Do Not Throw Away Your Confidence

So this morning we're going to be taking a week out of 1 Timothy. And we're going to be studying the question, what does it mean to live by faith? It's a very big question, and yet it's something that all of us have to work through. We can answer the question really simply, and we can say, well, to live by faith means to try to do... To have our lives and everything that we do in them be aimed at glorifying God. And that's a good answer. That's a true answer. But it's a fairly nondescript answer. It doesn't tell us what we need to do today or in this situation or that situation. And the reason that answer is not very particular is that because living by faith is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor. What it means for me to live by faith and what it means for you to live by faith, in the particulars, can be quite different. Because God has given us different gifts, different seasons of life, different burdens. And so for me to live by faith may mean one thing, and for you to live by faith it may mean another thing. But both of us the same need to live by faith. We also have to recognize that when we live by faith, when we say, I'm going to live by faith, we need to realize that it's not just different between us and someone else, that it's actually going to change as our life goes on.

That what living by faith looks like as an elementary school student is going to be different as you enter into high school, as you go to college or get married, as you have children, as your kids leave the home, as you move into retirement. Living by faith is going to change drastically. Think of what an empty nester, what it means for them to live by faith versus someone who's entering their senior year of high school. very different things are going to be required of these people. And so this means that living by faith is not something that we check off of our list and we go, you know, I live by faith. It's something that we do every hour of every day. Or we don't. And my hope this morning is that by the end of our time, you say, I don't want to not live by faith. I want to live by faith. I see what's going on.

I see what the burdens are. I see what the cares are. I see where the temptations lie for me not to persevere by faith. And I wanted you to be strengthened and encouraged to press on in those areas, in those particular areas, to live by faith now. Our text this morning is Hebrews chapter 10, verses 32 through 39. Would you please stand for the reading of God's word? This is the word of the Lord, and it is eternally true. But remember the former days. When after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, partly by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations, and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated. For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting 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 was promised. For yet in a very little while, he who is coming 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 to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Now, if we were to take a poll right now, and I were to say, on a scale of 1 to 10, how hard would you rate living by faith? We would all answer very differently. Sarah says a 10. Is that what you said? Yeah. I think there's a bell curve. You guys know what a bell curve is? It goes up and then it comes down. But most of the data is in the middle.

I think that there's a bell curve to the answer to this question, how hard is it to live by faith? And I think on the one end, those who are young would say it's easy to live by faith. And I think on the other end, those who are older, who've lived a lot of life, would say it's easier to live by faith. No? Jeff says no? Okay, well I'm not there yet. It may be that you have more evidence or more data. to say that you ought to live by faith. But I would say that most of us live in the middle of it, where we'd say living by faith is difficult. And so my hope this morning as we look at this text is to say, we're not alone in this struggle and in this battle. That this text is aimed at people just like you and me, who are wrestling through the question of living by faith and the implications of it for their life.

What living by faith in the past, when they had done things by faith, what that meant for their present and what it was going to mean for their future. A little one may say, yes, I love God and I want to serve him all the days of my life. But they haven't had all of the weights and responsibilities and burdens of life placed on them yet because it's not theirs to carry yet. But that time's going to come. And so if you're in that season of life where you go, I think that living by faith is... Not as hard as you're making it sound like. And I'd say, enjoy those days. They're good days. But I don't want you, even if that's you now, I don't want you to be surprised in years to come when it's not so easy. And so for some of us, the sermon this morning is going to be preparatory. You may say, well, it's not that hard right now. And I say, okay, I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer, but it may get hard for you. And I want you to be prepared in that day so you'll be faithful in that day.

And to those of you who say, it's very hard, I want you to be encouraged and see that you're not alone in this struggle, but that God, through his word, addresses this very struggle in your life and helps to bring you along through it so that you come out the other side. So we're studying Hebrews, as I've said. And as the letter suggests, the name, Hebrews, it's written to the Jews, to the people of God. And in general terms, this letter has one main purpose. And it's to argue to the Jews that all of the Old Testament prophecies, all of the Old Testament sacrificial system, all of the stuff that they did at that time was fulfilled in Jesus Christ. That all of that stuff pointed to the Messiah, to the one that was going to come. And then it says, because you've spent your life and everything you've done looking forward to this Messiah, Hebrews says, Jesus is this Messiah, now this is how you ought to live. That's basically the summary of what Hebrews is doing. Arguing about all of the priests of the Old Testament and how Jesus is our great high priest. And how there were sacrifices year after year, always to be reminding the people of sin. And yet those sacrifices never did anything except remind them of their sin. But when Jesus came and sacrificed himself, their sins were finally done away with.

