Hebrews 6:9-12 Episode 13 - Good Works Are the Marks of Regeneration

The author encourages his readers with the conviction that the barren fruitlessness that characterizes false profession of Christ does not characterize them. Rather, they have shown a pattern of fruitful obedience in the past (and even the present). But he is concerned that they continue the pattern of obedience up to the end, thus proving their faith to be genuine and making their hope sure.

- PODCAST TRANSCRIPT - 

Joel

Hi, welcome to the Two Journeys podcast. This is episode 13 in the book of Hebrews titled: “Good Works are the Marks of Regeneration” from Hebrews 6:9-12. I'm Joel Hartford and I'm here with Pastor Andy Davis.

Andy, this is the second section of this really scary warning passage in chapter six, where the author gives, as I mentioned in the title, the marks of regeneration, showing how we can know that we're Christians. Can you give us a brief overview of these three verses?

Andy

Yeah. So what the author is dealing with here is he's dealing with Jewish professors of faith in Christ, who have been under immense pressure to forsake Christ, to turn away from Christ and to turn back to old covenant Judaism. And so, he gives them a very serious warning here about people who have, it seems, been involved in that first century church, had seen I think signs and wonders, apostolic-level miracles. They had heard powerful preaching of the word. They had had rich experiences of fellowship and corporate worship, but were, it seems in some of these cases, forsaking the assembling of themselves together with other Christians. They were turning back and they were renouncing faith in Christ, and he's giving him a serious warning saying that if you have drunk in all of the blessings and benefits, which he likens to rain coming from heaven, all of the blessings of the Christian life, and you turn away, he says it's impossible to renew such people again to repentance. Because specifically they are defiling Christ, almost like they've joined Christ’s enemies, and they have to forsake Christ and say he was a deceiver of the people.

And so, the author uses a very powerful image here of bearing fruit. And so, the focus here at the end of this little section is: do you see the kind of fruit of regeneration in your life that you need to see? Now the author speaks very hopefully to these people as he writes them. And so, you see a pastor's heart here, he speaks hope into their lives saying, we're seeing fruit in your life. But as we begin this study, it's good for all of us, the hearers of this podcast, and you and I, Joel, as we consider to say, do I see the fruit or the mark of regeneration in my life?

Joel

Right. Now, as usual, we're going to read verses 9-12 for the sake of our audience. And before I read verse nine, I want to give you just a little bit of the context. The author had just given this agricultural analogy and he said basically that if land receives rain, if it bears fruit, it's useful, but if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless, and it's cursed, and its end is going to be burned. So that's the end of verse eight.

And then he says, starting in verse nine,

"Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things - things that belong to salvation. For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do. And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises." (Hebrews 6:9-12)

So, Andy, I want to look at verse nine, and you mentioned that he's hopeful of these people. He says, "Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things - things that belong to salvation." So how can somebody like the author of Hebrews feel sure of someone else's salvation?

Andy

Well, by looking at fruit. Jesus said, "By their fruit, you will know them."

And it's an uncertain thing. We can't perfectly assess someone else's fruit, but what we can do is we can see evidences of God's grace in someone's life, and it's so encouraging for a spiritual leader, a pastor, to be able to say that to somebody, I see the evidences of God's grace in your life. But before you can say that you need to study what they are, you need to study the scriptures, and know what are and are not marks of regeneration. There are some things that happen and they're good things, but they are no certain proof that someone is born again, like water baptism, or attending worship, or there are a lot of people that are baptized as unregenerate people. There are a lot of people that go to church as unregenerate people. There are some things that you can do that are really no certain signs of regeneration. They’re good things and we want to see them, but there are things that go deeper than that that we're looking for. So, the author here, I think again, as I mentioned just a moment ago, is being a good pastor, you have to have a combination of presenting the goodness and severity of God in a good ministry of the Word. There has to be some pretty serious warnings. There has to be fear of the Lord, fear of sin, fear of God's discipline. Frankly, even fear of hell. These things are helpful in pastoral ministry, but if that's all you do, it's going to be pretty shrill to listen to you minister the word of God. It's a ministry of fear and terror, frankly. You need to be able to mix some words of grace, and some words of hope, and words of encouragement, and that's exactly what he's doing.

