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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Norman McNulty

On to Perfection

It is just past 10.30 and I will do my best to finish at 11 o'clock, but I might have a little bit more to say than 27 minutes, so bear with me.

I won't go too much past 11 o'clock, but I believe that today's message is an important 1.

I'm speaking today from Hebrews chapter 6.

Hebrews is my very favorite book in the Bible.

It's a Book that's written with a special message and for us a seventh-day Adventist.

It has a very unique message for us In our role in which we are to live at this time in Earth's history and Hebrews Chapter 6 is a cornerstone chapter for many reasons.

And it's 1 of my favorite chapters within the book of Hebrews.

And I hope that you will understand a little bit more completely why by the end of this message.

Therefore, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ let us go on unto perfection.

He's talking about let us go on unto perfection.

He's just finished saying something at the end of Hebrews chapter 5, which sets the table for Hebrews chapter 6.

In Hebrews chapter 5, he ends the chapter by rebuking the Jews of that time, the Christian Jews, and you can read this in verses 11 through 14.

He says, of whom we have many things to say and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing.

For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, you have need that 1 teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God and are become such as have need of milk and not of strong me for everyone that uses milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness for he is a babe but strong me Belongeth to them that are of full age Even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil So what's Paul saying here?

Paul is saying if you stick with the milk of the Word of God, you will not come to an understanding, a complete understanding of righteousness, of being able to discern between good and evil.

And because of that, in chapter 6 he starts off by saying, let's leave the principles, the milk behind, and let's go on to an understanding of perfection.

Now it's time for you to listen to me and I'm going to give you some strong meat to help you understand how to live a life of perfection.

And much is made of this word perfection.

What does it mean to live a perfect life in Christ?

Well, let's let the Bible speak for itself.

The Bible will tell us how we can go on to this experience of perfection.

Hebrews chapter 6 could neatly be summarized by 2 key words, faith and patience.

And what we want to do today, we want to look at these 2 qualities, faith and patience, based on Hebrews chapter 6.

And we want to look at some examples of people who have lived lives of faith and patience.

And then we want to see for ourselves how does that apply to me as I live my life today and so in Hebrews chapter 6 moving on down starting in verse 10 says for God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love, which you have showed toward his name, and that you have ministered to the saints and do minister.

And we desire that every 1 of you do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end and verse 12 that ye be not slothful but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

Now notice he says that you be not slothful.

It's We're living in a time That it's not a good time to be slothful It's not a good time to be lazy in our Christian experience God wants us to show diligence to the full assurance of hope and to the end.

If you think about the things that are important to you in your life, the things that are most important to you can be determined by how much effort you put into that.

For those of us who have gone to medical school, some of us have graduated, we've put some effort into that.

For those of you who are married, I'm not, but for those of you who are, to have a good successful marriage, a good successful relationship, you put some effort into that.

And likewise, for us as Christians, if our eternal salvation, The promises of God that have been given to us if that's important to us We want to give diligence to that, just as the Bible says.

And we want to be followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promise of eternal life.

Now I want to spend some time on 2 people that Hebrews chapter 6 talks about.

These are them, if you will, the followers of them.

These 2 people are the 2 people that Paul describes for us here in Hebrews chapter 6 and who are they?

Abraham and Jesus as examples to us for for people who exhibited faith and patience.

So he lived a certain type of life that we can follow if we want to understand faith.

And then he mentions Jesus in this chapter.

Jesus is the author and the finisher of our faith.

So we have these 2 men here in Hebrews chapter 6 We have Abraham the father of the faithful and we have Jesus the author and the finisher of our faith and we can learn much from both of these men and the stories that are shown here in the Bible for how we can have the same experience of faith and patience.

And the thing that I want you to be thinking about as we go through this message, be thinking how does this apply to faith and patience and in the overall picture of going on unto perfection.

Faith and patience fitting into this picture.

Here in verse 13 it says, for when God made promise to Abraham because he could swear by no greater he swore by himself saying surely blessing I will bless thee and multiplying I will multiply thee.

And so after he had patiently endured he obtained the promise.

This is talking about Abraham in verse 15.

It says, after, well when did he receive the promise?

When did Abraham receive the promise that God had given him?

Now Paul just mentions this in passing, after he had patiently endured, but there's a an important Bible story for us to look at here to understand how did Abraham patiently endure.

We're following someone who through faith and Patience inherited the promises so we want to look at this story to see what kind of patience Abraham had and what quality of faith he had.

And because of this quality of patience and faith that he had, he obtained this promise that God had for him.

By faith Abraham when he was tried offered up Isaac.

And he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said that in Isaac shall thy seed be called, accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from whence also he received him in a figure.

Based on Hebrews chapter 11, when did Abraham receive the promise?

It was when he was ready to offer up his son Isaac on the altar.

And we want to spend a little bit more time with this story because this story will help us to understand how we can live by faith and how we can patiently endure when God allows us to pass through certain trials in our lives and so let's turn to Genesis chapter 22 we're going to take a look at this story we're going to unpack it a little bit more completely Genesis chapter 22 completely.

And we're going to be looking at verses 1 through 5.

And it came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham and said unto him, Abraham.

And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering upon 1 of the mountains, which I will tell thee of.' And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took 2 of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and claimed the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up and went into the place of which God had told him then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place of far off and Abraham said unto his young men abide ye here with the ass and I and the lad will go yonder and worship and come again unto you." What is so amazing about this story?

What is it When you look at this account of what God asked Abraham to do and how Abraham followed, what is it that's so unique and special about this story?

Well, first of all, Isaac had been promised to Abraham as the promised heir God had promised Abraham that he would be the father of many nations and that his progeny would be as the sand, like the sands of the sea.

But in order for that promise to be actualized, Isaac had to live and Isaac had to have a family of his own.

And at this point, Isaac was not married.

So for God to ask Abraham to offer up his son Isaac was really an unbelievable request.

When God asked Abraham, Abraham had to have really wondered, is God really asking me to do this?

How is it possible that the child that God has given me, He is now asking me to offer up as a sacrifice?

It took Abraham 3 days to go from his home to Mount Moriah to where the sacrifice would take place.

How do you think those 3 days were for Abraham?

Do you think he was enjoying the time with Isaac and having jovial conversation with his servants?

I think Abraham's faith was being extremely tried during those 3 days.

Because the God that he loved and the God that he knew had asked him to do something that was totally out of character from the God that he had always known.

And now he was walking step-by-step closer and closer to the mountain where he knew that he was gonna have to offer up his son Isaac on the mountain.

I believe that Abraham had his patience severely tested, Not only his faith, but his patience.

And Hebrews chapter 6 says, after he had patiently endured.

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On to Perfection

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