Hebrews 6. When Jesus talks about faith, He means first of all to trust unreservedly that you are loved, so that you can be released from the prison of shame to pursue your destiny in Him. You begin to hope against hope that this is true. And then some religious hall monitor turns you to Hebrews 6 and warns you that your view is flawed, that there are a lot of performance standards to either earn or keep God’s love, and that you should live scared spitless of messing up. This Sunday I want to show you what I believe Hebrews 6 is really saying. I view Hebrews as one of the most touching and gracious portions of Scripture. Rather than a warning against those who think they’re Christians but they’re not, these paragraphs are telling those of us who embrace grace how to love those in our lives who have walked away from God and us.

A small house church somewhere in the Roman Empire was struggling under the burden of severe persecution. The temptation to abandon following Christ for these Jewish converts to Christianity was real. “This is simply too hard,” some of these dear brothers and sisters were concluding. “It’s not worth it to follow Christ as His devoted disciple and live in the redeemed community under these circumstances. I need to go back to my former life. Oh, I still believe in Jesus, but I’m weary and losing heart.”

And then they read the words of this precious letter sent by a spiritual shepherd they knew and trusted. Rather than shaming them to do better and be better for Jesus, the writer of Hebrews reminds them of the majesty of Jesus and the extreme privilege of following Him in community, even when life hurts. “What matters most when life is hard is getting to know Jesus and His people more, not less! It has become clearer to me during this persecution,” writes their beloved mentor, “that my personal relationship with Jesus and His people is the center of my experience of eternal life.”

An overview of Hebrews, concentrating on the Prologue (1:1-4) and the Purpose (12:1-3).

Pastors, teaching team & church body talking in the living room about how the So What? series impacted us individually.