Joel

Right. So, let me ask you, could you give us maybe two examples of distinguishing the right way and the wrong way to assess or encourage someone in their salvation? Here's what I mean. I don't think we're supposed to give judgment or final pronouncement on someone's salvation, and there's a judgmental attitude one can take, but then there's also the scriptural way. So, could you maybe give us some examples of how not to do this and how to do this?

Andy

Well, I think we need to refrain from making absolute statements either way, for me to be able to say it's guaranteed that you're going to heaven. I think what we need to do is just use conditional statements, like even when we do in water baptism. Frequently the person who's baptizing, the one who is being baptized, will say, "Based on your open and unashamed confession of Jesus Christ as your Savior, and Lord, I baptize you my brother." So based on your confession, I call you a brother. So you're always going to kind of somewhat couch the terms based on what I'm seeing. All we ever have is other people's actions. I mean it's literally, I can't read your soul. I can't read the state of your heart. All I can do is look at your face, facial expressions. I can watch your actions, I can listen to your words.

And that's what we do. We evaluate fruit. And so, just on the basis of the fruit we see. Now, there's something called the judgment of charity. We want to be charitable and we don't want to be walking around saying, "I don't really know who you are," this aura of suspicion. "I can't really tell if you're a Christian or not. Now I'll accept that you're a member of the church, but you might actually end up in hell."

I mean, that's just so negative and so poisonous, and it's not something you read in the New Testament. Paul is forever calling people brothers and encouraging them. So we want to just follow the scripture in its way of encouraging.

Joel

Yeah, I want to read that as a verse from 1 Thessalonians that I really love, where Paul's telling them how he knows that they're Christians. He says, "We know, brothers loved by God, that he's chosen you because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction."(1 Thessalonians 1:4-5)

So, you're talking about charitable judgment. These people are saying with conviction, "I believe that Jesus is Lord, he's my Lord."

Andy

And he goes on there in Thessalonians to say, "You turned away from a pagan lifestyle. You stopped going to the temples. There's some physical changes we saw in your life."

Just like Zacchaeus, what he said that was fruit. And Jesus said, based on that statement, “Salvation has come to this house today."(Paraphrase of Luke 19:9)

Joel

Yeah, amen. Now what are these better things? He says, "We feel sure of better things."(Hebrews 6:9) Better than what?

Andy

Well, he says, "Things of salvation,” so better than damnation, salvation is better than damnation. It's better to receive the blessing of God that he mentions in the verses that precede, that, “Land that drinks in the rain often falling and it produces a crop useful, a useful crop receives the blessing of God.” (Paraphrase of Hebrews 6:7)

So that's what he's saying are the better things. But speaking more directly in terms of our Christianity, he's talking about things of salvation, marks of salvation. And so he says, "I see that in your life, and I'm persuaded." I think one of the key things for us is Christians, and for me, especially as a pastor, is to understand marks of regeneration. What are some things that we look for in the Christian life? Now, these would be kind of in two categories. One would be things that we can analyze about our own souls, and our own minds, and thought lives, and internal life that really can't make available or obvious to other people. But we're going to urge people to evaluate themselves, to test themselves, to see whether they're in the faith, which it says in 2 Corinthians. We need to teach people to do this, do a self-analysis. Am I in the faith? Do I see the works of the Spirit in my life? But then there are external things that are not as certain, but that we do look for in a healthy Christian Church. And these are things as pastors we can use to encourage. So these would be physical things that we see, like the Thessalonians turning from a pagan lifestyle, or people who are addicted to certain patterns of sin. They don't do them anymore. These are evidences of God's grace. So again, going back to what we said in the last podcast, there are two types of fruit, action fruit and attitude fruit. So, we want to see both of those things in our lives. And in my book, An Infinite Journey, I advocate that the attitude fruit, or the internal fruit, comes first. It precedes the actions in every case. First, we know something from God's word. Secondly, we believe in it and trust in it based on the scripture having taught it. That combination transforms our heart so that we love what's right and hate what's wickedness, and then we do things. It flows, knowledge, faith, character, and action. So for us, we want to look at certain marks of regeneration. On the internal side, I would commend the fruit of the Spirit. Those are all internal things. Do we see love growing in our hearts? Love for God above all else and love for neighbor, Jonathan Edwards in Treatise on Religious Affection said, "This is the essence of true religion, is to love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself."

