Hebrews 3:12-19

Text that we're going to be in is Hebrews 3.

If you are visiting with us for the first time, we want to welcome you.

We are a church plant that started in 2017.

And we've been meeting in this space since that time.

We've gone through COVID.

If you are happen to be new or newer with us, welcome.

Don't feel too uncomfortable because many people, like COVID basically cut us down to the core, and we're basically in a process of rebuilding, having come out of COVID.

And so we're in a stage like of a church plant where it's like we need help setting up, tearing down, doing children's ministry, running our sound system, the whole thing we need help with.

And so if you're looking for a home church, you're not connected with a church yet, let us know.

We have um uh Kelsey here plays the piano.

She said that she's willing to lead us in worship if she has a vocalist.

So if anybody feels um led or you want to just pray for the development of our worship team.

As many of you know, we had an excellent musician with us for four years, Nick and his wife Zuki.

They went back to California um just a few months ago, and they were just such a gift to our church, and we've been doing worship tracks uh since they left, and it works.

I mean, when you go to a wedding, you um have a DJ there that plays music, right?

And it works, but it would be awesome to be able to have live uh worship again.

So if that's your gifting or you love kids and want to help with children's ministry, all of those things are things that we need.

Um, after church today, we're gonna have a lunch um in the Compassion Center, and the Compassion Center is three blocks from here off Eastern Avenue, and um we are having at least um what did I say, meatball subs, right?

So that we will have, um, and then whatever else side dishes you bring, it should be a fun time for an hour, hour and a half over in the compassion center.

So we'll clean up in here and then um head over there.

All right.

Um, let's jump into Hebrews.

Hebrews chapter three.

So if you have your Bibles, you can turn them on or turn to that page in your Bible.

Um there is this term in business or um project management called the messy middle.

The messy middle is where stuff is difficult to finish.

It's an uncertain period of time that occurs in the middle of a project or an endeavor.

It's where projects go to die, like this car that was featured on Craigslist.

In fact, there is, some of you may even just have fun looking on Craigslist or eBay for projects, right?

Which are basically things that other people started and they didn't want to finish, finish, like this car.

This um part of Hebrews chapter 3 is written to the messy middle.

Hebrews 3 · chapter mention

In fact, I am convinced more and more as I'm studying through Hebrews that it is really written to a people that are in that place of having decided to follow Jesus, he is their Messiah.

Many of them are Jewish, and they are just stuck in the turmoil that occurs in the middle of the journey, the messy middle.

In Colossians chapter 2, it says this so then, just as you've received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to walk in him.

Colossians 2 · chapter mention

I want you to for a second consider your own the beginning of your relationship with the Lord.

Now, not all of you have yet decided to make Jesus the Lord of your life, and you're still wrestling with that, but at some point in the future or sometime in the past, you decided that you would follow Jesus and that he would be the Lord of your life.

And Paul asked the Colossian church to consider that time.

How did you receive Christ?

What did it look like at the beginning of your relationship with the Lord?

For me, I I can think back when I read that, I think back to being 15 years old and just discovering this beautiful intimacy with Christ on my own, where there was just times of just being just at a camp, you know, going out early in the morning and reading my Bible and journaling, not really knowing really well what I was doing, but just having this sense of like, man, it's me and God.

Like what a special, a special moment.

I I don't know your testimony, I would love to hear it, but um that is the image that Paul is trying to draw to the Colossians mind to think back about how did you receive Christ, the faith that you placed in the message, the gospel message.

What did that look like in your life?

And then Paul says this continue to walk in him.

In the way that you received Christ, keep going, keep walking with Christ.

Keep going.

In other words, you're in maybe the messy middle.

You're you're you're you've been walking with Christ for a little while, and maybe you've lost that first love that you had, and you just need to hear, hey, keep going, but go for it in the way that you receive Christ.

Sometimes there is this temptation to get the shiny new object.