This is the message of Hebrews. Now, is it written to a believing or an unbelieving Hebrew? I say both. If you write to a believing Hebrew, then they're strengthened and they're encouraged. And they pick up on the parts that say, press on. There's great reward. Don't throw away your confidence. These sorts of things. And if it's written to an unbelieving Hebrew, it says, you've said to believe all of these things. I'm demonstrating that Jesus is the fulfillment of all of those things. You need to believe on him. Because if you don't believe on him, there are... there are terrible consequences for that. And so of those who were believing Jews, the author tells them in the beginning of our passage, remember the former days. And before we get into anything more than the former days, I want you to think when someone says, do you remember the past, the former days? Are they generally calling up good memories or bad memories? Usually good memories, right? Remember back in the glory days. Remember back in the good days, when it was sweet, when it was easy.

And it was good. And so this idea of remembering the past, the former days, is often aimed at cultivating some sort of memory or fondness or encouragement that's aimed at helping you. Do you remember it used to be this good way? But our text does exactly the opposite. It's a strange thing. Remember the former days, when after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, trials, reproaches, where your property was... Seized, taken away from you. Now who wants these kind of memories drummed up? In each of our lives, this is the sort of sediment that we let settle at the bottom. We don't want it brought up. We don't want it talked about. We don't want it stirred up back into our life. And yet here, this is exactly what they're told to do. Remember the difficulties. Remember the hardships. When you endured, a great conflict of sufferings. It seems monstrous. You have people who are already suffering, who are already having a hard time, who've suffered, and you're saying, remember when it was terrible. And I want to caution each of us here that we not dismiss God's wisdom here. This cuts across against the grain of how we would do things.

And yet this is God's wisdom to us. And so we need to not dismiss it, but rather understand it. Why is it that they're being told to remember their suffering? And there are good reasons that we're going to come to of why they're having their past sufferings recalled to mind. But I want to say to you, simply remembering the difficulties of life isn't a help to you. It will not serve to encourage you or to strengthen you or to help you to live by faith. It won't. not by itself. If I said, do you remember when you did this, and do you remember how you were, and do you remember all this terrible stuff that happened to you, period, it will serve the purpose of discouraging you and depressing you and tempting you to say, this is not worth it. But that's not all the apostle says. They're instructed to remember the reason that they suffered the way they did. Not simply that they suffered, but why they suffered. If you were to take these first couple of verses of our text,

and you were to cut out the particulars of their suffering. Our text would read like this. Remember the former days, when after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one. And so there's a reason for their sufferings set against their suffering. He says, you've suffered. You know it in your bones. You bear the marks of it in your body and in your life. You've suffered. What I want you to do is remember why you suffered. You had a better possession and a lasting one. What you have in suffering is a choice. When you live your life, you decide whether or not the costs outweigh the benefits. If I do this thing, this will be the cost. If I don't do this thing, this will be the benefit.

And what's being set before them is you had a life. You're the people of God. Jesus came on the scene and everything changed. And a choice was put to you. Will you believe in Jesus? This was the choice. When he speaks of them being enlightened, this is what's being spoken of. We'll talk about it a little more later. They had a choice put before them. And the choice was this. You've known all that God has said and that he's required of you. And you've come up believing and practicing it. But now the fulfillment of all of those things has come. Will you believe in him? And this letter is written to those who did believe in him. And as a consequence of their belief, after they had been enlightened, they endured a great conflict of sufferings. And so we have to see that the conflict of sufferings that these people endured was the result of their faith. And I want to say that again. The result of their faith was the suffering that's described here.

Now the reason I want to say that again is that it's very easy and very tempting to think that when you come to faith, everything gets easier and everything gets nicer and everything gets more comfortable now in this life. And that is not often the case. If we were to speak of them, the original hearers of this, what's being said to them is, all of the difficulty that you've endured could have been avoided. If you had not believed and not been enlightened. But the author reminds them, the reason you endured those things is because you believed. And part of your believing was you believing that there was a better possession, a better thing to have, a better place to be, and a better reward to receive than anything that this world can offer you. On the one hand, they could have had life. If they hadn't believed, they could have maintained their status quo, had their life, had their peace, had their prosperity without the sufferings that are accounted here for us. But when those things had come to an end, what would they have? Would they have looked back on their life and said, we did the right thing. I'm glad with how this has all turned out. It was worth it. The scripture tells us that that's not what they would have said.

