If you don't have an outline, it'd probably be helpful to have one. It's the same outline that I sent out two weeks ago, but even so, it would be helpful. Some of you may be perhaps disappointed that I'm not going to preach, cannot preach, Hebrews chapter 6 in its entirety, verse by verse. There are a lot of themes, especially in the last two sections, that are wonderful themes to preach upon. But if you miss the big picture, if you miss how the immutability of God, the eternal promises of the covenant of grace, Christ as an anchor for the soul, if you miss how that is the foundation for the church's faithfulness, and we've missed the big picture. Those things are there for a reason, and they're not to be isolated, at least not altogether isolated, from the usefulness of the church and the church's fruitfulness. Let's pray, shall we? Lord, we give You thanks for our time together this morning. We pray that it would be profitable for each of us. We ask for help, the Spirit's help, through Your Word. And we pray that our faith would embrace God, and God would come and engage the whole of our souls, our mind, our heart, our will, the whole of our immaterial being, which is more precious, more important than our physical bodies. We are living souls. We have bodies. And we don't think of it quite carefully enough. We imagine that we are bodies and have souls. It's backwards. And we want to live with an eternal weight of glory. And only the soul can feel the worth of Christ. Only the soul can measure to some extent, not the body. Only the soul can measure the greatness of an eternal weight of glory in God, and that's what we pray for. We pray that our whole souls would be engaged with God this morning through a simple act of faith. Faith could go out to God. Our whole souls would go out by faith to God with a sense of its need, and you would return to us all the supplies that we need in Your own dear Son, Jesus Christ. Help us, Lord, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Polycarp was a disciple of the apostle John. John lived from about 3 A.D. to 100 A.D. Polycarp lived about 30 years, and he was probably born around 70 AD. As a young person, Polycarp may have met the Apostle John in his teenage years. I don't know. All the story is not told, but he was a disciple of the Apostle John and pastored churches near where the Apostle John pastored them. The Apostle John is thought to have died somewhere, maybe around Ephesus, probably. Smyrna is not very far away where Polycarp pastored. less than a day's walk. They knew one another quite well, I would say, at certain junctions in his life. Maybe he's late teens, early 20s. Maybe John discipled Polycarp all during his 20s before he died in a ripe old age of 93. Amazing, isn't it? Polycarp served as a senior pastor of the church at Smyrna in the early second century. He wrote a letter to another struggling church in Asia, Philippi. And it's called The Letter to the Philippians. It's another letter to the Philippians other than the Apostle Paul's. In it, he encourages the Church of Philippi to endure the hostilities of the world, even martyrdom. He refers to our passage that we preached from last Sunday, Hebrews 5.13, and he exhorts them to carry out the word of righteousness in order to practice endurance to the limit. You cannot live upon your own self-righteousness and do anything. No pain, no trouble, no hardship. But living upon the righteousness of Christ, you can practice endurance to the limit, he says, even martyrdom. One of his biographers says that in the end, Polycarp proved himself and played the man. But no doubt he was a man of like fears, just the way we are. We're fearful people. So was Polycarp. Read some of his letters. I don't have time to go into it. In the winter of AD 155, Polycarp was arrested and taken to Rome. Standing before the court, the Roman proconsul, one of the Roman authorities, asked Polycarp if that was his name. Is your name Polycarp? He replied, yes. He says, remember your age, old man. Don't die prematurely. In other words, he puts him on cue now. The next thing the officer says is, swear by the good fortune of Caesar, deny Christ, and I'll set you free. Nine people went to martyrdom, eight people denied Christ at the same pro-council. Eight people turned their backs upon Christ. Eight professing believers turned their backs upon Christ. Not Polycarp. Polycarp answered, 80 and six years I have served Jesus Christ, and he has never once wronged me or deceived me. How then can I reproach him? Eight people reproach Christ at the same procouncil, not Polycarp. At eight o'clock on Sunday morning, February 23rd, AD 155, soldiers led Polycarp into the Coliseum. It erupted in applause. They were there to see a lot of Christians burned at the stake. But when Polycart was led into the arena, the whole stadium stood and erupted in applause at his death. Incredible, isn't it? is as executioners bound him to the stake, someone standing nearby wrote down Polycarp's last words in his prayer. Oh, father of your beloved… your well-beloved son Jesus Christ, I bless you that you have counted me worthy of this day and this hour. I thank you that I am permitted to put