Hebrews 3:1-19
Good morning! Today we will cover Hebrews chapter 3 in our
series “Jesus is Greater.” I had the
privilege to teach on Hebrews 2 last week because I am traveling in about a
week.
Tim was kind enough to swap weeks with me. Thanks Tim! As a result, I get to teach two weeks back to back. In a book study series like this one, it is interesting to study consecutive passages.
One of the ways that is interesting is that you see the connections between the chapters a little more strongly than you might pick out when looking at a single passage. Of course, you always try to look ahead and behind, taking the whole book into view, but it’s just that you get a little more focus in this case.
It made me think about how we approach our personal bible reading and study. I won’t say there is a right or wrong way except to say that not reading your bible is certainly the wrong way to do it.
We are blessed with so many options. We have better access to the Word of God than at any time in the history of Christianity. I would encourage you to be aware of different ways to engage with the Word of God. We’re all going to be studying God’s Word for the rest of our lives. It can be helpful to experience it differently. When w do, we might see and understand things in ways that we may not have seen or understood them before.
I guess I’m holding you in suspense. What do I mean by differently? Here are a few options:
Whatever you do, stay engaged with God’s Word. It’s in Hebrews 4 (next week’s passage) where we are told that “The Word of God is alive and active sharper than a double-edged sword.” (Hebrews 4:12)
That verse reminds me of a scene from Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones. Anakin drops his lightsaber. Obi Wan catches it. A short time later, he returns it and says, “Next time, try not to lose it. This weapon is your life.”
Quoting Deuteronomy 8:3, Jesus answered Satan in the wilderness, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ” (Matthew 4:4)
God’s Word is our life. It should be like food to us. Maybe that’s another way of thinking about reading God’s word. How many times do you eat each day? Probably more than once. How many times do you read or meditate on God’s Word each day?
Please know that I’m not trying to set standards or make rules. I’m just trying to give some encouragement in case you feel a little stuck or staid in your bible reading. Allow yourself to be challenged and even blown away by God’s Word.
Let’s pray and jump into today’s passage before I run out of time with the introduction!
Father God, you have given us a great treasure in Your word. Please help us to take joy in it, to obey Your commands from it, and to draw nearer to You through reading and studying it. Teach us from Hebrews 3 now. We pray in Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest. – Hebrews 3:1
If you remember from last week, there were a couple of times that Hebrews 2 focused on how Jesus took on flesh and became fully human so that He could break the power of death and free those who were held in slavery to death, making atonement for our sins. (Hebrews 2:14-15, 17)
In view of this (therefore), holy brothers and sisters, saints, those called by God, saved by His grace, where should our focus be? … Jesus!
Sam Allen has been a pastor at Woodstock Community Church, but has retired in recent years. Somewhere along the way, I ended up on Sam’s list of folks that get encouraging verses that he’s been reading. He sends 2-3 each week. I counted 53 so far this year!
After each verse, he often makes a brief observation. I found 40 of those 53 verses directed or fixed my focus on Jesus. Sam has certainly has helped and continues to help me to fix my thoughts on Jesus.
Here are a few from April and May, so far: Focus on the person of Jesus Christ; no other hope, no one like Him; focus on Jesus Christ; the Lord helps us understand things, focus on Jesus Christ; the assignment for us today is to allow Him to live out all that He is doing in us every moment of every day out in the real world; this is who we follow and He is all that we need every day; this Jesus Christ is who we are coming to know and have chosen to follow; it is all true; He is life every day; salvation every day; the same Savior today as there was back then, Jesus Christ!
We are given two aspects of Jesus’ position in this verse 1 that we acknowledge. The Greek words apostolos
means messenger or one sent forth with orders. Because of its use in the New Testament, apostle has come to mean ones who specifically knew Jesus face to face. Jesus is an apostle, our apostle, because He is the one who brought us the new covenant in His blood.
Jesus is also the perfect high priest, our representative in the heavenly temple. Jesus had responsibilities attached to these titles. And verse 2 explains …
He was faithful to the one who appointed Him, just as Moses was faithful in all God's house. – Hebrews 3:2
Jesus was faithful to God the Father and carried out the plan of salvation though it meant His death on the cross. The expression “Moses was faithful in all God’s house,” is found in Numbers 12:7. This is the time when Miriam and Aaron grumbled against Moses. Miriam and Aaron were Moses’ older sister and brother. They asked if the Lord had only spoken through Moses and hadn’t the Lord spoken through them, and God heard them.