When Jesus spoke of the rich man and Lazarus, he compares the two of them. And Lazarus had many, many sufferings and many, many hardships and many, many difficulties in this life. And he begged at the gate of the rich man. And the rich man had all of his comforts and all of his joys and all of his ease in this life. But then he died. And all of his joys and all of his comforts and all of his ease were gone. And all he had left was the eternal pain and agony and misery of hell. Such that he asked Abraham, would you send Lazarus here, dip his finger in water and put it on my tongue? His agony was so complete that that would have been a comfort to him. And even that was denied to him. And so when their passage speaks of them having a better possession and a lasting one, these are the things we're talking about. We're talking about eternity. We're setting all of the trials and...

burdens and sufferings of this life in the context of eternity. And the message of this passage is all of the things that you endure, all of the things that you bear, all of the suffering and the trials and hardships that make up your life, when they're set in the context of eternity, will be more than compensated for when you enter into glory. That is what these people have believed. This is what their enlightenment entailed. They believed that there was a better possession to be had than the one they had, that there was a better life to take hold of than the one they were currently living. And when they took hold of that life that was to come, it meant that the life they were currently leading got harder. And now they're facing the temptation, as each of us does, to flesh out and to press on in what it means to live by faith. The sufferings and the difficulties that they've endured are in their past.

They've already paid that price. They can't get it back. They're not considering something for their future. They're looking back on the cost they've already incurred. They've already been treated poorly publicly. They've already had their properties stolen away from them. They've already become aliens and strangers in this world. That's already happened. And now they look back on it and they say, was it worth it? And this is the question, if we'll all be honest about what goes on in our own hearts, this is the question we ask. Is it worth it? Is all of the suffering and all of the hardship and all of the pain and all of the humility of being a Christian worth it? Or is the life to come worth all of this struggle now? That's the question that each one of us faces. Sometimes more intensely than at other times, but all of us will face it.

You can look back and say, I did that by faith. Why did I get difficulty out of it? And we have to humble ourselves and we have to be willing to hear, did I believe that if I lived by faith, I wouldn't get hardship as a result in the short term? Were those the terms of my believing? I'll believe if my life gets better. If those were the terms of our believing, we've set ourselves up for a lot of difficulty. And I realize this is hard. It's hard for me. But the reason I've chosen to bring this stuff up is because I know what's going on with us and in our lives personally and as a church. And I know that this is a question that all of us are wrestling with. And so I don't want us to just wrestle with it by ourselves. I want us to take a look at what God's Word has to say to us about it. The thought, if I hadn't done that, I wouldn't be where I'm at now, is an ever-present temptation.

If I hadn't done that by faith, I wouldn't be suffering in this way right now. And you know what? The answer is, you're right. You wouldn't. But you would have lost your better possession. And so living by faith is a very unique thing. And the reason it's unique is that when you believe on Jesus Christ, you don't know what's to come in the future. You don't know what will happen. Not in detail. Have you guys all heard of buyer's remorse? You know what buyer's remorse is? Whenever you make a big purchase, you get all excited about it. You make the big purchase, then you get to a car, or it's some expensive toy, or it's a house, whatever. Then you get it home, and you go, hmm, I don't know if I should have done that. Maybe it's a dog. That's what you were thinking, isn't it? Is that what you were thinking? What is buyer's remorse?

Well, it's simply saying there was a cost, a difficulty associated with the decision that I made. That's all it is. And hopefully when you have buyer's remorse, you counted the cost ahead of time and you said, you know, I think there will be some hardships that come from this, but I still think it's the right thing to do. This house isn't going to be perfect. This job isn't going to be perfect. This vehicle is going to have things break on it that are going to have to be fixed. It's not going to be, this is not a thing brought down from heaven that moth and rust will not destroy. It's going to have trouble. So the way you minimize buyer's remorse is to count the cost ahead of time. You look at it and you say, is this the right house? Is this the right vehicle? Is this the right decision? Because when the question comes after the fact, you can say, no, I counted that out and I knew that this was going to come. Amos, would you stop that? Thank you.

