This morning, we're in the book of Hebrews, chapter 10, verses 32 to 39, Hebrews, chapter 10, verses 32 to 39, which is on page 2007. In the Blue Bibles that are provided there for you. We continue through the book of Hebrews this morning in chapter 10. We have focused on responding to the work of Christ, especially the sacrifice of Christ. First, we studied the greatness of Christ's sacrifice and then secondly, the need to put that to use. And then thirdly, last week, a warning against the danger of not putting it to use. And then today, as we close out the chapter, The need to continue in a life of faith, the need to continue in a life of faith. Please follow along as I read Hebrews chapter 10, starting at verse 32. And this is God's holy word. But recall the former days when after you had been enlightened, were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings. Sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction and sometimes being partners with those so treated. Or you had compassion on those in prison and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what is promised for yet a little while and the coming one will come and will not delay. But my righteous one shall live by faith. And if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him. But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed. but of those who have faith and preserve their souls. Here is the reading of God's holy word. Let's pray and ask his blessing on it. Our father in heaven, we acknowledge your great faithfulness to us by your grace, you have enabled us in so many ways to serve you in the past. Father, would you please use your word now this morning to draw us to yourself? and to strengthen our confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ, both now and also in the future. We ask these things in Jesus name. Amen. Once there were a couple painters who were rolling a heavy duty product on an interior wall. True story. As they worked, they began to grumble. getting very tired with their work and very discouraged. And they decided to quit. And so they walked outside to tell the boss that they quit. And as they walked along, they realized that they'd been strangely hasty. And so they walked back and they started their work again. And as they rolled that paint on the wall, they again began to grumble. And again, they decided to quit. And so they walked outside to tell the boss that they were quitting. And again, they had a change of heart once they'd walked outside. Eventually, they finally realized what some of you may have guessed, and that is it was the fumes. The fumes from this heavy duty paint was getting to them and they were getting irritated and agitated and deciding to quit. When they got out into the open air, of course, their minds cleared and they realized what a foolish thing that was to do. You know, something like that can happen to Christians. Sometimes we're thinking very, clearly and like the Hebrews at the beginning of their Christian life, we are happy in Christ. We are devoted to him while we would give up anything for the sake of Jesus Christ. And yet at other times, our thinking gets clouded by worldly cares and distractions and trials and difficulties of one kind and another that we'll talk about later in this message. And our appreciation for the Lord Jesus Christ may grow dim and our confidence in him may grow shaky. Today's passage helps us to get back into the open air, to get reoriented again, to look at things as they truly are, seeing the value of Jesus Christ, of serving him, of waiting for him and of anticipating the rewards that he gives to those he loves. So that's what we're going to see this morning in two points. First of all, remember your hope in past trials. Remember the past hope that you had. And then secondly, continue today in that same confidence. So remember and continue. Those are our two points this morning. Let's look at God's word together. First of all, remember Your past hope in trials in verses 32 through 34. At one time, at one time, the Hebrews faith had held up remarkably well. Verse 33 says they had endured, quote, a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, meaning that people were bad mouthing them in public. And apparently the authorities, for some of them, ordered their goods to be confiscated or perhaps they stood by while mobs raided and looted their homes. And this all happened. We don't know the exact circumstances, but it happened because they were Christians. It happened because of the testimony of Jesus Christ that they held to very confidently. They suffered all these things for the Lord Jesus Christ. As we connect that to our lives today, at some level, at some level, we understand what this feels like. No, mobs are not breaking into our homes, but we know what it feels like to be reproached for the sake of Jesus Christ. People do criticize Christians and the stridency of that criticism seems to be growing. Some call Christians judgmental and ignorant. and worse. And we know that public criticism feels like. It seems like various authors and commentators and bloggers and so forth are lining up ready for their turn to take a crack at Christians. I think we would like to say that such things do not bother us. Oh, I don't care. Let them say what they want. And yet, truth be told, Those things do bother us for most of us. God has made us social creatures. We're interconnected with other people and we care what other people think of us. We wish they would think well of us. We would like that. It hurts when other people don't think well of Christians, but think ill and say so. The Hebrews, it says, endured a hard struggle. Of reproaches and afflictions, they were both hard. The reproaches were hard and the afflictions were hard. It wasn't