The following is a sermon transcript from our Sunday Service at The Rock Church in Mount Laurel, New Jersey. Each week, we gather to worship, learn from God’s Word, and grow together. This transcript is provided as a free resource to encourage and equip you in your walk with Christ. While you’re welcome to read and share this content for personal use, we kindly ask that it not be redistributed or published elsewhere without prior written consent from The Rock Church.
Introduction
Experiences can be powerful. They can move us deeply and leave an impression that lasts for years. But our experiences do not always reveal what is truly happening in our hearts. Someone can feel deeply moved during worship without trusting Christ. Someone can feel the weight of sin without repenting. Someone can experience the love of the church without actually belonging to Christ. Someone can taste the goodness of God’s word without receiving it with preserving faith. It’s one thing to experience the blessings surrounding the Christian community. It’s another thing to keep on resting in Christ when the seas of life get rough. The first does not necessarily indicate saving union with Christ.
A person may remember a season when Christianity felt new. The promises of Christ stirred him deeply and life among God’s people brought great joy. But what happens when following Christ becomes costly? When the seas become rough? Prayers appear unanswered. Suffering continues and the world begins calling us back.
The congregation addressed in Hebrews was facing that very temptation. They had turned away from their former way of worship and had experienced the blessings of being among God’s people. But now they were suffering for their faith. And some of them were tempted to shrink back from Christ.
Keep in mind that the author is speaking to the visible church. A congregation like that of Israel in the wilderness, which included those that believe truly and those who shared in the covenant blessings without actually possessing persevering faith. That’s why Hebrews 6 is so searching of the soul. The people described here had remarkable spiritual experiences. And yet the author warns us that spiritual experience is not necessarily the same thing as spiritual life.
The question is not merely, what did I once experience? But rather, is the grace of God presently moving me forward toward maturity? Keeping me clinging to Christ and producing the fruit that accompanies salvation. The Christian life begins by grace, continues by grace, and bears fruit by grace.
Big Idea:
The Christian life begins by grace, continues by grace, and bears fruit by grace.
And with that in mind, we’re going to consider the movement of the text, the arc of the text. The first: grace enables us to press forward. The second: grace keeps us from falling away. And lastly: grace produces the fruit that accompanies salvation.
Point One: Grace Enables Us to Press Forward
Hebrews 6:1–3
Therefore, let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity. Not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits.
The command is clear. Do not remain as spiritual infants.
And so how do we do that? To press forward, we leave something behind. But the author does not mean that we leave Christ or the gospel behind. The author specifically means ceasing to relay the doctrinal foundation.
But what are some examples of how people can remain spiritually stuck? Well, we can remain stuck by measuring our Christian maturity merely based on how much Bible knowledge we have accumulated, rather than whether that truth is producing something in us — a faith, a repentance, love, obedience. We can remain stuck by depending on emotional experiences, assuming we are near to God when we feel deeply moved and far from him when we feel nothing. We can remain stuck by receiving correction defensively rather than allowing God’s word to expose us and to change us. And perhaps even most deeply, we can remain stuck by continuing to atone for our own sins. You know, replaying our failures, punishing ourselves with guilt — and looking to our performance as the very ground for our salvation and assurance, rather than on Christ alone.
Last week — or rather, two, three weeks ago — the author showed us the difference between immaturity and maturity. And now he calls us to press on toward maturity. So what does that growth actually look like?
You may recall we went through the phrases: the immature believer knows that Christ forgives sin — the mature believer is learning to actually bring his guilt to Christ. The immature believer simply knows God is sovereign — the mature believer is able to trust Christ, the Lord, when the diagnosis comes, when the marriage strains, when the prayer remains unanswered or the future becomes uncertain. The immature believer knows that Christ is our high priest — but the mature believer is learning to draw near when shame tells him to go and hide.