You have these sorts of things. I think the place that this is most on display is in marriage. Those of you who've gotten married, you say these vows. And they're very general. I promise these things. And the basic promise is I promise to stay with this person, with you, for what? For better or worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, until one of us dies. Now. You tell me what happens in life that doesn't fall into better or worse, richer or poorer, or sickness and health. That is life. That's all of life. And you don't know what's going to happen. You simply don't know. You don't know how long you're going to live. You don't know what the quality of your life is going to be. You don't know what sin struggles and temptations are going to attend your marriage. You don't know.

You do your best ahead of the marriage in counseling to say, do you see these things? We can look and we can see the things that we don't want to see. Remember the former days. Okay, let's talk about your past. This is what we do in premarital counseling. All we do basically is say, look at your past. Look at your past. You guys look at each other's pasts. Open your eyes real wide. Because if you get married, you're going to get to be a part of that. And if you get married, you're going to vow to walk with each other through it, no matter what comes. And when we say that to newly, or to those who are engaged, you say that their eyes get real big. And they get intimidated and scared. Because they go, this means it might get really hard. And I say, it may. I can't say that it will or when or how. I can't. But I can tell you that you wouldn't be the first person that got married and had some sort of trial that came into your marriage that you hadn't anticipated.

And yet you make those vows by faith. And the only concrete thing you say in your vows is the last line. And to this I guarantee my faithfulness. That I will do these things. I will live with you for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, for better or worse. I guarantee I'll do it. And I don't know what it's going to mean for me to do it, but I guarantee I'll do whatever it takes. That's the difficulty. You make those vows by faith. And if those of you have been married more than, six months, you'd say, it wasn't what I thought it was going to be. It wasn't. There were burdens that came that I didn't know were going to come. You'd also say there's blessings that have come that I didn't anticipate. But there were hardships. The same thing happens when you come to faith. The same thing is happening with these disciples that are being addressed. You've committed by faith to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, to believe in him. And you've suffered as a result of it.

And now they're sitting and considering their suffering and whether it was worth it. And the apostle writes to them and he says, you have a better possession and a lasting one. Therefore, don't throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. You have need of endurance so that when you've done the will of God, you may receive what was promised. And the effect of what's being said is simply that the people would have their eyes drawn away from their suffering that they're enduring. Not that it would go away. but that their attention would be pulled away from it and pulled back to the reward and the promise that's going to come. Don't throw away your confidence. What is their confidence? Their confidence is this. Just before our text, in verses 19 through 25, he writes about their confidence. He says, Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he inaugurated for us through the veil, that is his flesh,

And since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stimulate one another to love in good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as we see the day drawing near. So what is their confidence? Their confidence is that Jesus came into this world to give them access to God and to procure for them a better life. That's their confidence. That Jesus came and bled and died for their sins so that they would then have life in his name by his blood for all eternity. And that that would outweigh and was of such value that they were willing then to suffer and to...

to persevere in the conflict of the Christian life because they had a confidence that it would be reconciled in God's time. This was their confidence. This was their hope. And so he tells them, because you have this confidence, press on. You have need of endurance. And this is a simple message to you and to me as you consider what it means to live by faith. You have need of endurance. Not because you're a terrible, awful, miserable person and you've failed in so many ways. That may well be true. You have need of endurance because there's a reward at the end that you've sacrificed to get already. You've already made sacrifice in pursuit of this glory. If you're a Christian, this is true of you. You've already given.

You've already given by faith. You've said, well, this has been the cost. This has been the sacrifice. This has been the suffering. This has been the tension. This is the trial. And I say to you, good. It's good that you lived by faith then, and it's good that you made those decisions. You have need of endurance, because we're not to the finish line yet. You've started well. When he speaks of their difficulty and their suffering, he's not saying, you fools, you should have known better. He's saying, you have started well. Received the seizure of your property. Joyfully did it. You did well. Good job. You have need of endurance now so that you can continue to work toward receiving the thing that you've started out after. And so it's meant to be an encouragement to us and a help to us. It's not a soft cotton candy type of encouragement. It's an encouragement that says there's been a real cost that you've paid. It's very real. And it will have continuing costs and effect in your life.