my lips to the cup of Christ, and I thank you for the sure hope of the resurrection and for the incorruptible life of heaven. I praise You, O Father, for all Your soul-saving benefits, and I glorify You through our eternal High Priest, Jesus Christ, through whom and by whom the Holy Spirit be glory to You, both now and forever. Amen. Hebrews reaches its climax in chapters 10 through 12 in the endurance of the voice of the martyrs, of whom that chapter ends saying, of whom the world was not worthy. Well, we live upon the righteousness of Christ, endure to the max. and be counted among those of whom the world is not worthy." Part of Hebrews 10 says, although they were stoned…12 says, although they were stoned, sown into, chained, and tortured, they endured for God. I'd like to invite you to consider now part two of our message from Hebrews 5, 11 to 620, entitled, The Preparation of the Church for Usefulness in an Age of Persecution. Last the Lord's Day, we opened up the peril of spiritual immaturity in the church, and from verses 11 through 14 of chapter five, we consider the danger of spiritual dullness. This church wasn't ignorant. They weren't They were very well taught. That wasn't their problem. They had grown hard of hearing and spiritually dull. They were no longer listening to the voice of God. What I want to do now, turning away from considering the danger of spiritual dullness and its relationship to disobedience and unfaithfulness. What I want to do now is turn our attention to first three verses of chapter six without reading them. I can't read 20 verses in its entirety and then have you out of here at any reasonable time. So I'll just, I'm gonna read, I'm hopeful that you have it well enough in your mind that you can follow me without having to read it through once again. So what I wanna look at in these three verses is the necessity of a firm foundation for mature usefulness. You see I've stated the opposite, the implied opposite, the implied positive opposite of what's actually stated here in the negative because I believe that's the whole point of what the preacher of Hebrews is doing for this church of struggling Hebrew Christians. The necessity of a firm foundation for mature usefulness. The preacher of Hebrews says, therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptism, of laying on of hands, of resurrection from the dead, and of eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits. We'll move on from a foundation. if God permits, she says. To grow in spiritual maturity, we must learn to live upon the righteousness of Christ. Living upon Christ as our perfect high priest is necessary for our full maturity as a people of God. It's the only method of living that fits full maturity. The only method. In this way of life, and in this way of life alone, we live free from the fears and sins that would otherwise paralyze us or control us, and we're prepared to live righteously, meaning to live for the pleasure or good of others or the advantage of others and no longer be bound to live for our own advantage or by some way in the bondage of self-protection. I build up walls so high around my life nobody's gonna hurt me like you hurt me before or nobody's gonna hurt me like that person ever hurt me again. Nobody. So you build up walls And those walls go between you and God, and those walls go between you and everybody else. Living upon your own righteousness, you'll never grow as a Christian. You'll never be able to disadvantage yourself for the advantage of others. You'll never have the power to serve another person. You'll never be able to teach anyone else how to live upon Christ. You'll never contribute to the maturity and longevity and fruitfulness of the church, and you'll never endure in the face of persecution. That's all within this passage. However, what the preacher of Hebrews says to the church, this little struggling house church, we say, here is well. You've been better taught than this. You've been better taught than to live upon your own righteousness. You've been taught better than to live for your own selfish advantage. You know the fundamentals of the faith and how to make use of Christ and how to see Christ in His righteousness, in His person, His work, and all the fundamentals now. It's not just repentance from dead works. It's faith in Christ and power of His righteousness that will enable us to repent of the dead works. You know that by now. It's not repentance apart from faith in Christ. You know that now. This church knew it as well. You know the fundamentals of making use of Christ as a perfect high priest upon whom to live. You know those fundamentals. Each of these fundamentals, each of these six fundamentals listed in verses 1 and 2 were poured to the early church, this church's catechism, to instruct them in how to use Christ, how to make use of Christ in the office of a priest. How to keep Christ central in every doctrine for the life of the church? The problem is they had stopped listening to Christ. Christ was no longer central in the doctrines, the fundamental doctrines, and so they just had the shell of the doctrines without Christ. Within the book of Hebrews, every fundamental