Copyright Glory of Christ Fellowship
Welcome to Glory of Christ Fellowship
Glory of Christ Fellowship exists to make disciples of all nations by living lives of worship, walking together in community, and engaging in the mission of Christ that we may grow to full maturity for the glory of Christ.
As we seek to submit our lives to this mission, we believe that Jesus Christ will cause his church to grow to full maturity for the glory of his name. Jesus himself is the blazing center and ultimate end of the church and, therefore, our vision is of a people of God, enthralled with the glory of God, proclaiming the excellencies of God among the nations (1 Peter 2:9).
The only power we have to press on in the faith is the power we receive by faith in Christ. He must do it in us, or it will not be done. He must work in us, or we will not do good works for him. He must be the root, the rest is simply fruit. Get this wrong, and you’ll get everything in the Christian life wrong. Get this right and you’ll win the fight!
In a sermon on Hebrews 6:9-12 John Piper summed this up well. He said, “There is a fight to be fought in the Christian life. There is a kind of effort and earnestness. Laziness and sluggishness are not the way to live. But the direct focus of the fight is not first on serving or first working or first on patient endurance. The direct focus of the fight is to maintain the full assurance of hope and to love the name of the Lord. And the rest results from that.
“Verse 11: ‘We desire you to show the same earnestness in realizing the full assurance of hope to the end SO THAT . . .’ the other aims will come. If you want not to be sluggish—if you want to imitate the patient and faithful saints, if you want to inherit the promises—then earnestly fight to maintain the assurance of hope. Don’t get the focus wrong.”
And the way we fight to maintain the assurance of hope is by connecting heart to heart with the one who is our hope. Our hope is Christ, and the assurance that we are his and he is ours is strengthened as we enter into daily communion with Christ.
Yes, the author of Hebrews wanted his precious readers to understand the contours of their faith with their minds. This is why he wrote in such detail about the “what and how and why” of what God has done in Christ. But then the author also wanted his readers to feel the full assurance of their hope in Christ in such a way that they would be enflamed with passion for Christ.
Indeed, the only power we have to press on in the faith is the power we receive by faith in Christ, because he is our only hope—past, present, and future. But as we will see in today’s message, he is a sure and steadfast hope, a true anchor of the soul!