easy. Now, why is it? Why is it that Christians come under such strong critique? Whether in the Hebrews day and in their way or in our own day. Now, sometimes it happens. In part, at least because Christians have not behaved so kindly. Sometimes they have spoken God's law without a great deal of humility and without a great deal of kindness and outreach. To the extent Christians have behaved obnoxiously and brought down anger on themselves. That's unfortunate to say the least. However, the real offense in Christianity in the eyes of the world lies in the very teachings of scripture. The teachings, especially that people, human beings, are sinners in God's sight, that God is absolutely in control, and that in order to be reconciled to God, it is necessary to repent one's sins and to acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord and be reconciled to God through faith in Jesus Christ, who is the only way. That doctrinal nub of Christianity is the heart of the offense as well. because it threatens people's independence and it stings their pride. The Jews and the Romans didn't agree on very much, but they agreed on putting Jesus to death. Jesus Christ was threatening to them. To the Jewish leaders, he threatened their position. To the Romans, he threatened the peace of that region. Really, Jesus Christ came as a challenge to human pride. He came as the one who claimed to be the son of God and the only savior and Lord. Jesus said in John, chapter seven, verse seven, the world hates me because I testify about it, that its works are evil. Christ said it very clearly, didn't he? Then Jesus said to his disciples in John 15, verses 18 and 19, he said, if the world hates you know that it has hated me before it hated you. So. We have to just. We have to accept this, if we're going to be Christians, there is some level of offense and that level of offense is unavoidable. If you're going to be true to the Lord Jesus Christ, this is not a call to be obnoxious and insensitive and arrogant and make offense worse than it needs to be. But at the very heart of the Christian message, there is something that is offensive to untamed human pride. It is a message that God is in control and that he actually sees what we do and that he himself is the judge of all we say and do. I remember a time when, as a college student, I was working on a work project with others my own age. And there was some some talk going on in the group that was off color, to say the least, a bit awkward for a Christian. And at one point, one of these people turned around and said to me, you must think we're terrible. And I hadn't said a thing, you know, I was just trying to stare out the window and pretend I wasn't there. But, you know, just by just by being there, just by being there as a Christian, just being there is a silent reminder to people that some people think that there is a God to whom we'll give an account and that there is a moral code. So that offense is something that we cannot avoid as Christians. You know, in our current climate, as more antagonism against Christ seems to be coming to the surface, It seems that some churches are trying to give church a bit of a makeover to avoid some of this. So that would include perhaps toning down controversial doctrines or, you know, emphasizing things that everyone loves like community service or even dressing in such ways that no one would mistake one for a fundamentalist. So kind of a makeover or an image redo. We have to realize though, as Christians, that won't work. In other words, if what we're trying to do is alleviate some of the offense of Christianity, we won't get the world off our backs by adopting a kind of new, updated image. The level The offense of Christianity is not at the level of image, and it's not even at the level of emphasis. The offense of Christianity is at the level of substance, and there's nothing, if we're going to hold true to Christ, there's nothing we can do to change that. That's a non-negotiable. When we back up from the issue of persecution, And we look at the Christian life more broadly. So backing up from persecution, just looking at the Christian life more broadly. We have to realize that faith always involves a struggle. Faith always has an uphill aspect to it. Faith is always in this world that kind of biking against the wind. It's always pushing through resistance because God has called us to proceed against the world and against the flesh. and against the devil. Just look at the look at the look at the case of the Hebrews. First, they were struggling against persecution. Then apparently that died down. And next, they're struggling against apathy. It's always something. It's always something. Faith always involves a struggle. But we as Christians have a hidden strength. because we have Jesus and in Jesus. We have a better possession, as verse 34 says. Remember how God instructed Moses to go up on Mount Nebo? Moses was to go up on top of the mountain and he was to feast his eyes on the promised land, seeing what God had prepared for his people. So God calls us through faith in Christ to, as it were, go up on the mountain and feast our eyes on the great riches of God and the great the great things God has in store for all those who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. That treasure that God has in store for all his people, that unseen treasure is worth far more than anything you could hold in your hand in this life. And that's what initially strengthened and motivated these Hebrews. They saw that unseen treasure. They grasped it by faith. You know, by way of analogy, I think it's often true that the greatest treasure in this life The greatest treasures are unseen. The greatest treasures are often unseen. So if there is a rich man. Who has no one to love