that's listed here is given a clear Christological structure. The Hebrews shows how Christ fits in every one of these fundamentals. And as you learn Hebrews, you can easily see the relationship of each fundamental to Christ, to the person and work of Christ. And we must learn the book of Hebrews that way, or otherwise we'll isolate doctrines from Christ. We'll have no Christ, and we'll have no power to serve. We'll have doctrines. The call to repentance from dead works and faith in God is reviewed in 914 from the standpoint of our redemption in Christ. If you hadn't read the book of Hebrews over and over again, you would never be able to see it for yourself. You might even be tempted to isolate the fundamentals of the faith from Christ yourself, were it not for reading the book of Hebrews as a whole. In that verse, the dead works are defined as external regulations associated with the Levitical priesthood and the earthly sanctuary that's described in 9 verse 10. The difference between useless washings, useless baptism, and being cleansed by the blood of Christ is found in 9, 9 through 10, 19 and 1022. And the difference between priests being appointed by the laying on of hands and Jesus being appointed by God is found in 5, 1 through 6, 7, 5, and 7, 15 to 28. As William Lane says, the preacher friend of Hebrews is not asking for the struggling little church to discard one part of Christian teaching, not one, but to build on the solid foundation that's already been laid to live upon Christ as central for the life of the church. In 5.11 to 14, the pastor is pessimistic about his friends, but in 6.1 to 3, he's optimistic. And he remains optimistic because he knows that this struggling little church has been established upon an unshakable foundation of Christ's work in the covenant of grace. They understand it. They've been taught it. This is review for them, and perhaps more depth. reminding them of the firm foundation of Christian truth they had received when they first came to faith. He writes, so then, let us leave standing the elementary Christian teaching and be carried forward to the goal of spiritual maturity, you see. Christian maturity, maturity of the church. The problem is not that they were ignorant of the truth. The problem is they'd stopped listening to the voice of God. It's the same with us. We stalemate in our growth when we stalemate in the church's growth because the only voice in our head becomes our own. Do you know that to be a truth? The only voice you're listening to is the one inside your head and it's not the voice of God. You're only listening to your own voice. Whose voice are you listening to right now? God's or your own? What is the habit of your listening? God's voice or your own? The reason the preacher refuses to review the ABCs of the Christian… of Christian truth with his friends is he knows they are, in fact, already in place. They are mature in their knowledge of doctrine. There's no need to review doctrine. was a great need to show Christ supremacy and exaltation in the doctrine for the life of the church, for the life of the church. So it's not simply for the Christian life. It's for the life, for the corporate life of the church. It's the reason why the foundation can be allowed to stand. He wants to let this foundation stand. You've been taught well. This foundation will stand. We just need a little review. And we need to go deeper into your own understanding of who Christ is and what he's like as your prophet, priest, and king. Our greatest need as a church is like this. We must be open to being carried along by the Spirit of God to live upon Christ to obtain a deeper maturity together and greater usefulness in our world, in our community. The preacher is saying, you must not go backwards. You must not. You cannot go back. You cannot pretend that you don't understand the foundational truth you learned about the centrality of the person and work of Christ. Don't go back. Don't empty the doctrine of Christ. Don't empty the Bible of Christ. Don't empty the Christian life of Christ. Don't empty the life of the church of Christ. Don't go back. You can't go back. You cannot live as if you don't know what it means to be a Christian by living upon Christ in a fallen world. You know you must be responsible for the level of instruction that you've received. You must be responsible for the level of discipleship and experience you've already possessed because you've already had the foundation laid in the gospel of Jesus Christ. The preacher knew that in the past his friends had boldly identified themselves with Christ, and that it cost them greatly, and that at one time they were willing to deny themselves for the glory of Christ and the good of the church. He says so in chapter 10, verses 32 and 34. They had stood firm, even accepting joyfully the confiscation of their property. Anybody ever threatened to take something that belongs to you? Anybody ever threatened to take everything that belongs to you? They were clearly convinced that they possessed a better country, a better inheritance, a better property in Christ. They demonstrate maturity in the past, and it's this understanding of Hebrews 6, 1 to 3 that