Don’t Throw Away Your Trust in Jesus
35So do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord. Remember the great reward it brings you! Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God’s will. Then you will receive all that he has promised. “For in just a little while, the Coming One will come and not delay. And my righteous ones will live by faith. But I will take no pleasure in anyone who turns away.” But we are not like those who turn away from God to their own destruction. We are the faithful ones, whose souls will be saved.
Hebrews 10:35-39
The ‘So’ or ‘Therefore’ [oun] takes us back to the encouragement the writer has given these Hebrew Christians by reminding them of what they have done already to endure persecution. The idea being, you have endured much already, keep your confident trust in the Lord. Don’t give up clinging to your trust and assurance that everything you have been taught about Jesus and the Age to Come is true. The word the writer has used for “throw away” [apoballō] means “to throw away”, “to fling off” or “cast aside as if it had no value”. The prime sense is ‘to throw away’, i.e. taking off a worthless used garment and casting it on the scrap heap, deeming it no longer useful. What is it that they were in danger of throwing away? Their confidence or trust in Jesus. Which confidence is that the writer is referring to? THIS confidence! The confidence he has just been reminding them they have shown by enduring the things they have thus far. All that I listed in the previous Gem.
Why endure all those things you have, only to turn away from Jesus now. You have hung on thus far; don’t give up now. The facts haven’t changed; the truth about Jesus’ sacrifice and all He has done for us hasn’t changed. What you require now is patient endurance to continue on in the will of God. What does that mean? He is not talking about some general sense of God’s will for their lives. He is talking specifically about holding to all they have been taught and to trust in all they have been taught. What teaching is that? All the author of the letter has been talking about since the beginning of what he has written to them. Don’t even think for a moment of turning back to Judaism and the synagogue, thinking that will allow you to escape the persecution. Not after the extensive explanation and warnings he has given them to not give up and toss it all in.
Remember the great reward of the consummation of your endurance and being steadfast in your trust and confidence in Jesus. Remember the reward that awaits you! Keep on trusting; keep on enduring as you have and the reward will be yours. There are two phases to what is required.
- Doing the will of God
- Receiving the reward
But are they really phase 1 and phase 2 or do the rewards come simultaneously with the trusting? We need to continue in the will of God, trusting in Jesus being the way to God AND receiving the rewards that will come at the same time. Not the rewards related to the consummation of the Age to Come of course, but you will be aware of the other rewards that will accompany your endurance. We all know (those of us following Jesus now) that the assurance through the Holy Spirit comes simultaneously with our obedience in all sorts of ways; the confirmation and encouragement from the Word of God as we read it. [Remember this letter written to the Jewish Christians in the 1st Century is the Word of God for us now. That is why I am spending so much time unpacking it for you.] The affirmation of the Spirit comes in ways we can’t easily describe. The exhortation and encouragement of our fellow believers also encourages us to keep trusting. That is why we can’t neglect to meet together. That is why believers in countries which have outlawed Christianity in this day and age still risk life and limb to meet together for encouragement (Hebrews 10:24-25).
To close this section the writer picks up on a word from the Tanakh to encourage the people in his time.
This vision is for a future time. It describes the end, and it will be fulfilled. If it seems slow in coming, wait patiently, for it will surely take place. It will not be delayed. “Look at the proud! They trust in themselves, and their lives are crooked. But the righteous will live by their FAITHFULNESS to God.
Habakkuk 2:3-4
The One Who is Coming will indeed come. Trust in that knowledge and be faithful. Remember the kind of knowledge we talked about – [epignõsis] and not just [gnōsis] (Gem 2130). We are not like those described in Habakkuk who turn away to their own destruction. We are the faithful ones who will be saved. The writer is exhorting them with those thoughts to hang in there. You have done it already. You have endured the persecution you have already experienced. Hang in there and patiently endure again. The end result will be to reap all the rewards we have talked about. Don’t shrink back or turn away from your confidence in Jesus. The verb the writer uses here is [hupostellō] meaning “to shrink back” or “shrink away in fear”, “to turn back secretly” and not follow the faith anymore, “to turn and run like a coward”. The author of the letter is telling them don’t do it; God won’t be pleased. Hang in there in confident trust in your Great High Priest, Jesus, to save you.
We are the faithful ones. You have proved yourselves to have been faithful thus far. Now let me remind you of what it means to be faithful to Him who called you. At this point the writer gives them a-carefully-selected, potted-history-of-God’s-heroes-of-faith. The faithful ones. And if you look just a little further you will see in the beginning of Chapter 12 he talks of the huge crowd of witnesses.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.
Hebrews 12:1
I am sure you are seeing what this writer, who knows his Tanakh so well, is saying. It is so interconnected it’s awe-inspiring. Be inspired as we work our way through the faithful heroes listed in Chapter 11. I warn you, there are some surprises coming.
True faith only goes into operation when there are no answers.
Elisabeth Elliot
You can’t learn to trust God by hearing how your friend trusts Him. Take the step of faith and trust for yourself; You’ll grow.
Ian
Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.
Martin Luther King, Jr
Sometimes faith is an instrument of change; at other times it’s a means of survival.
Bob Gass