"We need to teach people to do this, do a self-analysis. Am I in the faith? Do I see the works of the Spirit in my life? But then there are external things that are not as certain, but that we do look for in a healthy Christian Church."

But do we see that? Do we have a genuine heart of affection for God and for Christ? Do we love him? Are we attracted to him? We yearn to please him? That kind of thing. There's that love. And then on the other fruit of the Spirit, joy, peace, patience, kindness. Do we see these kinds of qualities inside us? As Peter says, in increasing measure. 2 Peter 1 also gives us that list. He said, "Make every effort to add your faith,” which is how you get into your Christian life, “Add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control, self-control, perseverance, perseverance, brotherly kindness, brotherly kindness, love." And then Peter says, "If these qualities are in you in increasing measure,” (Paraphrase of 2 Peter 1:5-8) do you see yourself growing in these things? So that's evidence of regeneration. I like to look frequently at the Beatitudes. These are great heart states for a Christian, and they're not just meant for the beginning of the Christian life, but throughout.

For example, do you see yourself as poor in spirit? Are you a spiritual beggar? You know you really have nothing to offer. There's nothing that you can use to buy God's allegiance, or to buy forgiveness. You have no hope apart from the grace of God. So are you a spiritual beggar? Does that lead into a kind of meekness? There's a meekness toward God and toward others. A basic essential humility that we want to see, because you know you're a sinner.

Do you mourn over your sin? “Blessed to those who mourn, for they'll be comforted.” (Matthew 5:4) Do you have a sense of mourning over your sin? That is you take it seriously. And do you hunger and thirst for righteousness? That's a great mark of regeneration. Somebody who yearns to be free from sin. You yearn for heaven when there'll be no more sin. And on down, he talks about being persecuted for righteousness, being a peacemaker. There are different things that we can use to see that God's at work in our lives. Then there's other things. Are you mortifying sin? Are you putting sin to death by the Spirit? If you're not, you're not a Christian. Romans 8 makes that very plain. So, is there a principle of mortification by the Spirit where you are attacking the sins in your life? So those would be some of the marks of regeneration I would advocate.

"Do you hunger and thirst for righteousness? That's a great mark of regeneration. Somebody who yearns to be free from sin. You yearn for heaven when there'll be no more sin."

Joel

Yeah, that's really helpful. Now moving on to verse 10, he said they… “Feel sure of better things, things that belong to salvation. For God is not unjust to overlook your work and the love you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do." (Hebrews 6:9-10) I want to hang on that phrase, “For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work.” So just in the context of the verse, what would God be unjust if he did?

Andy

Yeah, it's pretty challenging to try to understand that, but it's really amazing. I think the idea here is that God keeps good records and some of the records that he keeps are good things that are credited to our account. Like in this case, it seems loving service to the saints, that if you have sacrificially loved and served his people, he's never going to forget that. And it frankly would be unjust, the author is saying, for him to forget it. He's going to justly punish those who persecuted and opposed his saints, very clearly. Book of Revelation has a lot to say about that. He will pound on people who pounded on his people.

Joel

2 Thessalonians, yeah.

Andy

He will crush them. Well, the mirror image of that is he will reward anyone who helps his people. “If you have helped my people, if you have fed me when I was hungry, if you have clothed me when I was naked, if you have welcomed me in when I was a stranger,” the sheep and the goats, all of that me, me language is really other Christians. Now you do it to somebody if they're just human, but you always do it hoping that they'll end up being one of Christ's sheep. We always do mercy ministries tying it to evangelism, at least we should. So you do it in the name of Christ. So the idea here is that God is not so unjust as to forget any acts of service that you did in this world to help his people. Now later in this book, he's going to talk about some of them.