See, maturity is not merely knowing some truths. But it’s increasingly living upon the truths that we already confess. So pressing forward means learning to bring more and more of our lives beneath the finished work of Christ. It means trusting the same gospel more deeply — not moving beyond Christ, but further into Christ. We don’t leave the foundation by abandoning it. We leave it by building on top of it. Pressing forward does not mean needing Christ less. It means discovering how much more of Christ that we need for every area of life.
Think about building a house. You lay the foundation because, as you know, it’s essential. Everything depends on it. But imagine spending year after year doing nothing but working on that foundation. You keep digging it up. You pour it again. You inspect it. You start over. The house, it never rises. There are no walls. There’s no rooms. There’s no warmth. No beauty. Just concrete. Foundation. That, in fact, would be ridiculous. The purpose of a foundation is not that we continually lay it on again, but that we build on that foundation. Christian maturity is not moving beyond Christ. It’s building your whole life upon Christ.
And that brings us to the foundational doctrines the author lists here. When the gospel comes first to us, that’s this foundation being laid. It’s that repentance from dead works — from those things that we thought could earn our place with God. And we turn toward faith in Christ, toward God. So here we learn that we’re turning from the sinful deeds that belong to death as well as all the works that are incapable of cleansing our conscience. And we turn from every attempt to obtain our acceptance through our works. Entrusting ourselves wholly to the mercy of God in Christ. We’re not meant to spend our whole Christian life repeatedly asking whether our works can make us acceptable to God. We build upon that foundation by seeing how every part is fulfilled in Christ. Our works cannot make us acceptable to God. But because we’re accepted in Christ, God graciously accepts our imperfect works through him.
The author then mentions this instruction about washing. This is likely referring to the Jewish ceremonial washings, especially because the Greek uses the plural washings. There’s no ritual of external purification that can cleanse the conscience. And then in Scripture we see the laying on of hands. This can accompany identification and blessing, commissioning, reception into the visible fellowship, and extraordinary apostolic acts. It does not necessarily mean special spiritual power.
What about the resurrection of the dead and the eternal judgment? You see it here. At death, the believer’s soul is made perfect in holiness and is with Christ. And at Christ’s return, both the righteous and the wicked are raised bodily. The righteous enter everlasting life and the wicked enter everlasting punishment.
The question is not whether we ever return to these truths — oh, certainly we must. The question is whether we continually relay the foundation as though nothing has ever been built on it. Some people repeatedly come forward to rededicate themselves because they’re looking for assurance in the strength of a past or renewed decision. But assurance does not rest upon the sincerity of our decision. It rests upon Christ’s finished work, God’s promise, and the Spirit’s continuing work in us.
But notice what the author does in verse 3. Don’t miss this. He says, we will do this. Do what? We will press on to maturity. Not in isolation. But together as a church, if God permits. What may seem subtle is actually quite significant. By God’s grace, we will stop continually relaying the foundation and press further into Christ. He says, let us go on to maturity. But the expression can also carry the sense, let us be carried forward to maturity. We are commanded to press forward, but God is the one who carries us. Verse 3 confirms it. And this we will do if God permits. By God’s grace and His grace alone, we will press forward.
It’s that sovereign grace — the engine that keeps us moving. But grace does not make us passive. Philippians 2:13 tells us, it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Grace does not merely forgive us and then leave us to change ourselves. God gives both the desire and the strength to obey. Our works do not create or preserve our acceptance with God. They reveal that God is graciously at work in us. We work because God works in us. The same grace that makes us alive also moves us forward. Even the opportunity to press forward must not be presumed upon. It’s a gift of God’s mercy.
And that’s why what comes next is so serious.
Point Two: Grace Keeps Us from Falling Away
Hebrews 6:4–6
For it is impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God, and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away — it is impossible, he says, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.
Grace carries God’s people forward. Clearly. But what are we to make of those who experience extraordinary blessings from God and then fall away? That is a sobering possibility that the author places before us here in verses 4 to 6. He moves from the grace that carries us forward to the warning that keeps us from turning back.