The Lord calls Moses, Aaron and Miriam to the Tent of Meeting and told Aaron and Miriam about Moses unique position, how the Lord interacted with Moses not in visions or dreams but rather speaking face to face such that Moses even saw the form of the Lord. In explaining this, the Lord reveals that Moses is faithful in all God’s house. I think Numbers 12:7 is often interpreted to mean that among the children of God, God’s household, Moses has a special role. In view of this comparison in Hebrews 3:2, we can just as easily observe that Moses was faithful in bringing the Law and communicating it to the people of Israel. And again, Moses was faithful in all God’s house by bringing about all the work to construct the tent of meeting and all its special furnishings.
This verse brings Jesus’ faithfulness into an equal and as we see in the next verses superior place compared to Moses.
Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. – Hebrews 3:3-4
I tried to find the chords for the song I mentioned several weeks ago called “Master Builder,” but I have not been successful. The song speaks of how Jesus’ worked as a carpenter growing up. How that work prepared him to build His church. How that work prepared Him to build the New Jerusalem. The chorus makes His building very personal. It tells of how Jesus can take a life of sin, make it clean and pure within. That Jesus can make a brand new you.
All those are wonderful, but the reality of His building is greater still. God is the builder of everything. Jesus was there at the beginning working together to build all creation, the universe, the heavens, the earth, the plants and animals, and humankind. Moses, as special as he is, is a part of the household of God, of His making.
“Moses was faithful as a servant in all God's house,” bearing witness to what would be spoken by God in the future. – Hebrews 3:5
Here is another way that we see Moses’ faithfulness. Moses was faithful as a witness, as a kind of apostle, a pre-apostle. I think we can consider Hebrews and many places in scripture almost like a rose where there are all these petals or layers of meaning one on top of the other.
That’s why you can keep studying the bible and keep learning and discovering connections and parallels throughout the bible.
The King James translation makes it evident that Moses life was a testimony of what was to come. Moses was not the Messiah, but he was a representative or a foreshadowing of Christ as a single connection between God’s people and God Himself and as one who brought the Covenant of the Law.
Additionally, we can look directly at a passage like Deuteronomy 18:15 and 18. Moses told the people, “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him.” And Moses told the people what God said, “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put My words in His mouth. He will tell them everything I command Him.”
Moses gave witness to what God would do through his life and through his words.
But Christ is faithful as the Son over God's house. And we are His house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory. – Hebrews 3:6
Here is another contrast between Moses and Jesus Christ. Moses did amazing things, no question. But it is also true that Moses was not God. Moses was faithful as a servant. Jesus is faithful as the Son. Moses was faithful in God’s house. Jesus is faithful over God’s house.
Moses is a part of God’s household. Jesus is the head over the house! And we too are part of the household of God when we believe and hope in Jesus Christ.
So, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the wilderness, where your ancestors tested and tried Me, though for forty years they saw what I did. That is why I was angry with that generation; I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known My ways.’ 11 So I declared on oath in My anger, ‘They shall never enter My rest.’ ” – Hebrews 3:7-11
The quote here comes from Psalm 95:7-11. You might expect that the entire Psalm would be rather stern, but it isn’t. It starts out with praise and acknowledging who God is and what He has done for His people.
Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before Him with thanksgiving and extol Him with music and song. For the LORD is the great God, the great King above all gods. In His hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to Him. The sea is His, for He made it, and His hands formed the dry land. Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker; for He is our God and we are the people of His pasture, the flock under his care. – Psalm 95:1-7
At this point, Psalm 95 says, “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.” In light of God’s power and provision in Creation, in light of making us His people and His ongoing care of us, in light of the fact that He is the Rock of our salvation, do not harden your hearts toward Him.
We talked about it at the beginning of chapter 2 last week, it said there to pay the most careful attention to the message so that we do not drift away. Again here, we are encouraged to …
See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. – Hebrews 3:12-13
We are exhorted here to take action. There is the expectation that we do something. We are to examine our hearts that they do not become sinful and unbelieving. We need to make right choices. As it says in Deuteronomy 30:19, “Choose life!”