him? We would say without any irony. That he's a poor man. Or if there's a poor man who barely has a pot of beans to his name, but someone loves him and cares for him. We would call him rich. And we could imagine him saying, even with tears in his eyes, I'm a rich man, I'm blessed. And we would know what he meant and we would agree with him. We'd agree with him. When you are looking at things rightly, when you're looking at things rightly, when the fumes have cleared, as it were. To have the love of God, what is that worth? What is it worth to have God love you by sending his son to offer up his life for you? Isn't that worth? Isn't that love of God to you greater riches than any conceivable treasure? Or to say it in different words, in the words of Hebrews 915, it is the death of Christ that gains our eternal inheritance. Because Jesus has paid the price, God's favor is ours. Heaven is ours. All the blessings God has in store for his his children are ours. The Hebrews at one time saw it. And they rejoiced in it as their homes were looted. If you can just imagine the mob breaking in, tearing off their stuff, that's hard. They endured great struggle, but they also rejoiced. And that is that is often what it is like in the Christian life where this great struggle exists side by side with our rejoicing in Jesus Christ. And the more clearly we see things, the greater our joy in Jesus Christ and the greater that joy overcomes that the hardship and the struggle. If you look back on your life as a Christian, you can probably see times in which God has strengthened you to do hard things. All that as you look back, you see times when God has enabled you to endure amid reproaches. Someone passed a slur on you or looked down on you for being a Christian and you just continued faithfully. Perhaps you look back on a time in your life when God moved you to to act very generously towards someone in need. You gave to that person in a way that really impacted your lifestyle or your bottom line. Or in some other way, you can see how you were you were let's say you shared the Lord Jesus Christ with others often. You can see ways in which you have acted in the past that show that you had a real grip on this, too, that you understood that our inheritance is eternal and unchanging, and you acted in ways that fit with that. Because you knew you had an abiding possession in Jesus Christ. And so it made you hold your earthly things loosely. It made you hold your earthly things loosely. On this earth, people struggle for gold. As one Puritan pointed out, in heaven, we walk on the gold. The gold is under our feet. And that love that God is going to pour out on us in Jesus Christ is such an amazing thing that gold will be, as it were, pavement under our feet. We haven't begun to see the delight and treasure that God has for his children. We will see it one day. And the more we're able to grasp it by faith, the more faithfully we'll live for God here and now. So looking back, you can probably see ways in which God has enabled you to have this perspective in the past. It's encouraging to look back and see those things. But the point now is continue with the same confidence. Look at verses 35 and 36. Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward for you have need of endurance so that when you have done the will of God. You may receive what is promised. You started well. Don't get tired now. Don't get tired now. That's the point of this text. Don't get tired now. The Hebrews, you can see how they stagnated and you can see hints of this throughout the letter. Remember back to chapters one and two, there are hints that they had begun to speculate about esoteric matters such as angels. They got sidetracked from Christ. You look at verses chapters three and four, there are hints that they were not any longer listening to God's word like they used to get to chapter five. It says that they were no longer maturing as they had been get to chapter 10. And it suggests that some of them weren't going to church anymore. We're going to see in chapter 12, verse four, that some of them were only now feebly struggling against sin. So you can see in this book how there's this real drop off of commitment and focus. and a life of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. They lost their focus. Now we see the symptoms of these things in the Hebrews. We don't know all the details of their case. You know, how did they get distracted? We don't quite know. But that is worth thinking about in our own case. What's the anatomy? of spiritual exhaustion. In other words, what kind of things can make us feel tired as Christians, make us feel like we're running out of gas? I want to lead you in thinking about some of these ways so that we can be on our guard and we can we can think about this phenomenon seriously. So here are. About a dozen things that I thought of, and you can probably think of more, but let's let's use these to start thinking about this issue of spiritual exhaustion. First of all, as we've already touched on, there is pressure or criticism from friends who don't know the Lord Jesus Christ. That can be something that weighs a person down and is tiring to deal with, is exhausting. Also, very practically. Dating a non-Christian. I want to warn you about that in very clear terms, if for you young people, if you choose to date somebody who does not know the Lord Jesus Christ in clear contradiction to scripture, what you're doing is you're setting up in your life a strong love, a strong love that is in direct diametrical opposite to obedience to Jesus Christ. That is a that is a destructive choice. And the more enmeshed you get in a relationship and the more attached you get, the harder it is to see things rightly. So you need to be aware of that one, too. That's