And for Paul, as he's discipling the Colossians, he says, look back to how you received Christ.

Something similar is going on here in Hebrews chapter 3.

Hebrews 3 · chapter mention

Let's read through this.

This is just a I had this image here.

We'll come back to this, but it's the idea of a path, being in the middle of a path, and where you're going, where you're heading, where you've been.

That's the image that Paul or the writer of Hebrews, the pastor of Hebrews, has.

Let's look at Hebrews chapter 3, 12 through 19.

Hebrews 3 · chapter mention

He says this, watch out, brothers and sisters, so that there won't be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God, but encourage each other daily while it is still called today, so that none of you is hardened by sin's deception.

For we have become participants in Christ if we hold firmly until the end the reality that we had at the start.

As it is said today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.

For who heard and rebelled?

Wasn't it all who came out of Egypt under Moses?

With whom was God angry for forty years?

Was it with those who sinned whose bodies fell in the wilderness?

And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, if not to those who disobeyed?

So we see that they were unable to enter in because of unbelief.

Last week we began to look at this, and one of the things that I pointed out last week is that this is the second warning in Hebrews.

Now, Hebrews, it's written in such a way that the writer is discipling this unnamed group of Jewish believers.

And I've said this now for three weeks, and I'll say it again because some of you are new with us.

Hebrews is different from Paul's writings.

Probably wasn't written by Paul.

It's different from the Gospels.

And so if you jump right into Hebrews, it may sound a bit foreign because the way that the pastor of Hebrews is discipling these Christians is with different language.

In fact, Hebrews is probably a sermon that's been transcribed by maybe it's Apollos, maybe it's Barnabas.

Some first century father, church father, wrote this material and is encouraging and he's warning these Christians in a number of ways.

The first warning that we saw in chapter two was a wake up, pay attention type warning.

The second warning was this warning against having an unbelieving heart, an evil and unbelieving heart.

And we'll see more of these warnings unfold as we go through the text.

They had a hard heart towards God's voice.

That was the issue at hand.

And so we're cycling back.

We covered some of this material last week, but I want to hang out in this uh passage just for this week before we get to chapter four, because there is such rich material here.

Last week I really zeroed in on the condition of our hearts, and I suggested that there is a real fear around having a tender heart towards the Lord, the more you do life.

And what we find is that really the Christian faith is the only safe premise for having a tender heart.

It's dangerous to have a soft heart because you set yourself up, you're exposed for such pain.

But yet the Christian, because of a belief in the goodness of God and the ability for God to carry us forward and to protect us, that He has our good in mind, we can have a soft heart.

And these Christians are called to continue listening to God's voice.

So there's an interplay between God's voice in chapter three and four and the heart condition of the Christian.

And if I didn't, you know, didn't get across last week.

Again, let me just remind you that you cannot be a Christian and be fruitful unless your heart, you're checking in with your heart.

You cannot live out your Christian faith just in your head, and you can't just live out your Christian uh faith based off of chemicals in your body.

We are made of those things.

We have biology, we have a body that's really important, and we have a brain that's really important.

But God cares about the condition of our hearts.

And what's going on with the children of Israel, and in Psalm 95, and in Hebrews chapter 3, is this idea that your heart is important, and that is where you that's what has to be tender in order to receive what God is saying.

Hebrews 3 · chapter mention

So let me see if I put here, yeah, the structure of verses 7 through 19.

This is chapter 3.

Isaiah 3 · chapter mention

So we have a lengthy quote from Psalm 95, which Marvin read.

Then the second part in verses 12 through 14 is the pastor is giving a warning based off Psalm 95.

Don't have a hard heart, keep a soft, believing heart.

And then the third part is an interrogation of the story based off Psalm 95.

It points to and to brings forward critical details.

These questions we'll look at in just a second.

The first thing I want to draw your attention to is this idea of the present, the emphasis on the present.

Think about a trainer.

Okay, think about like you're going to work out, you have a coach, a personal trainer at your gym.