established the context for interpreting severe warning in the verses that follow in verses 4 through 8. You got a foundation, but look, you're not living up to it. You stop listening to the voice of God. Now receive this severe reproof. Receive this severe rebuke. That's what he sets up. The severe warning is set up by the firm foundation that he knows is laid. So I wanna turn our attention now to verses four through eight and the doleful pessimism of an immature, fruitless, useless church. Verses four through eight say, what is impossible for those who are once enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift and become partakers of the Holy Spirit and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God and put him to an open shame. for the earth which drinks in the rain that often comes upon it and bears herbs useful for those by whom it was cultivated received blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and briars, it is rejected and near being cursed, whose end is to be burned. Generally, Arminians take these verses to be true believers who fall from grace. And generally, Reformed people do not take these verses to be true believers, simply because Christ's work in the covenant of grace cannot be broken, cannot. The covenant God makes with His people is as unchangeable and unbreakable as God Himself is, and that's stated later on in verses 13 to 20. The clear explanation of verses four and five lies in the difference between gifts of the Spirit and the graces of the Spirit. I could use Latin terms, they'd be meaningless. I'll just say gifts are external. Graces are internal. Gifts are external. Graces are internal. Someone may taste or partake of the gifts of the Spirit and never experiences the grace of the Spirit, namely, regeneration and renewal, namely, the graces of humility, faith, hope, and love. John Owen says, there's a goodness and an excellency in these gifts which may be tasted or experienced in some measure by those who never received them in their life and their power and their efficacy because grace was never internalized. Someone may taste the Word in its truth and not in its power. A lot of professing Christians live that way. They know the truth in its doctrine, but not the expense or the power of the truth to rise above our natural abilities to live, natural wisdom, natural ability to serve, natural abilities not something new to you. You understand from what we've said before. Owen goes on to say, someone may taste the worship of the church in its outward order. Think of Roman Catholicism. Think of anybody who goes to church for externals, like I did. It wasn't the same ornate church service, but it's primarily for externals. I did my external duties as a kid growing up. I went to church, I prayed, I read the Bible, but internally it was utterly meaningless for me. So one may taste the worship of the church in its outward ore, not in its inward beauty, of the gifts of the Spirit, not His graces. That's a summary statement. pagan prophet Balaam was given great gifts, and the vision Balaam foresaw God's covenant people profit spiritually and even physically as a nation. The vision of the glory of God's people excited him. It was very enthusiastic about what he foresaw, to start with. But the good that his vision did Balaam as a mercenary, preacher for hire, was only a temporary good. He desired to die the death of the righteous and to go to heaven, but he had not a single desire to live the life of the righteous. He had no use for Christ, nor the righteousness of God in Christ. His was good enough. Thank you. In the end, he was just as much as an adulterer of money as ever, and just as much in the bondage of his sin as ever. The grace of the Spirit proceeds from being born again by the power of God. And so Sinclair Ferguson adds this, that there's all the difference in the world between the knowledge of the truth and the knowledge of the power of the truth. Only the latter is of real spiritual significance. Spiritual things can be only known by the power of the Spirit of God, Ferguson says. So what about us? Where does that put us? Are we those who know the truth but not the experience or the power of the truth to transform us inwardly? to be lovers of God and lovers of fellow sinners. Are we great lovers of God and great lovers of needy sinners just like us? It's the happiest place to be with a church that's a family of God, with a church that's a covenant people of God. Are you one who knows the truth but not the experience of its power? Or have you received the truth in its life? Have you received the truth in its power? Have you received the truth in its efficacy? You know you live above nature. You know you live differently than what you lived before, because God is upholding. Grace means something to me. The life of God is in my soul now. I cannot deny it. It's what enlivens me. It's what keeps me up. I don't look to what's outside to keep me up. I don't look to my food. I don't look to my friendships. I don't look to beautiful places. I enjoy common grace. I enjoy all the common grace I can have, but I live upon God, not what I can see. Are you like Balaam? Do you desire the death, to