Some might want to get into a discussion about whether a passage like this could mean that people can lose their salvation. I would counter that with the words of Jesus in John 10 (v.27-30). “My sheep listen to My voice; I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of My Father's hand. I and the Father are one.”
For ourselves, why would we want to try to find the line of where turning away could begin, rather let us seek to follow what is laid out for us here in Hebrews 3. Let us see to it that we don’t have sinful, unbelieving hearts. Let us encourage one another daily so that we are not hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. Let us take our encouragement from God’s Word and allow it to give us eyes to see sin’s deceitfulness.
Yesterday, David wanted me to move our little pop-up camper. It was resting on the concrete, and he wanted me to move it back into the yard onto a couple of blocks and pads that we use to keep it level there. It’s a relatively small target. You’ve got to get both tires each on a patch that’s about one foot square. Further raising the level of difficulty, these spots are surrounded by enough grass that they are not clearly visible. At least, not visible from the driver’s seat of the van. Don’t get me wrong. I personally know at least two people who could likely hit it on the first try. My dad is one of them. Unknown to him, I say he’s the world’s best backward driver. I’ve seen him back trailers into all kinds of crazy situations. The other is Brian. I’ve not had as much experience watching Brian as my dad, but I’ve seen Brian back a trailer a few times including around a blind corner on an incline where there were obstacles on both sides of the trailer and do that in one go.
Even if either one of them couldn’t have hit the spot with the camper on the first attempt, they could have walked back and looked at the spot and then moved the trailer just by looking with their eyes and remembering what they saw.
Yesterday, I could not do that. David was helping me and he was my eyes. He could guide me to the right spot, but I couldn’t manage to get the skew out of the trailer. It took me 3-4 tries to get the right position left to right in general, but I kept being about a foot off on one side with the twist of the trailer. Since the spot is not exactly level, you can’t just disconnect the trailer and drag the tongue around. After three or four tries of that, I got a couple of old pieces of copper pipe that were in the workshop and went and stuck them in the ground adjacent to where the tires needed to be. Those two pipes were about 4-5 feet long, right along as tall as the camper. With those two landmarks, I pulled forward and backed the trailer into the spot it needed to go. First try.
I share that story because it was all about me having the right reference. David was helpful to me, but I couldn’t keep from being deceived about the skew of the trailer until I could see the truth.
In our daily lives, the bible is the standard that helps us to see what is right and true. I shared Hebrews 4:12 already. It also says that the Word of God is living and active. It is amazing how often God’s Word will speak to your specific circumstances and situations so long as you’re reading it. Of course, Sam Allen is a good example of encouraging often using God’s Word. Let us help each other fix our minds on Jesus Christ.
We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end. As has just been said: “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion.” – Hebrews 3:14-15
We are to persevere in our conviction, our belief in Jesus as our Savior. This is the third time in this passage that we have been reminded to think about Today. It is an incredible intensification of the importance of this ever present need. This day. Don’t put it off. Today. Encourage one another. Right now. Do not harden your heart. I think these words help us to think about the Christian life. It is an ever present continuous living of connectedness. We do have a meeting on Sundays, but we are part of God’s family every day. We need to live as a member of God’s family every day. What happened to those in the Old Testament that were hard-hearted?
Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? And with whom was He angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies perished in the wilderness? And to whom did God swear that they would never enter His rest if not to those who disobeyed? So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief. – Hebrews 3:16-19
There are at least a few different points we can see in this last passage.
For one, we can say that those who did not enter the Promised Land had heard the message and then rebelled. It wasn’t a case where they could say, “Well, nobody told me!” Their reaction is described here as three-fold: rebellion, sin, and disobedience. This was not a misunderstanding. There was knowledge and then rejection of truth.
Additionally, the key point of this rejection was their belief, or lack of it. They did not believe what God had told them through Moses. Because they didn’t believe the truth, they were not able to enter the Promised Land. The rebellion, sin and disobedience were a result of their unbelief. This is consistent with other familiar scriptures in the New Testament. It’s not our works, things we do, that enable us to enter our rest. It is our belief. That belief in turn puts us on a journey of perseverance, purity, and obedience.
I’m going to refrain from talking more about entering God’s rest because it features prominently in chapter 4. I will say that a key responsibility for us is to stay connected and encouraged in Christ. We need to keep believing, carry out that belief knowing that Jesus helps us.