The writer of Hebrews is like that for you and I.

Today.

How about in verse 13?

But encourage each other daily, while it is still called today, so that none of you is hardened by sin's deception.

What about in verse 15?

As it is said, today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.

So those are three references, three repeated words to today.

But if we go back to verse 13, also we see daily this idea of just daily encouraging each other.

The idea of the Christian life for this pastor who is writing this is that the Christian experience is a daily experience.

It's not a Sunday morning experience.

It's not just something that happens randomly on a, you know, at a small group, but it is something that is happening in the present.

You also get from these types of um verses this idea that the spirit says, today if you hear his voice, what does that what does that imply?

Is God speaking occasionally, or is there an anticipation that he may talk to me today?

Right?

He may.

So this is one of the reasons why for the last 2,000 years, Christians have been giving daily time to the Lord.

Whether you call that your quiet time, what else do you call it?

Besides a quiet time, what do you call that time?

Reflection.

Reflection, okay.

What else?

Meditation.

Meditation.

Your devotions, yeah.

Your prayer time, okay?

Intercession, yeah.

Yeah, what?

Worship?

Yeah.

The old Christians go back a century, they would call it um the Christian's uh prayer closet.

You heard that?

It's like you're you're um you're gonna go in the prayer class based off of Matthew 6.

It's this idea of we're gonna give God time just in case he has something he really wants to drive home today.

So it's a good spiritual discipline, but there's no that discipline and all spiritual disciplines are built in to be intentional about spirituality.

They're there because we know in our real life, if we don't give God time on our daily schedule, it's easy to miss him speaking to us.

So if that's not a part of your own personal spiritual uh routine, I would encourage you to have either a morning time or an evening time or your lunch break, time when you are listening for God to speak to you.

Because this pastor is encouraging these New Testament Christians to live as if they were Israel.

Now, we were doing our Bible class before church, our worship service started, right?

In 9 15, we do a Bible class, and we're looking at the story of Exodus.

And Moses is having this open dialogue with God.

And it doesn't say there that Moses folded his hat his hands, bowed his head, and closed his eyes.

It just says he he said to God.

But yet it's a a whole narrative about Moses's prayer life.

And it just so happens that Moses is in this really difficult spot because he's told Pharaoh for the first time, let my people go.

And Pharaoh's like, No way, I'm gonna make life harder for Israel.

And then Israel gets upset with Moses, and Moses is like, Well, God, I did what you told me to do, and it's a tough spot that he's in, right?

And so Moses does what he does many more times after this, where he just goes back to God and he says, God, what do you want me to do next?

Why is this happening?

It's a time for God to speak to Moses, and I would suggest that the writer of Hebrews does not expect spirituality to be much different.

He expects it to be all that much more.

So Moses is the one who's hearing from God and has this dynamic, crazy relationship with God where there's conversation going back and forth.

But Hebrews, we'll see as it goes, it unfolds, the writer of Hebrews says, look, the veil has been torn.

You don't have to go to a priest anymore.

You can go right into God's presence and have this ongoing active conversation.

So the spiritual, I just I know I'm kind of beating a dead horse a bit with this point, but the spirituality of the pastor is this regular, very present experience in the midst of a normal routine.

The second thing I just want to draw your attention to from basically this section 12 through 19 is that while the writer is focused on a present experience, he expects these Christians to finish the race.

He's very focused in on the present, but he's expecting that they'll finish the race.

Look at verse 14.

For we have become participants in Christ if we hold firmly until the end the reality that we had at the start.

We have become participants if we hold firmly to the end, the reality.

Do you remember?

Remember that verse from Colossians that we started with?

It was this passage where Paul's saying, look, remember back to when you trusted in Jesus, when you asked Jesus into your heart, whatever terminology you use for that moment in time when you became his follower.

Think back to that, the beginning, hold on to it, he's saying here, Paul said, keep going, keep walking, how you received him.