die the death of the righteous but have no interest in living for the glory of God or the advantage of others? Still, still captivated to live for your own selfish advantage. It's not a life empowered, animated by God. not a life that experiences the efficacy and power of the Spirit. The most fearful condition in the whole world is to begin with a taste of the Spirit's gift or a taste of the truth of God's Word, but end in the flesh. It's the most fearful thing in the world. I've known many to live that way, too many, too many, even some within our own church. The most dangerous condition in the world is to increase in external religion, but to fall away from Christ. Oh, how desperate your case, the old preacher James Nichols says, to go to hell with so much of heaven. Oh, what a hell that is, to have experienced so much of what heaven might be like. Oh, what a hell that is. to go to hell with so much heaven, he says. As Hebrews 10.26 puts it, for if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment. when we know the fundamentals, when we've been taught how to live upon Christ in the fundamentals and refuse to live upon Christ. We refuse to live upon his righteousness. We willfully deny the power of Christ's righteousness. We willfully deny the power of the gospel of Christ. That's what he's describing here. We need to be warned. May we never be mistaken of identifying the hell of self-love and self-righteousness, especially when we show signs of exchanging the heaven of God's everlasting righteousness for the hell of self-righteousness. And may we never be mistaken in identifying the hell of self-love. for God's everlasting, free, righteous love. May we never. Thankfully, the preacher of Hebrews doesn't leave us with such a stern warning. But as every faithful pastor knows, he must speak the truth even when he must confront his friends with its severity. It's for our good, isn't it? If we act as though we live as though we're not listening to the voice of God, we live as though we're not, Christ's righteousness is unimportant to us. Christ's priesthood is unimportant to us. Christ is unimportant to us. I'm more important than Christ. I'm more important than the church of Christ. My life is more important than the life of the church. It's not more important. So I want to consider now verses 9 through 12, and the hopeful optimism of a better persuasion. And now we'll move through these two next sections fairly quickly. As I mentioned before, there's so many themes here that would do the church great good, but I want to capture the themes in the context in which they were written for the life of the church, for the usefulness of the church. Verses 9 through 12 say, but beloved, we're confident of better things concerning you. Yes, things that accompany salvation that we speak in this manner. For God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love, your work of love, your labor of love, which you have shown toward His name, the glory of His name, living for the glory of His name and the good of others. There's another passage from which I get that expression. We want to raise up a church that lives for the glory of God and the good of others. Here it is right here, along with the one we quoted in 1 Corinthians 10.31 through 33 earlier. We want to live for the glory of God and the good of others, the glory of God and the advantage of others, the glory of God and the church's advantage. That's righteousness. Living for the advantage of the covenant community, the people for whom Christ gave everything to redeem. That must be central. But beloved, we're confident of better things for you. Yes, things that accompany salvation, though we speak in this manner. For God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love, which you have shown toward his name, in that you minister to the saints and do minister. You serve the saints and do serve. And we desire that each of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end, that you not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promise. Faith and perseverance inherit the promises. Faith and perseverance in faith to inherit the promises. The stern warning in the previous section is still necessary for believers who become hard of hearing, spiritually dull, and who show signs of immaturity as a church. Our obedience to Christ and our service to His church must be examined by faithful pastors like the preacher of Hebrews. He's a faithful man. He knows what to look for in the life of the church. He knows what will impair the church's usefulness and longevity. He understands. The church of all ages desperately needs faithful leaders who understand what it means to live upon Christ as our final prophet, priest, and king. The church of all ages desperately needs mature Christian men and women who live and experience an exalting Christ as their only king of righteousness. There is no other king of righteousness. There is no equity that's good for everybody except Christ's equity. There is no righteousness. There is no standard of righteousness. There's no standard by which any one of us could deny ourselves for the sake of others and call it self-denial or call it