Are We Neglecting a Great Salvation?

Taken from chapter 19 - "Endure to the end and be saved!" - (Hebrews 10:32-39)

Neglect Connections
There is a necessary narrow application from this passage for us as twenty-first-century American Christians. The author writes in 11:1, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for.” We all want assurance of our salvation, and we see that “faith” brings this assurance, but how does this practically work in our Christian lives?

As we’ve seen in Hebrews, and as we see throughout the Bible, faith is not merely belief. Remember, James teaches that “even the demons believe—and shudder!” (James 2:19). Faith is an investment in our lives to study and know God’s Word and then seek, by God’s grace and the power of His Holy Spirit, to live a life of obedience to God’s Word, even if our obedience comes at the cost of our well-being, freedom, or even our lives. We trust Him, as demonstrated by our faithful attitudes and actions, even in the face of trial and persecution knowing that faithfulness brings us God’s best both now and in eternity. And in return, we gain assurance of our salvation because God proves Himself faithful in real and vivid and irrefutable ways in our lives through His “grace to help in time of need” (4:16). So then, we endure affliction together (church is a team contact sport) and we “joyfully [accept] the plundering of [our] property” when it is the price to pay for following Jesus Christ. But wait, this isn’t a time for joy; this is a time for calling our lawyer to defend our inalienable rights!

This is an American theology, but it’s not a very biblical one. Remember, Jesus teaches us that suffering for His name’s sake is a blessing when he says, “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy” (Luke 6:22–23). It’s a blessing and a cause for joy, but why?

In Acts 5, the apostles were arrested by the Jewish supreme council for teaching and preaching about Jesus; and in Acts 5:40–41, Luke writes that when the council called in the apostles, “They beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name.” Why is enduring persecution faithfully a blessing and joy? Because the persecution is God’s clearest and most powerful way of telling you He has counted you worthy! Why are we worthy? Because we are never more Christlike than when we endure suffering for doing the will of God. In 1 Peter 4:13–14, Peter teaches, “But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.” Much could be said of these verses, but notice again that enduring persecution for Christ’s sake is counted as a blessing and cause for joy. Why? Because it affirms to us that “the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.”

Brothers and sisters, we should desire to endure faithfully to the end, especially in the midst of persecution and tribulations suffered for Christ’s sake, because God’s great purpose in bringing us into those times (and He does) is not so we can demand our rights to be forever kept from those moments, but so that God can give us the blessed assurance that we are His both now and forever through His mighty work in us in those times. This is why these times are cause for joy, and as Americans, I believe our faith is stunted because we have stronger cultural convictions than we do biblical convictions in this area and we passionately trade the blessings of God for the blessings of a worldly form of deliverance as a result.

The blessings of God and His work in us in these times are matchless riches: a point Paul makes in Romans 5:2–5 that I will leave you with in the hope my point here is not lost or resisted or angrily rejected.

Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.