But you've done well to make that sacrifice. Press on in it. I understand that you're discouraged. I understand that you're afraid. I understand that you think, is it all going to be worth it in the end? If my whole life is defined by these difficulties and these hardships, will it all have been worth it? And I say, absolutely it will be. But in the process, you die to yourself. And that's painful, hard work. And honestly, I'm probably too young to talk about it with much... experience of it. But there are those of you in here who've lived longer than I have and who can say it is difficult. And maybe that it doesn't get easier, but it gets harder. But the other thing that's true is the reward gets closer. And so the question of what does it mean to live by faith? The question is, do you want the reward? Do you want it? And you say, yeah, I want it. And I say, good. Go get it. Go get it.

Because then when you have it and you've received it, the people that you've left behind will say, praise God and amen. They ran their race, they finished it well, and they've entered into the joy of their master. And all of the hardships that they've endured in this life are done now. And it'll spur them on. And so we have to keep our faith. This is how Paul talks about it later in 2 Timothy. Toward the end of his life, right at the end of the book, the last thing he says to... to Timothy is he says, I have fought the good fight. I finished the course. I've kept the faith. I haven't lost it. I haven't thrown it away. I've kept it. In the future, there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day. And this is his comfort as he goes to his death. This is the last thing Paul wrote before he died. There is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day. And not only to me,

but also to all who have loved his appearing. And so Paul's final words as he goes out of this world are, I've ran the race. I've suffered greatly. And if we read the New Testament, we see the sufferings and the trials that Paul endured. And he says at the end of his life, I've ran the race. I've kept the faith. And there's laid up for me glory, but not only for me, for you too, if you follow in my path. And this is the encouragement to you and to me. Some sufferings, can be removed. Some of them can't. Not until we die. And so our work and our place as Christians is to live by faith as we carry them. And as we help others, one another, to carry them. Those of you who are older are looking back at the sacrifices and the choices you've made and you go, did I do the right thing? The question, if you're asking that, if that's the question in your mind, what you need to be thinking is, did I make that decision by faith? Did I do that thing by faith? And if you did it by faith, then good.

If you say, no, I didn't do it by faith, and I say, okay, now you need to learn from that and now live by faith. Some of you are considering the sacrifices you make right now. You're in the middle of the trials, and you're going, I don't know if I can keep my nose above water. I don't know if I can keep the faith. I don't know if it's all worth it. My encouragement to you is to press on, not to give up, not to throw in the towel, not to throw away your confidence. Keep the faith. It will be worth it. It will have been worth it when it's over. Some of you are younger and you're considering the prospects of the sacrifices that you will make. And you say, I don't know what they're going to be. And my encouragement is, this message is meant for preparation for you. You will suffer. You will make sacrifices for your faith. And it will be worth it, even though you haven't made them yet. And when they come, you'll go, this is more than I can handle.

And the same man who said, I've fought the good fight. I've kept the course. I've kept the faith. Is the same man who said, we've been pressed beyond what we can bear. To the point that we've despaired even of life. But he kept the faith in the midst of the trial. And that's our work. That's our place. You say, I don't know how it's going to turn out. And I say, I know. I know. I know personally and I know from scripture. I know. Keep the faith. Fight the good fight. Don't quit. Jesus endured many, many sufferings and many, many trials and even death on the cross because he had joy set before him. And you have the same joy set before you. You and I both do. And so what we ought to do is take hold of it and say, there's been a promise of a reward made to me in the blood of Jesus Christ. I'm going to take hold of it. I'm going to lean into it.

to the blessing. And it's going to come with sufferings, but I'm going to lean into it because on the other side of the sufferings is blessing, is glory, is reward. The final thing I'll say is I can tell you that there's suffering, and as I look out at you, I can think of what some of those burdens are in the congregation. And my encouragement to you is don't bear them alone. God hasn't made you to bear them alone. He's given you brothers and sisters. If you all could look around and see where we're... What I see, you'd say, you're not alone in this. There are some parts of your suffering that you will have to bear alone. Some things that only you can do, that other people can't tangibly help with. But you don't bear all of your burdens and all of your sufferings alone. You bear them in community with other people. They ought to know about your sufferings. They ought to know what's going on. You ought to know what's going on in their lives. We ought to be stimulating each other to faith in good deeds, to love in good deeds.

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promises is faithful. And let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some. And you have to ask, why did they forsake the gathering together? Well, because of the sufferings. They said, it's not worth it. We're alone. He says, don't do that. Don't let your sufferings take you away from the body. Consider how to hold fast your confession without wavering. Consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds. Don't be apart from one another, but encourage one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near. This is Christian life together in community, and it's a sweet thing that we can do together with one another. Let's pray.