I think most of us have heard at one time or another, the “proverb” that God helps those who help themselves. As we close out the message today, I want to make sure that we don’t take away that kind of thinking from our passage.
The Barna group often does surveys related to different spiritual topics in America. A 2017 study found that 52% of practicing Christians strongly agreed that the bible teaches that God helps those who help themselves.
The idea has been around for a long time and can be found in ancient Greek and Roman writings. There is a Chinese expression that heaven rewards the diligent. In French, it goes help yourself and heaven will help you, too. The Quran says that truly Allah does not change a people’s condition unless they change their inner selves (or change what is in themselves). Ben Franklin published the idea in Poor Richard’s Almanac, so he is sometimes given credit for the idea. But, another English author (Algernon Sidney in Discourses Concerning Government) wrote the exact words before Benjamin Franklin published it.
This “proverb” definitely does not appear verbatim in the bible. In fact, it is easy to demonstrate that God more often helps those who cannot help themselves. That is what grace is … a gift that we don’t deserve.
This is a tough concept to get right because the bible does teach about initiative (Proverbs 12:24, 13:4), taking responsibility (Proverbs 6:10, 12:11, 21:31, II Thessalonians 3:10, I Timothy 5:8), and pursuing a solid work ethic as our work can be done as unto the Lord (Colossians 3:23-34).
And yet, these are not the things that put us in a right standing before God. Instead, it is our faith in Jesus that is credited as righteousness. It is not by works that we are saved, but by the grace of God. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus. He is the one who makes it possible for us to follow Him. He knows our weaknesses and our need. Let us draw near to Him.
Lord Jesus, we do cry out to You. Lead us in the way everlasting (Psalm 139:24). Thank You that You are greater and You have revealed Yourself to us. We believe in You. Amen.
Tim was kind enough to swap weeks with me. Thanks Tim! As a result, I get to teach two weeks back to back. In a book study series like this one, it is interesting to study consecutive passages.
One of the ways that is interesting is that you see the connections between the chapters a little more strongly than you might pick out when looking at a single passage. Of course, you always try to look ahead and behind, taking the whole book into view, but it’s just that you get a little more focus in this case.
It made me think about how we approach our personal bible reading and study. I won’t say there is a right or wrong way except to say that not reading your bible is certainly the wrong way to do it.
We are blessed with so many options. We have better access to the Word of God than at any time in the history of Christianity. I would encourage you to be aware of different ways to engage with the Word of God. We’re all going to be studying God’s Word for the rest of our lives. It can be helpful to experience it differently. When w do, we might see and understand things in ways that we may not have seen or understood them before.
I guess I’m holding you in suspense. What do I mean by differently? Here are a few options:
- If you most often read short passages or single chapters, try reading larger sections like a whole letter at one sitting. For this series, you could read through all of Hebrews at one time.
- Listening to an audio bible. That’s convenient when you’re doing activities where listening is possible, but reading is not.
- If you always read from the same translation, try reading a different translation (NIV, NASB, KJV or NKJV, ESV) , or even a paraphrase (NLT or TMB).
- If you most often read straight through the bible, try a reading plan which gives you an Old Testament, New Testament, and Psalms/Proverbs reading each day. Or, if you’ve not done it before, try a chronological reading plan (or bible).
- Take a bible study with you as you read to prompt you to think about different questions. It doesn’t have to be a published study or one specific to your passage. There are general study methods, too. Use the SPEC method (asking these questions: is there a Stumbling block or sin to be avoided, Promise to claim, Example to follow, Command to obey) of reading. Color the bible as you read it.
- Consider why you are reading the bible. Are you reading so that you know more about God? Are you reading it so that it changes you? Are you reading is so that you know God better relationally? SPECK – knowledge, what does the passage teach me about God?
Whatever you do, stay engaged with God’s Word. It’s in Hebrews 4 (next week’s passage) where we are told that “The Word of God is alive and active sharper than a double-edged sword.” (Hebrews 4:12)
That verse reminds me of a scene from Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones. Anakin drops his lightsaber. Obi Wan catches it. A short time later, he returns it and says, “Next time, try not to lose it. This weapon is your life.”
Quoting Deuteronomy 8:3, Jesus answered Satan in the wilderness, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ” (Matthew 4:4)
God’s Word is our life. It should be like food to us. Maybe that’s another way of thinking about reading God’s word. How many times do you eat each day? Probably more than once. How many times do you read or meditate on God’s Word each day?