for the good of the church, except Christ's law, His standard of righteousness. He's the one who reigns over His people, not through lawlessness. He reigns over people who hate lawlessness and love righteousness, love righteousness, love living for the advantage of another, for the sake of the glory of God and the good of His people. Only those who are skilled in the word of righteousness, the word about righteousness, the word about how to live upon Christ's righteousness as a prophet, priest, and king, as the perfect high priest. Only those who are skilled in living upon the word of righteousness, as Hebrews 5, 13 puts it, which always expresses itself in labors of love. that disadvantage itself for the sake of the church. Only they, only those who are skilled in a word about righteousness will lead the church in living for the advantage of the church, the advantage of others for the glory of God and the community in which we exist. Only they, only they, only they. Only they know that where self-love and self-righteousness reign, the domineering principle of life is selfish satisfaction and self-service. Do you know that? Do you know what causes your own selfishness? When you're selfish towards a spouse, when you're selfish towards a parent, when you're selfish towards a Christian friend, do you know what underlies your selfishness, when you're self-serving, when you place yourself above another, do you know what causes that? Only those who know where self-love and self-righteousness reign, only they know. that the domineering principle of life flows out of self-righteousness, the dominating principle of selfish interest, serving selfish interest. Do you know, do you also know, if you've grown spiritually dulled, here's an opportunity not to become more sluggish. Here's an opportunity. This is what this passage here is written for. It's written for the opportunity that we won't grow duller. It's written for the opportunity that we won't grow more sluggish. It's written for the opportunity that we won't be more useless, but return to being faithful and fruitful and useful. Do you know? If you've gotten that living upon the righteousness of Christ expresses itself in labors of love by which you disadvantage self for the glory of God and the good of others, here's the opportunity now. Here's the opportunity to imitate those who through faith and perseverance inherit promises of the covenant of grace. They are God's people in the world. They are the one who makes God known in the world around us. That's the covenant of grace, the long form of it. I will be your God, you will be my people, so that the whole world will know that I am your sovereign Lord. These people living upon that promise, no. These people living upon Christ, central in all the fundamental truths, all the fundamental doctrines, no. Even central to the life and fundamental doctrine of the church itself. Where's Christ in the life of the church? is an opportunity. He's an opportunity to express our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, to renew our commitment to Christ, to renew our commitment to live upon Christ as central for the life of the church. Here it is. Here it is. Now consider now this final summary encouragement from Hebrews chapter 6, verses 13 through 20, and the basis of our faithfulness in the reliability of God. Do you see We've said this so many times, that we don't… we don't consider our faithfulness first, we consider God's faithfulness to us first. And do you see, that's been true ever since the Garden. God revealed enough of Himself throughout redemptive history for us to live upon God, and now we have the full and final revelation of God in the person and work of Jesus Christ. There is no reason not to be faithful. None, none. The writer, the preacher of Hebrews is pulling out all stops for the church's faithfulness here, showing that the church's faithfulness is fully and finally grounded in God Himself and His faithfulness to Himself as God and to His covenant people. Let's read these verses once again. For when God made His promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself to see it. God is the foundation of the whole of life. The Trinity itself is the foundation of the whole of the life of the people of God and every promise God makes for His people. For when God made a promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no one greater, he swore by himself, saying, surely, blessing, I will bless you, and multiplying, I will multiply you. For men indeed swear by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is for them an end of all dispute. Thus God, determined to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise, the immutability of His counsel, the unchangeability, cannot change. It stands. His decree for the people of God stand, confirmed by an oath, two immutable things in which it is impossible for God to lie. We might have a strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. Strong consolation for those who flee to Christ. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast. and which enters the presence behind the veil, where the forerunner, capital F, has entered for us, even Jesus, having become high priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek. In verses 13-16, the author of Hebrews assumed the church's continuity in the promises of covenant of grace. And in that covenant, we must all find ourselves. You must. He would have this church, this struggling church, to find themselves in the promises of the covenant of Christ, the unchanging promise of the covenant of Christ, the unchanging God of the promises. And if they must find themselves, so must we. And to every other church, it is to be faithful and useful in building God's kingdom. We must find ourselves here, especially if we've grown dull in hearing the voice of God. We must find ourselves. You can't say, I'm going to open my ears now. I'm gonna try harder to listen now. I'll be more faithful in attending now. It's not the way it works. That's backwards. That's man-centered, not Christ-centered. That's works-orientated, not grace-orientated. You must determine, am I in the covenant? That's what he's asking these people to do. Is this me? Is this a promise to me? Is it my Christ? who's a covenant bond of love between God and His people. Is this my Jesus? Is He my high priest? Are these promises mine? Is God mine? Is the unchanging faithful God mine? Does He belong to me? Do I belong to Him? Am I in the covenant? Is He talking to me? Or in the covenant? Are you in the covenant of grace? Well then, you have the same unfailing, unchanging, and unchangeable God as Abraham. That's the point. Same God, same unchanging God, same unfailing God. Same faith with God. And this God's faithfulness to His covenant is your strongest consolation at all times, no matter what the circumstances. That's it. I'm in the covenant of grace. I am God's child. He belongs to me. I belong to Him. I want to make His name great in this circumstance. This is the consolation. That's what the Scriptures teach. This is the strongest consolation to lay hold of. So now let us fly to Christ as the only refuge. Christ is not the only refuge on Sunday mornings from 9 to 12.05. He's a refuge this afternoon, and a refuge this evening, and a refuge tomorrow, and a refuge next week, and a refuge next month, and a refuge next year. He's the only anchor of the soul. Fly to Jesus. Fly to Jesus. Fly to Jesus and live. Live upon Christ. Live upon Christ in His faithfulness to you. Let us lay hold of Christ as the anchor of our soul. Paul lays hold of Christ in the book of Philippians, doesn't he? It's what he says, isn't it? He lays hold of Him who laid hold of Him. We barely scratch the surface in our understanding of the difference between comprehending and being apprehended, or apprehension. Being apprehended is being laid hold of, or laying hold of. I want to apprehend what apprehended me on the road to kill more Christians. He apprehended me. He stopped me in my tracks. He called me what I really was. I was a righteous, a self-righteous Pharisee. I was a parasite. I was a nothing. I was a nobody. He laid hold of me. He laid hold of that arrogant Pharisee and threw him to the ground. He looked up and said, Lord, who are you? I'm the Lord whom you're persecuting. Paul says, ever since that day on the road to Damascus, I have sought to lay hold of the one who laid hold of me. I want just to comprehend truth. I want to apprehend the God of the truth. I want to apprehend, because He apprehended me by power. It was the superior power of grace that apprehended me. I want to apprehend that same power of grace. I want to apprehend that same power of grace to live by as a Christian, and to live together with all the other believers in my church. We want to lay hold of Christ as the only anchor of our soul. We want to live upon Christ and for Christ as our great King of righteousness, as Polycarp said, so that we may endure to the limit in bringing in everlasting righteousness. That's what we need. That's what we want. We want a Christ who will enable us to endure to the limit to bring in the King of righteousness. Let's pray. Lord, we give you thanks for such a marvelous chapter in Scripture. We've often, I suppose, looked upon Hebrews chapter 6 with great dismay. I pray it would be no longer. We would find ourselves in the marvel of Christ's work in the covenant of grace, an unbreakable covenant, unbreakable promise for His people. We would live upon the ocean of faithfulness of God to be faithful people. We'd invest the centrality of Christ and His person and work in every doctrine, every doctrine, every doctrine, no matter what. We would relate to the truth of God on the basis of the trinitality of Christ. We would live by the power of life to animate our souls every day, by the power of the Spirit to animate our souls, to give life and power to our souls. Needed life, needed power, needed efficacy. as He puts us upon Christ as our high priest, our perfect high priest to live upon His righteousness. Let us live upon King Jesus, the King of righteousness, the King of righteousness. Let us live together upon the King of righteousness and bring righteousness in, a righteousness that's good and equitable for all people and will surely make the nations glad. We pray it to be so in Jesus' name. Amen.