I don't care if it's a system I don't care if it's like you know if it's open theism if it's if it's Calvinism It's whatever ism out there I don't care if you start getting all the way into a system And then you start having these hard lines and you dividing like stupid people from smart people or people that don't agree with me versus people that do agree, right When you start doing that that will prevent you from growing

That will hurt you spiritually. When all you see is your system, it's going to hurt you. Because this church has not moved on from milk, they lack spiritual growth and vitality. And when you're in this position, when you are feeling weak, you look at mature people and you honestly wonder how they do it. You do you honestly wonder you're like man. They're so far ahead of me spiritually I wonder I wonder how they do that I and I think in our weakest moment sometimes we can look at somebody who's way spiritual head And we can just kind of think in our heart like they're totally faking it There's no way they're that happy There's no way they have that much joy There's no way they could be excited to sing that song There's no way they can be excited to be at the same place every week seeing the same people There's no way that they're finding that much joy and when you are when you are spiritually regressing when you are

Negligent of your own faith you begin to look at people that are not and wonder about them you are suspicious of them Now here we should take care. We should really understand the difference here because I am describing spiritual negligence and If and if I just leave it at hey, I'm you know, I'm jealous of mature people I'm experiencing doubt in my own faith. I'm, you know, if I just leave it at that, it can look the same as spiritual frustration or spiritual weakness, right? It can look the same. So what I wanna do, I wanna be more clear about spiritual negligence. So what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna line up three categories for you, okay? We're gonna talk about the spiritually frustrated, spiritually mature, spiritual negligence, okay? We need to see these three, and so I'm gonna just give you three different kind of areas, just so that you can kind of understand what this is.

Okay. So let's just take a commitment to Jesus's family. Okay. Let's take that. If you are spiritually frustrated and you're committed to Jesus's family, you're going to be recovering from a toxic church environment and you're going to have wounds that are still healing. You are going to wonder if you can trust these people because you're hurting, because you've been battered, you've been beaten up, and that's spiritual frustration, okay? If you are spiritually mature and you're committed to Jesus' family, you're investing well with your time, with your money, you're studying, you're discussing, sorry, you're serving, you're giving, you're building up, and you're rolling with the punches, right? It's not perfect, it's not perfect, but in maturity, you're kind of bearing the burdens of other people, And you know, you're kind of bobbing and weaving, sticking and moving.

But you're doing it with a body, right? Like it's your family. Okay, if you are negligence in your commitment to Jesus's family, then worship services, you think of them as a consumable good. This is something for you. This is a show for you. These people are just here to see a show if you are spiritually negligent You you are wondering you are wondering How these other people are really enjoying something that you find totally annoying If you are spiritually negligent, then something small If I'm wearing like the wrong shirt or something that's gonna kill your whole Sunday morning It's gonna, and trust me, I've had those discussions before where people's whole Sunday mornings have just been ruined because some girls were in the wrong shoes. I mean, and you laugh, but that's real. What that is a sign of is you are majoring on the minors. You are laying another foundation of instructions about washing and the laying on of hands.

You are getting worked up into that. Let's talk about something different. Let's talk about the intake of scripture. What does it look like? If you're spiritually frustrated, the intake of scripture, man, if you're frustrated, you might be wading through some really difficult passages, some emotionally difficult passages, some spiritually difficult passages. And when you do that, it is hard. It is hard on you. It is hard for you. It colors a lot. You're wading through it. You're working it, but it's just, man, you just feel tired from it. That's spiritual frustration. Spiritual maturity, you are consistently reading, you're studying, you're discussing, you're hearing the Word. If you are spiritually negligent though, man, you might get the verse of the day, but you're not studying. You're not really letting Scripture kind of stand over you. You're not looking at scripture and saying,

what does the Lord want to speak to me about? What are some things that I can learn in scripture? How can I live in such a way that is in accordance with scripture? You're not asking those questions. You're not studying. You're just kind of, it's like fairy dust that you like put over your life. Like got the verse of the day. And I will say this, if all you're doing is the verse of the day, It could be that you're frustrated because that's all you can take right now and that's fine So I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about a negligent view of Scripture by just thinking all I have to do is kind of sprinkle You know Bible dust on my life, and I'm cool That makes sense. So those are two different ways It might look the same it might even feel similar But one is a is a spirit of negligence and another is just I'm just tired I'm just coming Lord all I can do all I can do is read a verse today. Would you please bless it?