Here it's hold firmly, participate in Christ by holding firmly all the way to the end, what you had from the start, the reality that you had from the start.

This word participant is a favorite, a favorite word of this guy.

This pastor loves this word.

He uses it in a bunch of different settings.

It can mean being a companion, a coworker.

It's the idea of having a shared role.

In Luke chapter 5, Luke chapter 5, verse 7, it talks about how they signaled to their partners.

Luke 5 · chapter mention Luke 5:7

This is the disciples, we're in their boat.

They signaled to their partners in the boat.

Partners is the same idea as participants, same Greek word.

We're partners with Christ.

This is something, this again, this goes back to your spiritual coach training, you and I.

He keeps identifying us with Jesus.

He keeps saying we're in his family.

He's our brother.

In the assembly, he's declaring, he's unashamedly declaring us to his brethren, saying, You are my family.

These are my brothers and sisters.

I am the son, which is a greater position than the angels, and you are my family.

This is more than just, hey, brother Moses, who's going to lead us out of Egypt through the wilderness and give us the law.

No, this is the builder of the house.

This is the one who gets the inheritance.

And so we're participants in Christ, and this is what should be the reality to the end.

The letter of Hebrews is pointing oftentimes to this idea of family benefits.

You remember one commentator I mentioned a few weeks ago, uh, Pastor Amy Peeler, she says that this book is all about the family of God and what it means for us to be uh just benefiting from family life, spiritual family life.

We already have seen the idea of inheritance, honor, shared authority.

Paul has a similar theme, but but some a lot of commentators I read this week, they're saying there's the theological idea of being in Christ, where you're in Christ, so you get all this stuff.

It's similar, but this is very um much rooted in the family idea.

And that's the primary way in which the writer of Hebrews uses this word to partner.

You'll notice also this this verse may make you feel uncomfortable because it is conditional.

He says, For we have become participants in Christ if we hold firmly until the end, the reality that we had at the start.

It seems as if there is a question mark that hangs over this passage, as if, well, maybe we won't become participants because maybe we won't hold firmly until the end.

The same kind of language is used in chapter six with a conditional statement about maybe it's possible to fall away.

Now, if your Christian tradition is, if you come out of a reformed tradition or you're have like Calvinism as your strong roots, this kind of language makes you feel deeply uncomfortable because since the Reformation, the the much of the church has been teaching this idea of eternal security, that you cannot lose your salvation, right?

That it's you're not gonna fall away.

Hebrews um seems to imply some question marks that exist.

I'm not going to address that here, but I am going to bring into our text in just a minute uh the parable of the sower.

I will say this, it is important.

Whether you believe that your salvation, you can turn your back on God and walk away from God and lose your salvation, or you believe you're eternally secure.

We don't even want to be messing with that possibility.

We want to be running towards the Lord as hard as possible, as far away from any kind of question marks hanging over our life as possible.

It seems as if the writer of Hebrews allows these types of theoretical possibilities to hang out there.

Jesus also seems to allow the theoretical possibility to hang out there that you know you could walk away.

When we look at Romans, I'll give you kind of my opinion on eternal security.

I tend to sit in that camp, but I'm not gonna lay all that out at this point.

I do want to just acknowledge that this is can be uncomfortable.

And if you have a if you're in your own relationship with the Lord, you're not sure whether or not you're gonna hold on to Christ firmly.

He's he wants to hold on to you.

He loves you, he died on the cross for you, and your will needs to participate with the work that he intends for you to save you.

Hold on to him.

Don't be like Israel that turned its back on God in the wilderness, which brings us to this last set of questions that come up.

These five questions in verse 17, 18, and 19.

The first question is, who heard and rebelled?

The second question, wasn't it all who came out of Egypt under Moses?

The third question is, with whom was God angry for forty years?

The um fourth question is, wasn't it with those who sinned?

Or this is the fifth question, I think, with those who sinned, whose body fell in the wilderness?

