Sermon(Heb 6: 1-8): Useful Christians

The original Korean text: https://blog.naver.com/stevision/50025252074

 

 

>> 1 Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, 2 with instruction about ablutions, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. 3 And this we will do if God permits. 4 For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 if they then commit apostasy, since they crucify the Son of God on their own account and hold him up to contempt. 7 For land which has drunk the rain that often falls upon it, and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. 8 But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed; its end is to be burned. (Heb 6:1-8) <<

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Our Savior Jesus distinguished the states of believers by a parable of seeds on the ground: seeds on a path, a rocky ground, a weedy ground, and a good soil (Mt 13:1-9). Seeds are the words of Jesus and grounds are the minds of people. Jesus teaches us that we should hear the words of God, understand and obey them, and live a life bearing fruits. only if the ground is good, the words of God which are like living seeds will surely bear fruits later. John the Baptist said, "Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. (Mt 3:10)" Jesus also said, "Let both grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn. (Mt 13:30)" That's why verse 8 of the text says that the ground of thorns and thistles will be burned.

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There are several kinds of things that will be burned up in the Bible. No matter how nice a tree is, it will be cut down with an axe and burned if it does not bear fruits. This tree represents ordinary people who live somewhat good human life but do not believe in Jesus as the Savior. Christians frequently urge them to believe in Jesus, but they just retort, "I live with my strength. Who keeps the law well and is a good person like me? At least I would not go to hell if it should exist. If I've done anything wrong, tell me even one! And in fact, I don't believe in heaven. I'm too busy even to do all my job now. Let alone to go to church!" These are living proudly in the world, so they themselves have to find the way to live forever. However, who on earth can enjoy the eternal life in heaven by his power and merits? These will be thrown into fire of hell due to several sins they committed in the world. Another type of people who will be burned are those who will be cast into the hellfire because they, after living as Christians for a while, left Jesus and failed to gain eternal life. The branches cut off from the vine represent them. Finally there are people like tares and thistles. These people live persecuting Christians or hindering God's work actively. They create an atmosphere of the society that keeps Christians from growing up well. As weeds prevent grain from growing in the sunlight, so they try to oppose the Christian truth and to undermine it with all kinds of worthless dirty thoughts. They, disguising themselves as believers, come into Christianity to collapse the church, or persecute or disturb believers and churches outside the church. They are, of course, the first humans to be thrown into the flames of hell.

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Today, the passages from Hebrew explain in detail the branches that were cut off from the vine. Like the seeds that fell on the rocky ground, they at first accepted the gospel gladly and became Christians, but religiously they didn't grow for some reason or other, and at last fell away Jesus and fell from the eternal life. Therefore all of us Christians must bear today's words of Hebrew in mind and reflect on our life lest we fall from the eternal life. Why can't people who call themselves Christians become mature(v. 1) Christians?

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First, to be a Christian is to believe in and accept the basic truth of Christianity. Above all, Christians believe in the one God. This God is the Creator of heaven and earth. Christians acknowledge that they as well as the world are God's creatures and belong to God. Christians believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. These three Godheads (these three Divinities) are the three Persons (the three Selves) of the Triune God, the only God. (Man has only one human self while God has three divine Selves that coexist together.) Christians believe that God the Son became a man and died on the cross to fulfill the redemption of all human beings. That is, they firmly believe that they can obtain eternal life by believing in the incarnated God, Jesus Christ, as the Savior. Christians believe that the Holy Spirit dwells in them and leads them to the life of holiness and to the eternal life. So they are baptized. This shows their firm will to become real Christians. Baptism is a rite of resolution to live as a responsible Christian. Baptism is a rite of an oath that a man from now on stops the sinful past life and begins to live a holy life as God's child. Baptism means the crucifixion of evil self, the drowning-death of dirty desires and the rebirth of a new man. Therefore now the baptized believer has publicly expressed before the saints his resolution that he will believe in Jesus and keep his faith in Jesus even in all sufferings of cross. Of course, you can be saved and obtain eternal life by believing in Jesus but without baptism. But I have to doubt your true will to be a Christian if you refuse the baptism when Jesus orders us to be baptized. Christians acknowledge the authority of a servant of God who is ordained cleric. So they follow his religious guidance with obedience. Christians always look into their religious life lest they go astray to left or right and commit sin, because they believe in resurrection, eternal judgement and life. Those who accept such Christian faith and live thus are believers with basic Christian beliefs.

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But Christians need to grow beyond such basic stage of Christian faith and to become more holy and powerful believers. Nevertheless Christians in this stage of growth are in the process of enlarging their spiritual capacity. As they enter the stage of growth, they are enlightened by the light of heaven. They go into the stage where they come to understand the deep spiritual truth beyond the basic Christian truth. They can understand the profound truth of the Bible and meet the joyful truth in the preachings of the pastor. They, hearing the sermons, exclaim "Amen, Amen!" - a phenomenon occurring when they begin to understand the words of God. Those who do not reach this stage and stay at the stage of beginner feel that the Bible is a dull book, and suffer from sleepiness while listening to preachings. The heavenly enlightening light is the teaching of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit gives us wisdom to understand the truth of God. He also gets the believers on the stage of growth to taste heavenly gifts. "To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are inspired by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills. (1 Cor 12:8-11)" Like this, believers keep growing from the stage of basic faith to the stage of more and more powerful Christian by the help of the Holy Spirit in them.

