Forge ahead in search for faith

The most important issue in your life is to grow spiritually. You must press ahead to spiritual maturity. Your relationship with Jesus Christ must be pre-eminent in your life. There must be zeal and passion and spiritual energy in your life to forge ahead in following the Lord Jesus Christ. No matter the difficult circumstances in your life they cannot become an excuse to slow down spiritually. You must be diligent and not sluggish.

Sanctification or spiritual growth starts with the pastor. His responsibility is to feed and protect his flock. As a pastor, I’m not called to be a stand-up comedian, a self-help guru or a therapist. My job is to teach the Bible thoroughly and accurately. I’m responsible to encourage and catalyze the spiritual growth of God’s people. Anything else is a distraction.

Too many pastors today neglect the priority of sanctification for their congregations. Instead of helping God’s people feast on the riches of the holy Scriptures, they shroud their teachings in pop-culture references and comedy routines designed to appeal to unbelievers. In so doing, they withhold the only true source of spiritual nourishment from the Christians who are hungry. Often the people in the pews don’t even realize what they are missing, content instead to be entertained into spiritual starvation.

Hebrews 6 is all about pressing ahead to spiritual maturity. This chapter is designed to motivate and encourage. You and I must be fully devoted in following after the Lord Jesus Christ. Hebrews 6 verses 13 through 20 gives three strong reasons to forge ahead in your spiritual life.

• The first reason is the unfailing promises of God in verses 13-16. God has given tremendous promises to you in the Bible. God’s promises never fails. Verses 13-16 focus upon Abraham, who trusted in the promises of God. Those promises were fulfilled. In Genesis 12:2 God said to Abraham, “I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great….” Abraham waited 25 years for his son, Isaac, to be born. How easy it would have been during those 25 years for Abraham to grow slack and to become sluggish and to shift his life into a spiritually neutral state. The great patriarch might have said, “I guess God has forgotten me. God has passed me by. There is no reason to press on anymore.” Yet, God did not forget the promise. God remembered. At the appointed time 25 years later God executed his promise and gave Isaac.

Jesus Christ has given tremendous promises to you. “… lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). “I am the good shepherd and the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:10). The Apostle Paul reminds us, “And my God shall supply all your needs according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).

• The second reason is the unchanging purpose of God in verses 17-18. Hebrews 6 verse 17 mentions “the immutability of his (God’s) counsel.” Immutability means “unchanging.” God’s sovereign will for every believer is unchangeable. God does not have a Plan B for your life or a Plan C or a Plan D. God has only a plan from before the foundation of the world. It is his eternal decree. It is his eternal plan.

God is not the author of sin but God has a relationship with Satan, sin and even human failure. God uses Satan, sin and even human failure to accomplish his eternal purposes without being the author of sin. Ephesians 1:4 says that God “chose us in him before the foundation of the world.”

You must run the race with endurance. You must battle ahead. We cannot languish and slow down in the pursuit of holiness. You must run the race of faith set before you. There must be a sense of eternal destiny about your life. Every follower of Jesus knows that as you put your feet upon the floor in the morning it is God who goes before you. Ephesians 2:10 reveals that God has prepared and ordained good works for us to walk in before the foundation of the world.

• The third reason is the unforfeitable presence of God in verses 19-20. “This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, but sure and steadfast….” (Hebrews 6:19). The presence of God in a Christian’s life produces confidence, certainty and assurance. The Bible refers to this as hope. Hope is not wishful thinking but a positive certainty about the future. This hope is an anchor within you. You have an anchor for your soul. This is an extraordinary statement.

The author is painting a picture of reality. It pictures a ship that is in the midst of a storm. A ship that is battered by the waves but it is held in place by something that is unseen. Dangerous reefs surround the ship. Reefs that could puncture the hull and cause the ship to go down. But for some reason the ship is held in place. Other things are being swept away but this ship is secure. An anchor has been dropped overboard. An anchor that has teeth has gripped the ocean floor.

The ship represents your soul. The sea is the world in which you live. The storm is the tempest and the trials and the temptations that confront you. It is always hurricane season for us. The chain, the anchor, that connects the ship to the anchor is saving faith. The anchor is the presence of God. It is Jesus Christ himself.

We stand firm. We are not blown about. No matter what is blowing into your life — spiritual problems, health problems, family problems — we have an anchor for the soul. This anchor is the presence of God in our life.

Do not be paralyzed spiritually. Do not languish and hold back. Do not allow opportunity after opportunity to pass by in serving God. Pursue holiness. The unfailing promises of God, the unchanging purpose of God and the unforfeitable presence of God must all propel us forward to serve the Lord Jesus Christ.

Ethan Hansen is pastor of Faith Bible Fellowship in Big Lake. He can be reached at ehansen@biglakefaithbible.org.