And the last question, to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, if not to those who disobeyed?

These are all questions that relate to who?

Who was it?

It's as if so, when you're a teacher, you ask questions to try to break somebody's assumptions and to get people to pay attention and to engage the idea.

So this pastor is warning these Christians about the danger of hearing God and having a hard heart, being deceived by sin and having a hard heart, repeating, putting on repeat the mistakes that the children of Israel made in the wilderness, doing it all over again.

So if you're a pastor who wants to spiritually train this group of Christians, you're gonna use all of the rhetorical devices you can use.

And one of those is to ask questions.

And so he asks these six five five questions, five, six questions here.

Who heard and rebelled?

Who heard and rebelled in the wilderness?

Who heard?

The children of Israel, yeah, the Hebrews.

Was it wasn't it all who came out of Egypt under Moses?

The answer is yes.

Yes.

Yeah, it was all.

Why does he ask that question?

It's comprehensive.

Was it just a few that didn't trust God about the promise of the promised land?

Was it just like 10, you know, 10 spies went in and said, yeah, the land is scary, and then they had like a little splinter group of 20 people who were like, yeah, we're gonna be the group that doesn't go in.

No, it was comprehensive.

This writer here is saying, Do you see how comprehensive the unbelief was?

In other words, y'all are capable of this.

We're all capable of having unbelieving hearts.

We're all capable of having our hearts deceived by sin.

Don't be sitting there this morning going, yeah, that was them, but I'm better.

No.

Look at who heard and rebelled.

It was all of them.

And then the third question with whom was God angry for 40 years?

Who was he angry with for 40 years?

All of them.

All of them.

Wasn't with wasn't it, this is one of those answers, it's a rhetorical question, wasn't it with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?

Notice he uses the word sin.

This pastor is not soft peddling unbelief.

In Romans 15, it says, if you do anything, not in faith, it's sin.

The fact that these children of Israel didn't obey and believe God, that's sin.

When we decide that we're not going to trust God, it is sin.

It's not just a mistake, while it is, it's not just foolish while it is.

It's sin.

It's something that Jesus died for on the cross, an unbelieving heart.

Now, it is easy, I think, to know the facts and the figures of the Bible, the chronology, what order the books that go in, right?

The idea of Jesus' death and resurrection, to know it.

But we're talking about trusting in God with our life, of obeying when he speaks to us.

That is what this writer here is encouraging.

This pastor is encouraging.

He's like, what do you hear the Holy Spirit telling you?

And that's my question for you this morning.

What do you hear God telling you?

And is your heart in a place where it is able to obey?

Next week, I don't want to give this sermon away, but it's one of my favorite passages.

We're gonna come, I think it's next week or the week after.

One of my favorite phrases out of the Bible is the hearing of faith.

The hearing of faith.

Because we have ears that hear, but it's the hearing of faith.

But we never think of like our hears as being active, we think of our ears as being passive, right?

But it's the hearing of faith.

It's this idea that the ears hear what God has to say.

It goes in, and the immediate reflexive response is yes, yes, God, I'll obey.

Whatever you say, God, I'm ready to obey.

The more I look at this book, the more it seems like the pastor of Hebrews is addressing the threats that are highlighted in the parable of the sower.

Let me put that in front of you as we close out here this morning.

So listen to the parable of the sower.

When anyone hears the word about the kingdom and doesn't understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart.

Do you see what is he he's hearing?

He hears the word about the kingdom, right?

Which is, by the way, which is a very interesting way to talk about the gospel.

It's the word about the kingdom, and yet he doesn't understand it.

So Satan, the evil one, comes and snatches it away from his head, is his heart.

It takes it away from his heart.

Now there's the understanding here that's going on, but there's also the heart in play.

The now we're depends whether you're a trichotomist or a dichotomist, but the Hebrews were dichotomists.

They had bodies and then they had the immaterial brain, soul, heart, all that stuff's mixed together for them, right?