This warning is one of the means that the Lord uses to keep Christ’s people from falling away. It describes extraordinary privilege. People within the visible church — what did they experience? This is not some vague mystical enlightenment. They had been brought into the light of Christ and clearly exposed to the glory of the gospel. They had tasted the heavenly gift. They had shared in the Holy Spirit’s powerful activity among God’s people. They had heard the good word of God and witnessed the powers of the coming age breaking into the present. They were not indifferent outsiders. They had genuinely experienced extraordinary blessings within the visible church.
We should not minimize that language. Yet the author seems to stop short of saying that they had in fact been justified, regenerated, united to Christ. In fact, verse 9 — as we’ll see next time — describes salvation as something better than the privileges listed here. The experiences of verses 4 to 5 are therefore not identical with salvation itself. They lived remarkably close to the saving work of God without possessing salvation itself.
But then comes the terrifying reality. After experiencing all the richest blessings of the outward covenant community, they fall away. Now, it’s one thing to fall. We all, at times, fall into sin. But it’s quite another to willingly, openly, rebelliously fall away from the faith. This is not merely something that happens to them. They decisively turn away from Christ.
And that’s in fact what’s being described here in the last part of verse 6. By turning from Christ, they publicly take their stand with those who have condemned Christ. Their apostasy declares that Jesus is not the risen Savior, but an apostate worthy of crucifixion once again. They crucify the Son of God again — not literally, but by openly approving the verdict passed against him. Notice, holding him up to contempt.
Just imagine returning back to the time when Christ was crucified. What did they say? What did the angry religious leaders say? Crucify him. In their hearts, they went back to that mindset. And when that happens, restoration is impossible. Not because Christ refuses a repentant sinner who returns to him. But because the apostate has decisively rejected Christ himself. He has rejected the only Savior, the only sacrifice, the only way back to God. There’s nowhere else to go for repentance or forgiveness.
It’s entirely possible that someone among us is enjoying the blessings of Christ’s church while still refusing Christ himself. You can come to church, enjoy the fellowship, share in the joy of God’s people, hear about the age to come — yet in your heart you will not receive Christ as the only Savior God provides. Why? Maybe because you still trust in your own goodness. Maybe because following Christ becomes too costly. Maybe because you want the fellowship of the church without submitting to Christ who rules it.
So is the text saying that we can lose our salvation? Absolutely not. 1 John 2:9 explains what apostasy reveals. Take note. They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. Their departure did not mean that salvation had been undone. It exposed the fact that despite all of their privileges and experiences among God’s people, they had never truly belonged to Christ.
The grace that saves also preserves.
If you wonder whether someone can experience extraordinary spiritual privileges without ever truly being united to Christ, consider someone you probably have heard his name before — in fact, you probably would never name your child after him. Judas. He heard every sermon. He witnessed the miracles. He participated in the ministry. He walked beside Jesus, the eternal Son of God, for three years. Yet Jesus said, there are some of you who do not believe. You see, Judas lived remarkably close to Christ without ever truly belonging to Christ. In the end, he didn’t merely stumble into sin. He handed over the Son of God to be crucified.
What about the person who truly belongs to Christ? Can he finally fall away? Jesus says of his sheep, I give them eternal life and they will never perish. Eternal life is not probationary life. Those whom Christ saves, Christ keeps. The apostate may live remarkably close to Christ, just as Judas did. But Christ never loses one of his sheep.
Grace does not merely bring us to Christ. Grace keeps us in the hand of Christ. The warnings of Hebrews are among the means that Christ uses to preserve his sheep. His people hear his voice in the warning. You hear the warning — here it is — and you still follow him. But Jesus says to those who persist — remember, willingly, actively, persisting in unbelief — you do not believe. Why? Because you’re not among my sheep.