the second thing. A third thing is this, and these are really in no particular order, the tyranny of unrelenting work demands and playing the victim in the face of them. In other words, when we see that what we're doing has created a continual, not only day by day, but year by year, unsustainable wear and tear on faith and family. And yet we continue on that path. That is certainly something that contributes to spiritual exhaustion. The fourth thing is simply the gleam of riches through which many have wandered from the faith. You can't serve God in mammon, right? Christ was clear. If you're chasing money, you're not chasing Jesus. The fifth thing is what Jesus called the worries and cares of life, which he compared to thorns growing up around the seed of the word and choking and choking it out. So worries and cares. Another basic cause of spiritual exhaustion is what I'll call the pit of sin. That is, when sin has you in its grasp and it's a slippery pit. And you don't seem to be able to repent or get out of it. It creates a distance between you and God and it makes recovery seem hopeless. Another thing is just simply getting tired, getting tired of all the work involved in being a Christian. It's a lot of work and it can make us feel exhausted after a while. This especially happens when we perform the duties of Christianity, but don't cultivate the delight of Christianity. We're doing things, but we're not cultivating that joy that we ought to have in Jesus Christ. So the joy is gone. We're not asking why it's gone. We're not trying to get it back. And that is exhausting as well. Going along with that, we may get tired. by the cost of serving in the church, tired of getting spattered with messes that we think, well, I don't I don't have to be involved with that. I don't have to put up with that. I'm going to pull back. So that's another kind of exhaustion that can set in. Another very common source of exhaustion is malnutrition, neglecting our spiritual food, not praying, not reading the word, not coming to worship. Another cause of exhaustion is when we take a role of commentator as others run the race of the Christian life. So we're not so much racing ourselves as we are commenting on other people's form. And we see ourselves as kind of the expert, the critique, the critiquer, the judge, rather than seeing ourselves as we should being in the thick of the race ourselves. Something else is trials, trials that shake our assumptions about life and about faith to the very core. Those can actually be a good thing, but very hard to go through. And the final thing I'll mention is a kind of, I'll call it a kind of mellowing that can happen with age, where as a person ages, there's some slowdown that occurs. And the Lord would have us mature in a direction of a settled, wisdom and useful service to the best of our capacity. There is a kind of aging that can go on that is aging in a more self-indulgent direction, like Solomon. As he aged, he drifted from the Lord and he got more and more self-centered. So that is a final factor I'll mention in spiritual exhaustion. And you've perhaps thought of others as you've been listening. Now, as we think about all the different things that can make us exhausted and make us ready to stop enduring and sit down by the side of the race and just take a break or even just give up, as we think about these things, some of them are very clearly sins. Some of them we could call unwise habits or matters of deferred maintenance. Some of them are just life circumstances. So there's a whole variety of things that can tire us out. and make us feel exhausted. The question is, how could we recapture the dedication to Christ that we had at the beginning? How can we keep from getting all pooped out and weary and discouraged? And the simple answer that's given to us in this passage is to refocus on Christ. Here in verses 37 and 38, we get a quote from the prophet Habakkuk. In Habakkuk's day, it was a day of great suffering for the for the kingdom of Judah. The people were being crushed by their enemies. They felt abandoned by the Lord. They were in a hard, hard place. The prophet is saying to them, wait for God's deliverance. And Hebrews clarifies this even more for us and tells us that we are to wait for the return of Christ. Look at verses 37 and 38. For yet a little while and the coming one will come and will not delay. But my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him. Live by faith in Jesus. Don't get distracted by other other schemes, ways of living, other cares and concerns. Wait for him, live in light of eternity. A focus on Christ really cuts through, it cuts through those fumes of worldliness and of wrong values and of exhaustion and confusion, we set our set our sights on the Lord Jesus Christ and things begin to grow more clear. God. Once our lives in this sense to be fundamentally simple. Fundamentally simple. I would compare it to a go-kart. You ever driven a go-kart? What's in a go-kart? There's a steering wheel, there's an accelerator, and there's a brake. It's very, very simple. Kid can drive it if their legs are long enough to reach the pedals. The kid can go around corners and over bumps and go a lot of places in that very simple go-kart. It's a very simple concept. God tells us In the midst of all these temptations and all this blur and all this distraction, all these fumes of worldliness and all these wrong values clouding our minds, focus on Jesus, trust Jesus, serve Jesus, wait for Jesus, wait for his coming. See, this is this is fundamentally simple. This is a clarifying, helpful, encouraging thought. I'm convinced that the devil wants us to look at look at life more like being in an airliner cockpit. If I ever sat in that seat in an airliner, I wouldn't know what to