So Jesus here is saying, Satan's coming and he's stealing the word from your heart.

This is the, and then let's go to the next here.

This is the one sown along the path.

Verse 20, and then the one sown on the rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy.

Do you see the emotional response to hearing the word about the kingdom?

It's joy.

I love this message, right?

But he has no root and is short-lived, and is short-lived when distress or persecution comes because of the word, immediately he falls away.

Now the one sown among the thorns, this is the one who hears the word.

There we have again, hearing the word, but the worries of this age and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word and it becomes unfruitful.

But the one sown on the good ground is the one who hears, understands, and who does, who does produce fruit and yields some a hundred and sixty, some thirty times what was sown.

I think that this pastor of Hebrews has this type of concept in mind that this our spiritual journey, yes, there's a gospel message, a message about the kingdom, the message about Jesus that we receive into our hearts, but there's much more that goes on.

Some of you, in your concept of Christianity, there's a point in time where you heard the gospel, you said, I want Jesus in my life, I want him to be the Lord of my life, but the growing hasn't happened.

And there have been times where you've been totally off the path, where Satan's ripped you off, and you don't have roots down because you have failed to recognize the idea that you're a plant that needs to keep growing roots.

You need it, and that growth is occurring in our hearts, like our head is connected with our hearts, and there's this growth that continues.

That's that is the idea here of the pastor of Hebrews.

He has in mind your and my spiritual growth on a daily basis, where our hearts are tender before the Lord, and we just keep trusting in him as we hear him.

It this becomes hard because some of you, your journey is like you're totally screwed up, and you know it.

And so, like you place your faith in Jesus because you're at the bottom of the barrel, and you're like, and so there's this resurrection process that Jesus takes you through, and He gives you stability, like you're coming to church on Sundays, and all of a sudden you have this sense of like wind underneath your wings, and you're starting to do better.

And the temptation at that point is to be like the second one here, where it's like the cares of this world push it out.

So I just I just want to tell you like I'm proud of you for being at church, right?

A lot of people just don't see a need for like being around other Christians or being where the word is taught.

You're doing good by being here.

I think that that's awesome for us to continue gathering in the way that we are.

But this will be the temptation as God puts your life back together, is to become complacent and to forget to be listening to him on a daily basis.

It goes back to that question: Am I ready to receive what he has to say?

And verse 13, hey, encourage one another, right?

The writer of Hebrews says, encourage one another while it is called today, lest you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

Okay, do you feel like you've been to the gym with the pastor of Hebrews?

That's that's the idea.

He wants to exercise you in your spirituality.

This guy, this pastor, has in mind that you're going to be getting closer and closer to God the Father because the work that Jesus did on your behalf, and you're going to be having a spiritual experience on a daily basis, and it flows through his word.

So you'll notice for us as a church in our DNA, we love the Bible.

We spend a lot of time every Sunday in the Bible because that is the that's where God's working.

He's working through his word.

So it's not just like, you know, we're going through Hebrews now and we're gonna go through Tom Sawyer, you know, next year.

It's like, no, we're gonna keep going through the Bible together because this is the place where God is at work.

This is where our spiritual experience occurs.

Amen.

Let's pray.

We'll take communion together, um, but let's let's go ahead and we'll pray and ask the Lord to just apply these things to our hearts.

Lord, we have talked around um this text in Hebrews, and um there's a material here from the Psalms that points back to Numbers.

And Lord, we just want this week to walk with you and just take the images from this passage.

Lord, would you bring them fresh to our mind as we do the day each day this week?

Help us to hear you and help us to hear you with soft hearts that are really ready to trust in you, to grab a hold of what you're saying and to trust you.

Lord, we know that you're pleased with those who walk by faith.

Lord, help us to hold intention the real experience, the things that we can see, and yet believe you more than what our eyes take in.

Help us to trust you, Lord.

Thank you for your love for us.

I pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.