He said, "You cheerfully accepted the confiscation of your property and you stood with those who are being persecuted, and you are willing to be in prison to remember those who are in prison, because you love the brothers and sisters in Christ." (Paraphrase of Hebrews 10:34)

God's going to remember that. He is never going to forget the sacrifice, and the service, and the love you showed to his people. What's so amazing here, the very thing you're pointing in, is the word unjust. It would be unjust to forget it for God. Now, we got to be careful here, okay? It's very similar to 1 John 1:9, "If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." In other words, now that we have trusted in Christ, it would be unjust for God not to forgive new sins that we've committed. Jesus is effectively saying, "Father, I shed my blood for them. You must forgive them."

And the Father's willing and eager to forgive, but it would be unjust for him to break that covenant that he made with our mediator, unjust to Jesus to not forgive. Well, it's a similar thing here now, and I think it's basically it'd be unjust for God to break his promise. God made a promise to reward us and he will cash that out.

So once Jesus says, "If you give a cup of cold water to my servant-"

Andy

"You will never lose your reward." (Paraphrase of Matthew 10:42)

Joel

Once that said, he would be unjust to go back on that.

Andy

Imagine he said, "No. I gave many cups of... I know what I said. But yeah, I mean that was then. This is now." I mean, like whoa.

Joel

So how is this really encouraging… I'm going to kind of take this out from the context of Hebrews and just apply it to just Christians going about their lives. Some people have public ministries where other people see them and they're recognized. Some people have very private ministries, some people have a one-person ministry. Maybe you're taking care of someone with great needs, could be a child with special needs, or could be an elderly relative that you spend the majority of your time taking care of. How is this passage and the idea that God won't forget these things incredibly encouraging for people in those situations?

Andy 

Well, it really is that God is faithful to reward us for our good works. And I think we're actually to some degree encouraged to forget them. Forget what lies behind, press onto what lies ahead. Don't keep thinking about the good work.

Joel

We don't have to remember. He does.

Andy

We don't need, just commit it to God. I actually think this is a good translation of, “I know whom I believed, and am convinced that he's able to guard what I've entrusted to him for that day.” (2 Timothy 1:12) Now, I know that some translations say to guard what he entrusted to me, but I actually think it's the other way around, that the Apostle Paul says that God has kept all of my heavenly treasure. It's kept in heaven for you, it says cannot perish, spoil or fade. It's up in the Fort Knox of heaven and God is an accurate record keeper, and he will never forget a single cup of cold water. You should forget them. Actually, remember a few of them to know God's got a heritage of grace in my life and I've been doing good works for a while, but I'm not going to be very specific about what they were. I know that I've had a heart for missions. I know I've had a heart for the people of God. I've had a heart to teach the people of God. I've had a heart for these things, and that's good to know, because I can be certain that I'm born again, but I'm not going to keep a meticulous record of all of my good deeds and all of the things. First of all, I don't even know that I could identify them properly. But second of all, I know this, God can and he will, and he is not unjust to forget what I've done. So, I think fundamentally what this should do is first and foremost, we should have a horizontal eye toward the people of God. We should be looking for the household of faith and say, what can I do to help this brother? What can I do to help this sister?

I want to help God's people while we are in the world, the flesh, and the devil battle. I want to help them. I want to bless them. I want to be there for Christ in his people. Like Jesus said, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" (Acts 9:4) So, turn it around, "Joel, Joel, not so much thank you, but I see that you're helping me." If he's going to use the language, “Why do you persecute me?” Then flip it around. It's like “I see that you're helping me. These are my people, and anything you do to help my person, my people in this world, I will never forget.” So, it just motivates me to want to help Christ's people, whatever I can do to be an encouragement today to somebody, to speak a word that would lift a burden, or even help a physical burden. Like I see a woman or a man, older man or something like that. He's got a bunch of things to get into his car. Just pick them up and help him, because he's a Christian and I just want to help God's people. Even the smallest thing, the cup of cold water is a little thing. It's not a big deal. The messenger of the gospel is a little thirsty and you helped him out at that moment. It's not like some earth-shattering thing. It's like, “Yeah, but I'm never going to forget it.” So actually, it changes everything. It changes the way you look at life. Every moment could be a time of storing up treasure in heaven.