Please know that I’m not trying to set standards or make rules. I’m just trying to give some encouragement in case you feel a little stuck or staid in your bible reading. Allow yourself to be challenged and even blown away by God’s Word.
Let’s pray and jump into today’s passage before I run out of time with the introduction!
Father God, you have given us a great treasure in Your word. Please help us to take joy in it, to obey Your commands from it, and to draw nearer to You through reading and studying it. Teach us from Hebrews 3 now. We pray in Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest. – Hebrews 3:1
If you remember from last week, there were a couple of times that Hebrews 2 focused on how Jesus took on flesh and became fully human so that He could break the power of death and free those who were held in slavery to death, making atonement for our sins. (Hebrews 2:14-15, 17)
In view of this (therefore), holy brothers and sisters, saints, those called by God, saved by His grace, where should our focus be? … Jesus!
Sam Allen has been a pastor at Woodstock Community Church, but has retired in recent years. Somewhere along the way, I ended up on Sam’s list of folks that get encouraging verses that he’s been reading. He sends 2-3 each week. I counted 53 so far this year!
After each verse, he often makes a brief observation. I found 40 of those 53 verses directed or fixed my focus on Jesus. Sam has certainly has helped and continues to help me to fix my thoughts on Jesus.
Here are a few from April and May, so far: Focus on the person of Jesus Christ; no other hope, no one like Him; focus on Jesus Christ; the Lord helps us understand things, focus on Jesus Christ; the assignment for us today is to allow Him to live out all that He is doing in us every moment of every day out in the real world; this is who we follow and He is all that we need every day; this Jesus Christ is who we are coming to know and have chosen to follow; it is all true; He is life every day; salvation every day; the same Savior today as there was back then, Jesus Christ!
We are given two aspects of Jesus’ position in this verse 1 that we acknowledge. The Greek words apostolos
means messenger or one sent forth with orders. Because of its use in the New Testament, apostle has come to mean ones who specifically knew Jesus face to face. Jesus is an apostle, our apostle, because He is the one who brought us the new covenant in His blood.
Jesus is also the perfect high priest, our representative in the heavenly temple. Jesus had responsibilities attached to these titles. And verse 2 explains …
He was faithful to the one who appointed Him, just as Moses was faithful in all God's house. – Hebrews 3:2
Jesus was faithful to God the Father and carried out the plan of salvation though it meant His death on the cross. The expression “Moses was faithful in all God’s house,” is found in Numbers 12:7. This is the time when Miriam and Aaron grumbled against Moses. Miriam and Aaron were Moses’ older sister and brother. They asked if the Lord had only spoken through Moses and hadn’t the Lord spoken through them, and God heard them.
The Lord calls Moses, Aaron and Miriam to the Tent of Meeting and told Aaron and Miriam about Moses unique position, how the Lord interacted with Moses not in visions or dreams but rather speaking face to face such that Moses even saw the form of the Lord. In explaining this, the Lord reveals that Moses is faithful in all God’s house. I think Numbers 12:7 is often interpreted to mean that among the children of God, God’s household, Moses has a special role. In view of this comparison in Hebrews 3:2, we can just as easily observe that Moses was faithful in bringing the Law and communicating it to the people of Israel. And again, Moses was faithful in all God’s house by bringing about all the work to construct the tent of meeting and all its special furnishings.
This verse brings Jesus’ faithfulness into an equal and as we see in the next verses superior place compared to Moses.
Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. – Hebrews 3:3-4
I tried to find the chords for the song I mentioned several weeks ago called “Master Builder,” but I have not been successful. The song speaks of how Jesus’ worked as a carpenter growing up. How that work prepared him to build His church. How that work prepared Him to build the New Jerusalem. The chorus makes His building very personal. It tells of how Jesus can take a life of sin, make it clean and pure within. That Jesus can make a brand new you.
All those are wonderful, but the reality of His building is greater still. God is the builder of everything. Jesus was there at the beginning working together to build all creation, the universe, the heavens, the earth, the plants and animals, and humankind. Moses, as special as he is, is a part of the household of God, of His making.