It's all I can do Those are different and we need to understand them if we don't understand them we can mistake negligence for weakness and that's not a good idea That's a bad actually that's a really bad idea Let's talk about one more one more example concern for other people If you are spiritually frustrated In your concern for other people, you probably have suffered some kind of spiritual abuse. You are confused. You are feeling rejected. Or you have been burned. You cared for somebody, but then they betrayed you. You cared for somebody. Maybe you cared for a whole group of people, and you feel like they just kind of left you high and dry. And so in spiritual frustration, you might find it difficult to reach out. spiritual maturity you have this rhythm of discipling people of being discipled of just you know like just being family with people your life overlaps their

life if you are spiritually negligent and you're concerned for other people you're just gonna focus on doing moral things but you're not like you're not discipling anybody you don't we don't have an eye on on helping somebody else Grow on their spiritual journey. You're just focused on doing like the right thing and keeping your nose clean Okay, so that you're you know, so you can say oh no, no, I can spend I spend my time just fine I'm not breaking any rules here, but but you're in your concern for other people. You are negligent Okay, really want you to grasp this idea of spiritual negligence and I'm contrasting it heavily with spiritual maturity and then spiritual kind of weakness or frustration, right? Just like poor in spirit kind of thing. I'm contrasting it heavily so that we understand because in the letter to the Hebrews the people in this church that

he's writing to are spiritually negligent. They are going back to needing milk, not because of a tough season, not because of church abuse, but because they are spiritually negligent. And he says to these people, to the people that are spiritually negligent and he says it to us if we are spiritually negligent if this is you you are in danger and he tells him why and I want to give you fair warning the next couple of verses I've seen I've seen churches split over it hold the nominations get upset over it this isn't some like light fair this is some pretty deep stuff and and I want you to know we're gonna take our time I'm gonna show my work but it's the word of God so we don't need to be afraid. Let's dive in. Okay, we're gonna read Hebrews chapter 6 verses 4 through 6, and I want to read them together kind of all together. It says verse 4, 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 contempt." As you can see, these verses are kind of a lightning rod, right? They say some pretty heavy stuff. The summary version of that is it is impossible for a certain kind of person, We see that person described in verse four and five. It is impossible for a certain kind of person to be restored to repentance because they are holding Jesus to contempt. Okay, so it is impossible for a certain kind of person to be restored to repentance because they are holding Jesus to contempt. All right, the first question

that we need to answer about this, and we're gonna connect it back with spiritual negligence, I promise, but we have to figure this out. The first question we're asking is, is this person a Christian or not? Is the person the hypothetical person, right? The person in the example, not a real person, but definitely a real person somewhere. Is that person a Christian or not? Because this is what we have. They have once been enlightened. They have tasted the heavenly gift. They have shared in the Holy Spirit. Those are all in verse four. Verse five, they have tasted the goodness of the word, and they have tasted the powers of the age to come. And at first blush, it looks like the answer to this is yes. And that is frightening. Because it looks like that answer is yes.

Because in verses four through five, the person is a Christian. If that person's a Christian, if we're describing a Christian right now, in verses four and five, verse six, they have fallen away. And it seems like, not even a big stretch, It seems like somebody's saying they can lose their salvation. That's what these verses, if I have somebody that comes to me and they believe in people that they can lose their salvation, they'll say it like that and they'll, they will, I mean this is like capital verses for them. I will get this in an email, right? Hebrews 6, 4 through 6. My argument is that when you look at the context, You get some clues that this is actually not describing somebody who is a Christian. This is not describing somebody who's a Christian. To say that though, I need to tell you why. I need to kind of cover it. So I'll give you three big reasons.