Joel

So then how much more the generous gifts for missions, or the praying day and night for your missionaries, or things like that, how much more of those things be remembered?

Andy

Absolutely. I mean, later today I'm going to have lunch with a member of our church. It's going to go to East Asia with his wife very soon as a missionary. My entire purpose in that lunch is going to be to encourage him, whatever I can do to send him off knowing that he's got a local church that will pray for him and his wife, and cares about him. And the Lord will say to me, "I'll never forget that." Now, his rewards will be greater, because it's a bigger level of sacrifice and suffering, but I want to do my part today.

Joel

Yeah. Now in verse 11, he says, "We desire each of you to show the same earnestness, to have the full assurance of hope until the end." (Hebrews 6:11) So just on these first couple words, “We desire each one of you to have this.” What does this reveal about the heart of a shepherd, of a faithful leader of churches?

Andy

Yeah, the each one of you aspect, I mean, we're supposed to know the flock by name. We're supposed to know who we're shepherding and what's going on with them. And that's pretty heavy burden when you think about it. It's a joyful burden, but that's what we're called on to be as shepherds. Like negatively, back in chapter three, it says, "See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.” (Hebrews 3:12) So let's be sure that not one of us has that.

Well, here he is saying similarly, "We want to be sure that each one of you is running this race with endurance." That's really the language he's using here. He's going to make it clear in Hebrews 12, "Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders in the sin that so easily entangles and let us run with endurance this race marked out before us." (Paraphrase of Hebrews 12:1) It's the same teaching here. He wants them to keep running their race. He doesn't want them to give up. So the idea here is you need to run this race to the finish line. I think about, let's say, what's the longest track race? The race on track, is it 10K?

Joel

I'm not sure.

Andy

I think it's the 10K on track. I think anything longer, they're going to go out in the road, the marathon. They're not running a marathon on the track. I mean, I don't know how they keep track of all the laps, a hundred laps, but at any rate, imagine though 10K, whatever it is, there'd be 25 laps. Imagine some guy in the Olympics running 22 laps, crossing the line that will soon be, but isn't yet the finish line, but he's got his arms up, jumping up and down like he won the gold medal.

Joel

That happens occasionally.

Andy

You got to keep count. You haven't finished the race. And so, the coach is like, "No, no, no. Get out there. You got to run. You're not done." And so, the author to Hebrews like, "You got to show the same diligence right to the end of the race." That's what he's saying.

Joel

Yeah. And he connects it to assurance. He says, "You have the full assurance of hope until the end." (Hebrews 6:11) So why is this assurance, we're talking about assurance of salvation, people knowing that yes, I'm a Christian. Why is that so important for running the race well to know that we're Christians?

Andy

Well, we need to be looking at our own fruit. Just the very thing we talked about earlier in this podcast. Look at the fruit in your life and that will be the basis of your assurance. So we want the whole system of Christianity working. We want you to be justified by faith in Christ apart from works of the law so that your sins are forgiven by faith, not by works, but then you're going to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, and you're going to produce works of holiness, such as specific temptations killed by Scripture and by the Holy Spirit, killing temptations, growing in holiness, becoming more and more like Christ. We want you to do all of that. And on the basis of that, you'll have a solid assurance, a healthy assurance can be yours, that you are definitely a Christian. We want you to keep doing all that to the end of your race. That's what he's saying.

Joel

You speak of keep doing all these things and he says, “So that you may not be sluggish.” (Hebrews 6:12) So how is sluggishness or laziness one of the greatest threats to the Christian life?