“Moses was faithful as a servant in all God's house,” bearing witness to what would be spoken by God in the future. – Hebrews 3:5
Here is another way that we see Moses’ faithfulness. Moses was faithful as a witness, as a kind of apostle, a pre-apostle. I think we can consider Hebrews and many places in scripture almost like a rose where there are all these petals or layers of meaning one on top of the other.
That’s why you can keep studying the bible and keep learning and discovering connections and parallels throughout the bible.
The King James translation makes it evident that Moses life was a testimony of what was to come. Moses was not the Messiah, but he was a representative or a foreshadowing of Christ as a single connection between God’s people and God Himself and as one who brought the Covenant of the Law.
Additionally, we can look directly at a passage like Deuteronomy 18:15 and 18. Moses told the people, “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him.” And Moses told the people what God said, “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put My words in His mouth. He will tell them everything I command Him.”
Moses gave witness to what God would do through his life and through his words.
But Christ is faithful as the Son over God's house. And we are His house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory. – Hebrews 3:6
Here is another contrast between Moses and Jesus Christ. Moses did amazing things, no question. But it is also true that Moses was not God. Moses was faithful as a servant. Jesus is faithful as the Son. Moses was faithful in God’s house. Jesus is faithful over God’s house.
Moses is a part of God’s household. Jesus is the head over the house! And we too are part of the household of God when we believe and hope in Jesus Christ.
So, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the wilderness, where your ancestors tested and tried Me, though for forty years they saw what I did. That is why I was angry with that generation; I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known My ways.’ 11 So I declared on oath in My anger, ‘They shall never enter My rest.’ ” – Hebrews 3:7-11
The quote here comes from Psalm 95:7-11. You might expect that the entire Psalm would be rather stern, but it isn’t. It starts out with praise and acknowledging who God is and what He has done for His people.
Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before Him with thanksgiving and extol Him with music and song. For the LORD is the great God, the great King above all gods. In His hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to Him. The sea is His, for He made it, and His hands formed the dry land. Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker; for He is our God and we are the people of His pasture, the flock under his care. – Psalm 95:1-7
At this point, Psalm 95 says, “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.” In light of God’s power and provision in Creation, in light of making us His people and His ongoing care of us, in light of the fact that He is the Rock of our salvation, do not harden your hearts toward Him.
We talked about it at the beginning of chapter 2 last week, it said there to pay the most careful attention to the message so that we do not drift away. Again here, we are encouraged to …
See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. – Hebrews 3:12-13
We are exhorted here to take action. There is the expectation that we do something. We are to examine our hearts that they do not become sinful and unbelieving. We need to make right choices. As it says in Deuteronomy 30:19, “Choose life!”
Some might want to get into a discussion about whether a passage like this could mean that people can lose their salvation. I would counter that with the words of Jesus in John 10 (v.27-30). “My sheep listen to My voice; I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of My Father's hand. I and the Father are one.”
For ourselves, why would we want to try to find the line of where turning away could begin, rather let us seek to follow what is laid out for us here in Hebrews 3. Let us see to it that we don’t have sinful, unbelieving hearts. Let us encourage one another daily so that we are not hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. Let us take our encouragement from God’s Word and allow it to give us eyes to see sin’s deceitfulness.
Yesterday, David wanted me to move our little pop-up camper. It was resting on the concrete, and he wanted me to move it back into the yard onto a couple of blocks and pads that we use to keep it level there. It’s a relatively small target. You’ve got to get both tires each on a patch that’s about one foot square. Further raising the level of difficulty, these spots are surrounded by enough grass that they are not clearly visible. At least, not visible from the driver’s seat of the van. Don’t get me wrong. I personally know at least two people who could likely hit it on the first try. My dad is one of them. Unknown to him, I say he’s the world’s best backward driver. I’ve seen him back trailers into all kinds of crazy situations. The other is Brian. I’ve not had as much experience watching Brian as my dad, but I’ve seen Brian back a trailer a few times including around a blind corner on an incline where there were obstacles on both sides of the trailer and do that in one go.
Even if either one of them couldn’t have hit the spot with the camper on the first attempt, they could have walked back and looked at the spot and then moved the trailer just by looking with their eyes and remembering what they saw.