The first reason I believe that this person is not a Christian is because of Hebrews 10, 14, and 1 Peter 3, 18. So they both said, pull that up, there you go. Hebrews 10-14, 1 Peter 3-18. So Hebrews 10-14 says, for by a single offering he has perfected, he being Jesus, he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. And then 1 Peter 3-18, Jesus died once for sins that he might bring us to God. Jesus dies once and it perfects us for all time. Jesus dies once and that brings us to God. Passages like these should keep us from thinking that Jesus will quit on you if you do wrong. And I don't mean to be flippant but it is as if, if somebody if somebody's saying yes you can be a Christian and verse 6 says you can be falling away. It's as if they're saying Jesus is just waiting going oh you messed up that bad? Condemned. Want to repent? Nope sorry can't repent. Can't be

restored, it's done, door shut, you're condemned, you've lost your salvation. No, no. These verses, and really I'm just cherry-picking, there's a couple of other verses in the New Testament that would really have a hard time with Hebrews 4, Hebrews 6, 4 through 6, describing a Christian. The second thing that we need to notice, the second reason I believe this is the field analogy in Hebrews chapter 6 verses 7 and 8, so it's the next two verses after what we just read. The next two verses and the pastor in Hebrews is saying, for the land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated receives a blessing from God. Let's take a second. Verse 7, let's just read that, land that drinks the rain produces a crop receives a blessing. Okay verse 8, but if it bears thorns and and it's worthless and near to being cursed,

and its end is to be burned. Now, the pastor in Hebrews is giving an example to show what we just read in verses four through six. So I want you to understand, these two things are heavily connected. In this analogy, there is one field and two options. The first option in verse seven, God sends rain and fruit comes. The second option in verse 8, God sends rain and thorn and thistles come instead of fruit. It is not, let's be real clear, it is not that one field produced fruit one season, then had a tough season and stopped producing fruit. That's not the example that you see. Let me just say it one more time. We are not talking about one field that produced a ton of fruit and then stopped. That's not the analogy. The analogy is either or. Either this field receives rain and produces fruit, or this field receives rain and produces thorns and thistles. In other words, it's not describing a Christian who at one point produced fruit and Christians

will be known by their fruit. It is not that they did that and they stopped producing. That's the second reason. The third reason is this. It's the wording of Hebrews nine, Hebrews six, nine, excuse me. So the verse right after that says, though we speak in this way, we feel sure of better things, things that belong to salvation. So the pastor in Hebrews is right in this church and he's saying big warning, verses four through six, big warning. There's this situation, right? Where people can fall away from God and it's impossible to restore them, then he gives them, he gives them this feel analogy to give them a little bit more understanding. And then in verse nine, what did he say? He says, don't we speak in this way? So I think the pastor understands there's some weight to what he's saying. Don't we speak in this way? We feel sure of better things, things that belong to salvation.

If the pastor in Hebrews is warning against losing salvation, then why is he sure of better things that belong to salvation? And if he's not talking about that, What is he talking about? If he's not talking about losing starvation, what are verses four through six? Explain. I've got two words for that. Gospel inoculation. Gospel inoculation. We need to begin to put this all together. Okay, so spiritual negligence could be a sign of gospel inoculation. I'll explain myself. Inoculation. Inoculation is a medical term. a medical term and it means that you receive a small dose of something very powerful so that your body can learn to fight off the real thing. For example, if I wanted to be inoculated against Ebola, I don't even know if that's possible. I definitely don't have my medical degree. But then the idea for inoculation would work this way, that I would get a small, near

harmless, I don't even know if that's possible. Version strain portion of Ebola I would inject that into my body But it would not be enough to like kill me or do anything do anything harm But it is enough for my body to recognize and go that's bad. We should fight it. Okay, so that's how inoculation works I have an anatomy and physiology teacher here. Is that is that close to right miss hey

Okay, we don't have a bowl of eggs Huh? Chicken pox there you go. We have a lot of other we have no Ebola vaccine. Sorry When you see the science teacher laughing at your example, it's time to check in. That's all I'm saying It's time to check in Chicken pox probably should have checked in before right this second No kooties, okay an inoculation right inoculation is a is a medical term so you receive a a less powerful version of something so that the more powerful version doesn't work. Okay. Here's what gospel inoculation looks like. If you are inoculated against the gospel, then you have grown up in church, you've heard the gospel, you know the answers, and you thought that that was enough. You grew up in church, you heard the gospel, you know the answers, and you thought that was enough. In other words, like verses four through six describe, you got a taste of the heavenly gift.