Andy

We do, we grow weary. We get tired. We are so weak. God never slumbers or sleeps. We need to go to bed at night. That's just a measure of our physical weakness. But we're weak spiritually too. And the only remedy is, “I am the vine; you are the branches,” (John 15:5) you need to abide in Jesus. And so, the weariness that we get in doing good works, the weariness we get in putting sin to death, the weariness we get in fighting lusts, it does, it wearies us. And I think what we're supposed to do is learn to take that back to Christ again and again and say, I am weak. You are strong.

Or Psalm 23, “He restores my soul.” (Psalm 23:3) Please restore me. Let's not grow weary in doing good, for the proper time we'll reap a harvest if we do not give up. So there's all these threats of growing weary, giving up, losing heart, getting discouraged. That's just the nature of it. And he's saying, "We don't want that to happen to you." And also the status here is one of laziness or complacency. It's like, “I've done enough. I've done enough”. You're resting on your laurels there and you stop fighting, stop watching, stop striving, stop hurting, stop witnessing. You stop doing all the hard things in the Christian life. You just get fat and comfortable. And he says that we don't want you to become lazy or complacent.

Joel

Yeah, and he says, so, “Not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises." (Hebrews 6:12) Now, when we get to Hebrews 11, we're going to talk about a lot of individuals, and I think we could even expand that to all the men and women of faith who have gone before us. But why is the imitation of someone else's faith so prominent here?

Andy

And he's going to do the same thing in chapter 13, “Remember those who spoke the word of God to you, imitate their faith.” (Paraphrase of Hebrews 13:7) I mean, he keeps coming back to this again and again in Hebrews 11, as you mentioned, is a beautiful display of the life of faith, men and women of faith. So we need that. We need to see what faith looks like in this world. And so, the idea here is to imitate people who cross the finish line. They ran the race with endurance. Like Paul says in 2 Timothy, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." (2 Timothy 4:7) And he says that to Timothy. So if I'm Timothy reading those words, what does that make me want to do?

Joel

Fight the fight. Finish the race. Keep the faith.

Andy

And so, we're going to read that and says, "We want you to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit." So the implication there is faith is not enough. Like, well, wait a minute now, but again, I believe there's an instant of justification that lasts for all eternity. I believe that, but it must be followed up according to James 2, with a life of good works, or it wasn't genuine saving faith. And so, there is a faith plus perseverance in good works aspect that is the whole package here. We want you to imitate that genuine Christianity, genuine justification by faith alone, apart from works, followed by a lifetime of good works. That's what we want you to do.

Joel

All this leads to the reward because he says, "By faith and patience, inherit the promise." (Paraphrase of Hebrews 6:12) So the inheritance is waiting.

Andy

Yeah. That's what's waiting for us at the end, the inheritance, and it's all by grace. We need to understand we don't deserve it. God doesn't owe us anything, but he's made us certain promises, and if we run this race with endurance, we will most certainly gain this beautiful inheritance.

Joel

Do you have any other comments for these three verses 9-12?

Andy

Yeah, I guess I would just urge the hearers of this podcast, go back over these and say, "God, would you just work this in me? Would you work a whole array, a harvest of good works in me?" I want to be rich on judgment day, rich with good works. I don't want to be lazy. I want to forget what lies behind and press on toward what lies ahead. I want to run this race with endurance. I want to help someone today. I want to help a Christian today. I want to pick up the phone and call somebody that might be discouraged and just say, 'Hey, God laid you on my heart today. I want to pray for you.' I want to step out in faith and witness today and share the gospel, and the hope that I might connect with an unsaved elect person. I want to just be rich in good works. That's what I think this makes me want to do.

Joel

Well, that was episode 13 of the Two Journeys podcast. Please join us next time for episode 14. We'll talk about the unchangeable character of God's promise from Hebrews 6:13-20, and I'm going to give you a little taste of what's to come. He talks about the promise of God being an anchor in our soul, a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul. So please join us next time to talk about the unchanging character of God's promise. Thank you for listening and God bless you all.