Yesterday, I could not do that. David was helping me and he was my eyes. He could guide me to the right spot, but I couldn’t manage to get the skew out of the trailer. It took me 3-4 tries to get the right position left to right in general, but I kept being about a foot off on one side with the twist of the trailer. Since the spot is not exactly level, you can’t just disconnect the trailer and drag the tongue around. After three or four tries of that, I got a couple of old pieces of copper pipe that were in the workshop and went and stuck them in the ground adjacent to where the tires needed to be. Those two pipes were about 4-5 feet long, right along as tall as the camper. With those two landmarks, I pulled forward and backed the trailer into the spot it needed to go. First try.
I share that story because it was all about me having the right reference. David was helpful to me, but I couldn’t keep from being deceived about the skew of the trailer until I could see the truth.
In our daily lives, the bible is the standard that helps us to see what is right and true. I shared Hebrews 4:12 already. It also says that the Word of God is living and active. It is amazing how often God’s Word will speak to your specific circumstances and situations so long as you’re reading it. Of course, Sam Allen is a good example of encouraging often using God’s Word. Let us help each other fix our minds on Jesus Christ.
We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end. As has just been said: “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion.” – Hebrews 3:14-15
We are to persevere in our conviction, our belief in Jesus as our Savior. This is the third time in this passage that we have been reminded to think about Today. It is an incredible intensification of the importance of this ever present need. This day. Don’t put it off. Today. Encourage one another. Right now. Do not harden your heart. I think these words help us to think about the Christian life. It is an ever present continuous living of connectedness. We do have a meeting on Sundays, but we are part of God’s family every day. We need to live as a member of God’s family every day. What happened to those in the Old Testament that were hard-hearted?
Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? And with whom was He angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies perished in the wilderness? And to whom did God swear that they would never enter His rest if not to those who disobeyed? So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief. – Hebrews 3:16-19
There are at least a few different points we can see in this last passage.
For one, we can say that those who did not enter the Promised Land had heard the message and then rebelled. It wasn’t a case where they could say, “Well, nobody told me!” Their reaction is described here as three-fold: rebellion, sin, and disobedience. This was not a misunderstanding. There was knowledge and then rejection of truth.
Additionally, the key point of this rejection was their belief, or lack of it. They did not believe what God had told them through Moses. Because they didn’t believe the truth, they were not able to enter the Promised Land. The rebellion, sin and disobedience were a result of their unbelief. This is consistent with other familiar scriptures in the New Testament. It’s not our works, things we do, that enable us to enter our rest. It is our belief. That belief in turn puts us on a journey of perseverance, purity, and obedience.
I’m going to refrain from talking more about entering God’s rest because it features prominently in chapter 4. I will say that a key responsibility for us is to stay connected and encouraged in Christ. We need to keep believing, carry out that belief knowing that Jesus helps us.
I think most of us have heard at one time or another, the “proverb” that God helps those who help themselves. As we close out the message today, I want to make sure that we don’t take away that kind of thinking from our passage.
The Barna group often does surveys related to different spiritual topics in America. A 2017 study found that 52% of practicing Christians strongly agreed that the bible teaches that God helps those who help themselves.
The idea has been around for a long time and can be found in ancient Greek and Roman writings. There is a Chinese expression that heaven rewards the diligent. In French, it goes help yourself and heaven will help you, too. The Quran says that truly Allah does not change a people’s condition unless they change their inner selves (or change what is in themselves). Ben Franklin published the idea in Poor Richard’s Almanac, so he is sometimes given credit for the idea. But, another English author (Algernon Sidney in Discourses Concerning Government) wrote the exact words before Benjamin Franklin published it.
This “proverb” definitely does not appear verbatim in the bible. In fact, it is easy to demonstrate that God more often helps those who cannot help themselves. That is what grace is … a gift that we don’t deserve.
This is a tough concept to get right because the bible does teach about initiative (Proverbs 12:24, 13:4), taking responsibility (Proverbs 6:10, 12:11, 21:31, II Thessalonians 3:10, I Timothy 5:8), and pursuing a solid work ethic as our work can be done as unto the Lord (Colossians 3:23-34).
And yet, these are not the things that put us in a right standing before God. Instead, it is our faith in Jesus that is credited as righteousness. It is not by works that we are saved, but by the grace of God. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus. He is the one who makes it possible for us to follow Him. He knows our weaknesses and our need. Let us draw near to Him.
Lord Jesus, we do cry out to You. Lead us in the way everlasting (Psalm 139:24). Thank You that You are greater and You have revealed Yourself to us. We believe in You. Amen.
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