think. What do all those dials and switches mean? And I think Satan would like us to be as kind of conflicted and confused and distracted and muddled and discouraged as we could possibly be. And I think Satan has, if I could say it, if he has an ally in the go, go, go Northern Virginia lifestyle, we are people who are Busy, right? And that busyness can equal distraction. The difficulty with being very, very busy is that when you are, you think you're actually getting things done. When it could be that the very most important things in your life are sitting there getting covered with rust and cobwebs because you think you're getting stuff done. You're not getting stuff done, you're just busy. God is calling us here back to simplicity. Jesus Christ, his death for you, waiting for him, looking to heaven, putting your eyes on that future reward. This is simple, isn't it? It's helpful. Again, I remind you of the story of Mary and Martha. We do well to review that story very frequently. There's Martha. She's rushing around. She's like so many of us. She's doing, doing, doing. But Jesus says Mary has chosen the better part. She's sitting at the feet of Jesus Christ. She's listening to him. What about you? Are you listening to Jesus Christ? Are you trusting in him? Are you following him? Are you waiting for his return from heaven? See, this is a great simplifying thought, isn't it? It's a reorienting thought. It's an encouraging thought. Oh, amidst all this complexity, life is fundamentally simple. Follow Jesus. Listen to Jesus. Trust in Jesus. Wait for Jesus. And then I really like first thirty nine because it sends us off with a word of great hope. Look at first thirty nine. It says, for we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have. But of those who have faith and preserve their souls. That's good. It reminds us that our true hope is not in what we do. It's in who we are in Christ and all he's done for us. It's very encouraging. Chapter 10 has at some points, especially in last week's text, felt a bit like a trip to the woodshed. Very strong warnings for us. And we need those warnings. And yet here at the end, we get this word of encouragement that you, true Christian believer in Jesus Christ, you belong to the set of people who are saved. And you do not belong to the set of people who fall away and are lost because that's what Jesus does to his people. He saves them. If you're trusting Christ, then he makes you to be one of those who presses forward, not one of those who shrinks back. So proceed on your way with that hope. That God has already set you apart, And he's already marked you as one who will persevere, so persevere, be faithful and proceed not to earn heaven, but because Jesus Christ. Has given you a better and abiding possession and has saved you and has set you apart to serve him so. By way of review. Consider here what God is calling you to do, God is calling you to consider, is your head clouded? Are these fumes of worldliness and distraction filling your mind so that you are distracted and you're ready to set down your confidence and give up the race? Don't be confused. Scripture says, get reoriented. Put your eyes on Christ once again. Be encouraged as you think about how the Lord has shown his power through you in the past, how the Lord has enabled you to be steadfast, how you've been generous and faithful. Think about that. Be encouraged by that. I encourage you as well to think about things that may discourage you from following the Lord Jesus Christ. There may be some things you need to bring under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, just sins, worldliness that need to be cut away because of slowing you down. There may be burdens you are bearing that you don't need to bear. It's a good thing enough, but it's distracting you from from. from serving the Lord Jesus Christ and keeping your eyes on him. So I think that kind of inventory is something that we all need to be doing on a regular basis. I was greatly encouraged and challenged as well during our trip to California a few months ago that was cut short by my illness. We were greatly helped by a Christian family there, very much so. And the wife of the family explained their ability to do that. She said, we build margin into our lives. We have margin. So we're able to do something. We're able to do things like this. I think that's an important piece of this, too. Thinking about what margin is there in our lives to serve the Lord Jesus Christ and not be so busy and distracted so that we get Turned away from him and discouraged So there may be in our lives thinking about are there thorns growing around us that need to be weeded and thinned out Are there burdens we need to lay down? But again more effective than any kind of reorganizing weeding or Laying down burdens is a focus on Jesus Christ, but let his love and his riches capture your heart and And that is the best reorientation that any of us could possibly have. Let's pray and ask the Lord's blessing on this message. Dear Heavenly Father, we pray that you would grant us encouragement and perseverance in Jesus Christ. As we look back at our lives, we are encouraged by the ways in which you have worked through us in the past. Call those things to mind now, we pray, and help us to be encouraged as we dwell on them. Father, we look at the present and we do see things in our lives that tax our strength and cause us to grow weary. Father, help us this morning to regain our heart. Help us as we consider your past work and especially help us by focusing our faith on the Lord Jesus Christ and waiting for his coming. We thank you for such a Savior as Jesus, and we pray that we would be serving Him faithfully, and we pray that His coming would indeed find us ready. We ask it in His name. Amen.