You got a taste of the goodness of the word. You went to camp and you cried. And you thought, okay, I'm a Christian now, it's done. What you got was a small insignificant little piece of gospel truth. You got that, but it did not bear fruit. It did not grow up in you. It's just little, it's not enough. It's not enough to know the books of the Bible in order. It's not enough to say, I had this emotional experience at camp and now I'm good forever. It's not.

You've never, somebody's been gossipy inoculated. Because they believe they have done the right thing, they now no longer believe they need to do another thing. They never committed to following Jesus. They never made a sober decision and said, Yes, yes, Jesus, I'm yours. Your mind, I will follow you. Didn't happen. And Hebrews, the book of Hebrews describes your condition a field where God sends rain but bears no fruit. In fact the the image of thorns and thistles, thorns and thistles I don't know I'm not much of a gardener but I've heard this, thorns and thistles at the beginning look a lot like fruit but when they come to flower ain't no flower, ain't no fruit. So sometimes you can have a situation where it might look a little bit like the right thing or the real thing but it's not. Dorns and thistles, you bear no fruit. Quickly I'm gonna look at why this why gospel inoculation, why these people cannot be

restored or and how this holds Jesus up to contempt because I feel like we need to still explain Hebrews 4 through 6. Hebrews 6 4 through 6. So let's put Verse 6 back up, it says, so then they have fallen away, right? It is impossible 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 contempt. Simply this, more can be said here, but I'm going to kind of move through it quickly. If someone who gets close to Christianity, close to Christians, close to a church, and they believe that they are a Christian now because of that proximity, okay? Because they're physically close to Christians, they think they're a Christian now. So that is somebody who has been gospel inoculated, right? They got a little dose, they went to camp and it felt really good, but now they're in the real world

and there's no fruit, there's no change, there's no nothing, there's no power, okay? If they believe they're a Christian now and then they walk away from that environment, They walk away from church. They walk away from the community. When that happens, when they walk away, guess what? They still think they're Christians, all right? So you got a little, we'll just pick on little Susie. Sorry Susie, but this is not you, okay? This is another Susie, a proverbial Susie. Little Susie goes to camp, right? Little Susie hears the gospel and feels emotionally Strongly like it like has a strong reaction to that

Walks in aisle like you know goes forward and somebody somebody prays with her and she's like she's like yeah Yeah, this is this is great and and little Susie whenever she goes back to her youth group at camp that night I mean they are backflippin. They are excited Okay, there's like music going and I mean like it's exciting Susie's like I did something right This is a good thing. I'm a Christian now. This is all gonna be great and then next week Susie has a tough week and The next week after that there's some problems Susie might go back home to a family that's abusive Susie might go back to a relationship with somebody who is who is abusing her or who's taking advantage of her or who's trying to steer her in a different direction. Susie's confused. Susie doesn't really know what to do. And then within a few years, all the emotion of that night has worn away.

All the memories of that night have faded. She has five years of just cynicism, of being suspicious about that moment in her life. She's five years removed, and she's not in a church anymore. She's not a part of Christian life anymore. There's no emotion, there's no nothing with it. But Susie, dollars to donuts, still believes that she's a Christian in that moment. Because of that one experience she had when she was younger. When you're in that position, it is impossible to convince Susie that she needs to be saved again. It's impossible. Because she thinks she already is. You can't restore Susie to repentance because Susie doesn't think she needs repentance. She doesn't need to be restored to something that she never lost. Why be restored to that?

It's impossible. The reason that this process holds Jesus up to contempt is because it mocks the work of the cross. It's saying you're not gonna crucify Jesus again. It doesn't work that way. They have tasted and they are gospel inoculated. They think they're Christians when they've only experienced this little tiny thing and they think it's everything. Look, we've worked through a lot, so let's really hone in. Let's not miss this part, right? We need to bring it back to spiritual negligence because that's really the point of the passage here. Spiritual negligence could be a sign of gospel inoculation.

So set next, there it is. Spiritual negligence could be a sign of gospel inoculation. If you are spiritually negligent and you are living however you wanna live during the week but you are deeply repentant on Sunday Or you are at least faking it on Sunday. If you're believing that it's enough to be a good person, if that's you, if that's you, Hebrews 6 is telling you, be afraid, be afraid, fear, lose sleep.