Apostasy does not show Christ losing a sheep. It exposes that they never belonged to him savingly. The sheep hear because Christ knows them. He said this: they hear my voice, they know me, they follow me — because Jesus gives them eternal life and keeps them.
If you’re enjoying the blessings of Christ’s church while refusing Christ himself, do not mistake proximity to grace for possession of grace. Do not continue hardening your heart. Come to Christ. But if this warning troubles you because you know your weaknesses and you fear losing Christ, hear what Jesus says. I give them eternal life and they will never perish. The trembling sheep who hears Christ’s warning and runs to him is not the hardened apostate that’s described here. The warning is itself Christ’s voice calling his sheep away from the cliff. Come on back. Come on back from that steep cliff. It’s safe over here. Come on over to the safety of his hand.
Point Three: Grace Produces the Fruit That Accompanies Salvation
Hebrews 6:7–8
But how can we distinguish between someone who merely lives near the blessings of grace and someone who truly belongs to Christ?
The author now takes us from the cliffside and into the field. The same rain falls on both kinds of soil. But what grows reveals what lies beneath.
For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.
So is this text simply about farming? Clearly not. The metaphor reveals something of spiritual significance for all of us to understand. The rain corresponds to the gracious privileges both groups repeatedly receive. The word of God, the Spirit’s activity, life among God’s people — both fields receive the rain. But the crop, what grows up, reveals whether saving life was in fact present beneath.
What’s interesting is that the same rain falls on the land. But the results are different. One produces a useful crop and receives God’s blessing. The other produces thorns and thistles and ends in judgment.
Notice what’s at play here. The sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man. The farmer cannot command the rain to fall. He cannot reach down beneath the soil and create life in the seed. God must send the rain. God must give the growth. God must bless the harvest. But no faithful farmer says — oh, since God is sovereign over the harvest, I’ll just leave the field untouched. He plows. He plants. He pulls weeds. He labors and waits because he trusts God to give the growth.
Listen, God’s sovereignty does not make us passive. It gives us confidence to labor. We work. Why? Because God is at work in us. We can’t regenerate our own hearts, make ourselves born again — but we are commanded to repent and believe. We cannot produce spiritual fruit apart from Christ — but we are commanded to abide in him. We cannot sanctify ourselves by our own strength — but we are commanded to put sin to death by the Spirit. You see that? We do not labor to earn God’s blessing. We labor in dependence upon the God who alone gives life and growth.
Ephesians 2:8–10 — a passage you know well, perhaps. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It’s a gift of God. Not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Good works are not the root of salvation. They are the fruit. We are not saved by good works, but the grace that saves us — better believe it — also creates new good works in us.
Jesus says this in John 15:4–5. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing.
The branch — we’re responsible for abiding — but we also cannot create the life flowing through it. It does not strain until grapes appear. It receives its life from the vine. Likewise, we actively abide in Christ through his word, through prayer, through worship and fellowship and the ordinances. But only Christ can supply the grace to produce the fruit. We are responsible to abide. But Christ supplies the life. We cultivate the field, but God sends the rain. We labor, but God gives the growth.
Jesus says in Matthew 7, you will recognize them by their fruits. Fruit does not give the tree its nature. It reveals the nature the tree already possesses. So in a similar way, the crop in Hebrews 6 does not earn salvation. It reveals the life-giving work of grace beneath the soil.
This does not mean that the Christian life is free from weeds. Anybody got weeds in your life? Right here. Even living soil must continually be cultivated. And the question is not whether your fruit is flawless or abundant in every season. The question is whether grace is producing any living response to Christ. Repentance when you sin. Faith when you suffer. Love for his people and a desire — although imperfectly — to obey his word.
Do not stand over your life shouting at the soil to produce fruit. Draw near to Christ. Receive his word. Depend upon his Spirit. And remain among his people.