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There is a problem. Some Christians do not enter the full-scale stage of growth but lay again and again the foundation of their faith. Of course, some of them try to learn repeatedly because of lack of memory. But it seems to me that most of them repeatedly return to the world and come back to the Lord and repent sins. Repent - believe and resolve - sin - repent - believe and resolve ... Some will remain in this endless cycle of wandering until death, others will at last leave Jesus and the church. The lesson the Bible gives us today is that we should not repeat the basic stage of faith but get into the stage of growth of faith. If you have been baptized and resolved to crucify your old self on the cross, you must from now on renounce the worldly joy of the sinful life but long for and taste the joy of the holy life that the Holy Spirit gives. Christians must first long for the holy spiritual milk so that they can depart from the basic stage and enter the stage of growth. The spiritual milk is the word of God. Just as Christians have a delicious meal three times a day, so they must read the Bible every day and attend all worship services so as to get the bread for the spirit and to grow in faith well day by day. If you wash out secular desire, greed and sins in you by the words of God you've learned, so that you've become a clean Christian, the Holy Spirit will come into your clean mind and give you holy spiritual power. Christians must discern between filthy joy and holy joy. Dirty is the pleasure of adultery, rape, etc. Holy joy is the joy that I feel when I feel deeply in my heart that God loves me. My heart overflows with holy joy when I realize that God knows me, that God is interested in me very much. In particular, God and I become one and I am his instrument when the Holy Spirit in me gives me various holy gifts so that the power of God is being revealed through me. When we are one with God like this, all become the reasons of delight. We are always happy - whether we live or die, healthy or sick, succeed or fail. Those who adopted Christianity for the first time should yearn after the divine joy that God gives rather than the world gives. He who does not yearn after this divine joy will leave Jesus, return to the world, fail to gain eternal life, and be thrown into hellfire.

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Christians must keep growing and at last achieve maturity. Growth is the stage of accepting basic Christian truth and receiving gifts of the Holy Spirit. Until this time, the faith has been confined to one's outward side. To use an analogy of a tree, the tree of faith has produced its roots, stems and leaves. In a sense, the growth of faith has been for the believer himself until now. He believed in Jesus and gained eternal life. He received the Holy Spirit into heart and gained divine gifts, so he had great joy. He has grown to that stage, and is praised by many for that growth. However Christians should not stay at this stage of growth. They must go up to the stage of maturity.

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The stage of maturity is a stage of bearing fruits. Fruits are not for the tree itself but absolutely for others. Does a persimmon tree bear fruits and eat its own persimmons? Does a grapevine bear grapes and eat them? No! Trees bear fruits to give them for nothing to the owners of the trees or to other creatures. Like this mature believers live a life of devotion, service and love for God and neighbors. Roots, stems and leaves are a tree's while the fruits are others'. Good roots, stems and leaves are tree's glory, but the tree does not bear fruits to boast of itself, for the fruits, even if they are on the tree, are not the tree's. After all the tree will have only roots, stems and leaves after others have picked the fruits. Fruit means sacrifice. Trees extract the sap (the nutrition) from their branches to produce good fruits. Likewise, only when a Christian uses himself to produce holy fruits for God, church and neighbors, by the power of the Holy Spirit, can he become a mature believer. The use of the position of pastor and the gifts of the Holy Spirit only for oneself can never be a good fruit. It is not a mature faith.

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But, what is really pitiful is, there are some Christians who experienced a lot of really holy gifts of the Holy Spirit betray Jesus and go to hell. Why? Because they deliberately rejected the Holy Spirit's command that they should become mature. They made the holy gifts of God the means to make themselves rich, and are deserted by God. As soon as they are deserted by God, the Holy Spirit departs them and they become miserable humans never to have a chance to repent but to go to hell. "They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children! Forsaking the right way they have gone astray; they have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing, but was rebuked for his own transgression; a dumb ass spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet's madness. (2 Pet 2:14-16)" Heavenly holy blessings and gifts are to be used for revealing God's glory, power and mercy and for the good of the church and the saints. You are a thief if you use the position of pastor and the holy gifts of God to show yourself off and to make yourself rich. How can a thief go to heaven? Never! "As each has received a gift, employ it for one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace. (1 Pet 4:10)" Like this, the holy fruit of Christians is a life of using the gifts of God they received for the good of the church of God and the saints. Christians with such maturity are good soil, branches on the vine (Jesus) and good grains. These are useful Christians.

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On the other hand, he can't go to heaven who does not accept the gospel, or who accepted the gospel but now refuses to become mature and leaves the church, or who, after achieving some maturity, is deserted by God because he used the pastorship and the holy gifts of God to enrich only himself, or who, after tasting such pastorship and holy gifts, changes his mind for some reasons and leaves Jesus. But there are only two places for you to go after death - heaven or hell. Where do you want to go?

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May the Holy Spirit abide in you to help you understand the truth of God, to give you holy gifts, and to help you bear holy fruits.

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Chong Tack Kim

                                       -Dongtoma Sunshine Church-

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