And you know me, guys, you know me, not really gonna like throw a lot of hellfire and damnation, you know, from the pulpit, not really gonna be saying, hey, fear on purpose every Sunday. This is kind of a rarity for me, but hear it all just the same. Hebrews 6 says, you need to be afraid. And you don't need to be afraid of messing up bad enough for Jesus to quit on you. That's actually not what you need to be afraid of. Okay, that's a farce, that's a red herring, Don't do that, don't lose sleep over that. It's not like you can do something to lose your salvation. You cannot make a mistake bad enough for Jesus to quit on you because Jesus is the one laying his life down. You're not doing anything for your salvation. Jesus is laying his life down saving you once for all to bring you to God, okay? You need to be afraid that you have not made that commitment at all.

You need to be afraid that you have mistaken Christian community for a commitment to follow Jesus. You need to be afraid that you've mistaken Cry Night at Camp for a real decision to be a Christian. There's nothing like I'm picking on camp pretty hard right now. Nothing wrong with Cry Night at Camp. Right. It's just not the end all deal. It's just not the total answer. Right. A lot of times it's a doorway that people step through. I step through it a few times actually.

But for me, it was this sober, it ended up being this sober decision. But it wasn't a decision necessarily that I made right then. It was a decision that was continually made after that. And not perfectly mind you, but just made in earnest. I want you to be afraid that you've made that mistake and I want you to be afraid enough to make it right. When we look at Hebrews 6, it says, though we speak in this way, verse 9, yet in your case, beloved, we feel better things, things that belong to salvation, be afraid enough to make it right and say yes to Jesus.

We have our time of invitation. And I really want to encourage you, if you are afraid, that's not necessarily a bad thing. If you are afraid that you have made that mistake and have not really accepted the Lord if you're afraid that You're just kind of going through the motions and maybe you've done it for a couple of decades bless you Man today is the day of salvation right today is the day right here right now

Many many of us right It's an it's an easy thing to just play church to receive the rain and produce nothing. That is a cycle that I was on for a couple of years, personally, but if you are continuing that cycle, you really don't have an excuse this morning. The Lord God in heaven knew that you were gonna be here, knew that you needed to hear Hebrews 6, and fear, you need to be afraid that you have not made that commitment. But I don't want to end with fear. I want to end with this. I want to end with the promise. Because here's our promise. The promise is so good that if you just realized that you are spiritually negligent, and you just realized, I'm gospel inoculated, that's me, I'm there, I'm guilty. The way out, the way through that is to run to Jesus. You don't need to run in fear. You don't need to hide. Let that fear take you to Jesus.

Because the promise, we have a promise from Jesus that he will take us just as we come, period point blank. Jesus takes us just as we are and this promise stands over even our negligence. This promise stands over our spiritual indifference. This promise stands over those things and says, you know what you never earned it in the first place come to me like it says at the end of Hebrews 4 approach the throne of grace with confidence draw near to him you're not disqualified in fact if you just realize that you were gospel inoculated you are spiritually negligent then you can make a decision about that today and so what I want to do is I want to pray for us and then we're gonna to sing and I'm gonna be upfront. If you need to pray, come and pray with me. If you want to join our church today, if you want to be baptized today, that's great. You can come forward. I'll be right here. If you just want to pray with the person that's next

to you, do that too. You know, it's not like, you know, we don't get points for whoever comes down. That's not how this works. The idea is that we want you to interact with God. We want you to pray in the Spirit to the Lord and say, yes, I want to run to you. Yes, I've been spiritually negligent or yeah, I've been I've been gospel inoculated I want you to say that to Jesus and mean it. Let me pray for us Jesus. Thank you for this morning I pray that you would help us That you would help us to see our own Negligence that you would help us to see even if we are inoculated that that maybe we've just been playing this whole time Maybe we've mistaken Christian community for actual commitment to you I pray that we would make that right today. It's our name that we pray. Amen. Let's stand and sing. When I survey the under's cross, the Lord just gave and tapped on my feet.

And find the seed from his head, His feet, Such love and sud, And find joy and bless your name.