Jesus goes on to say in Matthew 7, a healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit. Nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Jesus is not teaching that a true believer never commits a sinful act. Peter denied Christ. David fell grievously. But sin cannot remain the peaceful, uncontested fruit of a heart made alive by grace. A living tree still has branches that need pruning, but its living root will continue producing repentance, faith, love, and obedience.
When God’s word corrects you, does your heart soften or become defensive? When you sin, do you simply excuse it, conceal it, make peace with it, make it your little pet — or confess it and return to Christ? When obedience becomes costly, do you continue clinging to Christ or begin looking for a way back? When someone wounds you, does grace produce forgiveness or do you cultivate bitterness? What grows in your life when no one else is watching?
A dead tree can be decorated to look alive — tie fruit onto its branches — but you cannot make it living. Only God can change the nature of that tree. And when he does, new life will begin to show itself in new fruit.
The presence of weeds in our lives should humble the Christian. But we should not conclude then that there is no life in the soil. Repentance itself is fruit. Grieving over sin, returning to Christ, receiving correction, continuing in faith — are all evidences of grace at work in your life. But where there is no repentance, no warfare against sin, no persevering faith, no submission to Christ — only leaves, only appearances, only spiritual experiences — Jesus warns that the end is not merely an unproductive Christian life. The end is judgment.
The question is not, have I ever produced imperfect or sinful fruit? We all have. It is, what is the settled fruit of my life revealing about the nature of the tree? That’s the question that this warning presses into every one of us. Every one of us. It’s not simply what spiritual experiences have I had. Not how long have I been around the church. But has the grace of God produced a living response to Jesus Christ in my life.
Conclusion
So as we close, let’s bring the whole warning together. The greatest danger is not that you are weak — we all are. It’s not that you are struggling. It’s not that you sometimes feel the weight of your sin. The greatest danger is that you can experience the blessings of Christ, hear the truth about Christ, and remain unmoved by Christ.
Hebrews 6 is not warning the Christian who falls and then runs back to Jesus. It is warning the person who continually receives the rain — the blessing of God — but never produces the fruit that accompanies salvation.
So don’t respond to this passage by looking inward until you find enough fruit to make yourself feel secure. And don’t try to tie fruit onto the dead branches. Simply come to Christ. He is the one who gives life to dead sinners. He is the one who receives those who come to him in repentance and faith. He is the one who supplies the grace that produces repentance, obedience, love, and perseverance.
If this warning exposes hardness in you, do not harden yourself further. Repent and come to Christ. If this warning reveals that you are grieving over your sin, fighting against it, clinging to Christ in weakness — don’t confuse your struggle with apostasy. Repentance itself is fruit.
Richard Sibbes, the great Puritan, beautifully puts it this way — if you want to read the book, The Bruised Reed — we are weak, but we are his. Your hope is not the strength of how hard you’re holding on to Jesus, but the strength of how hard he’s holding on to you.
Brothers and sisters, the proper response to this warning is not to hide from God or attempt to prove ourselves to God. I’ll do better. Make all these promises. It’s to come honestly before him. The presence of sin should not drive the Christian away from Christ. It should drive us back to Christ in repentance and faith.
Closing Prayer
Father, you have been exceedingly gracious to us. You have given us your word. You have placed us among your people. You have shown us the glory of your Son. Yet we confess that we have often received your blessings without responding with faith, love, and obedience. Forgive us for hearing your word without submitting to it. Forgive us for excusing the sins we should confess. Forgive us when we become defensive when corrected. Forgive us for neglecting prayer, fellowship, the ordinary means that you’ve graciously given us to strengthen your people.
We confess that we cannot create spiritual life within ourselves. We cannot produce the fruit you require by our own strength. So we come again to you, Jesus. Wash us with your blood. Soften what has become hard. Put to death the sin that we have tolerated. By your Spirit, produce in us the fruit that accompanies salvation. We ask this not because we’re worthy, but because Christ is merciful and sufficient. And it’s in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
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