This evening we are continuing our study. We're at Hebrews chapter 3 tonight versus 13 through 19 And you'll find this in your black pea Bible if you're looking there page one thousand and two tonight continues a Warning be done at verse seven. We looked at that last week the dangers of falling away from Jesus and we saw that last week take care brothers verse 12 take care Unless there be in any of you an evil unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the living God So what we're seeing is a back and forth of encouragement tremendous encouragement pointing us to Jesus and then these warnings that call us To walk with Jesus and the dangers of walking away from Jesus in back in chapter 3 verses 1 to 6 We heard good news that God is a household That God is building a house Jesus is faithful to the house. He's the builder of the house He's the son over the house and he's our prophet priest and king as a prophet Faithfully delivers God's word to us as a priest he he builds God's house on the foundation of himself the priestly sacrifice for Sam And as a king he rules over the house He he protects and defends his people and we're called to listen to him as our prophet lean on him as a priest and and look to him as our king Trust in Jesus and you'll be part of his house But if you don't you won't and the writer is very frank about that and so in verses 7 to 12 We saw we've got to his name on our hearts Do we have a heart that's going astray?
That's as the writer says evil but unbelieving or do we have a heart that? Wants to walk with Jesus and now in verses 13 to 19 which we pick up the writer continues to tell us how to respond to Jesus Because he doesn't want any of us to miss out and so let me invite you to hear what he has to say to us in Hebrew chapter 3 beginning at verse 13 But exhort one another every day as long as it is called today That none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin For we have come to share in Christ if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end as it is said today If you hear his voice do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion For who were those who heard and yet rebel was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses and with whom was he provoked for 40 years? Was it not with those who sinned whose bodies fell in the wilderness and to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest? But to those who were disobedient so we see that they were unable to enter because of Amen, this is God's word.
Let's pray father have mercy upon us grant us a heart which we can't give ourselves a tender heart a warm heart a Believing and trusting heart a heart that wants to walk with Jesus Help us then to see ourselves to see Jesus in Jesus and we pray amen Once you want to pull it apart in three parts in verse 13 We are to help each other we're resort one another he says in verses 14 to 15 We are to hold on to Jesus hold firm to the end and then in verses 16 The 19 invites us to be honest about disobedience and unbelief in the life of Israel But as it perhaps pertains to any of us so help each other hold on to Jesus and be honest So in the first place we need to help each other first 13 But exhort one another every day as long as it is called today that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin You see he's saying we need one another and it's very basic level. We need one another There was a newer Christian visited an older Christian He had met to talk about his dislike of organized religion and he asked if it was okay if he just followed Christ on his own without having to be Involved with a church well the old man didn't say anything But he simply leaned forward and with tongs took a glowing red hot coal from the fireplace and set it on the hearth And they sat in silence as it went from bright orange to cool black and the young man had his answer Alone well, we can't keep going alone. We need to help each other We can help each other in the body of Christ in and there was a just a wonderful example of the way one of the ways we can help one another In September 2016 Cosimo Mexico and the final race of the world triathlon series Johnny Brown he led through swimming He led through biking he was leading through the marathon until the last 700 meters when he came out We mentally and physically exhausted he lost all sense of direction all knowledge of where he was and second behind him was his brother Alistair He was the gold medal winner in the olympics and he saw his brother ahead of him struggling And he came up to him put his arm around and practically dragged his brother to the finish line But in the slowness of that another pass to them and so they finished second and third Well, that's what the Christian life can look like it can look like us walking each other To the finish line it can look like us admitting we can't go in alone We need each other and it can look like helping each other and letting other people help us Confess we're weak Some of us don't want to do that We want so badly to be independent to do life on our own But God made us to need each other and he brought us into his family to help each other Why do we need this kind of mutual help with one another so badly? Well, and a verse 13 so that we aren't hardened by the deceitfulness of sin Sin is deceitful.
He says it promises you one thing and it gives you another right? It's like a fisherman's bait He tailizes the fish with the promise of a feast he offers them easy to eat worms He makes them look alive. He makes them look satisfying, but he doesn't show the the fish the inside That inside the worm is a hook, right and that hook goes in easy But it comes out hard and at first the fish thinks it's captured the worm But then it finally figures out of course that the worm was used to capture the fish and sin is like that It's deceitful Sin calls darkness light it calls bitter sweet it calls bondage liberty it calls wrong rights and evil Good and it seeks to hook us and we need other believers to help rescue us from the deception of sin So I would say to us Let's give ourselves to speaking the truth in love to one another and and let's not be mad if somebody in love speaks the truth In love to you that you might not grow cold or hard-hearted to Jesus We need to help each other now notice then that we need to help each other hold on to Jesus versus 14 to 15 for we have come to share Christ if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end As it is said today if you hear his voice do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion So we need to persevere in faith. We need to keep going hold our confidence to the end He says Oswald chamber says this the hardest part of the journey is the middle mile There's a sense of enthusiasm of the new undertaking which boys the the start the thrill of reaching the goal at the finish But it is the middle mile when you are a long way from the start and and home Is still distant that tests the middle of the runner on the middle mile of lice pogromage The believer needs most the grace of patient Continuance And so he goes on to say the soul can summon unusual strength for great sorrows an extra power for mighty deeds better than it can master The commonplace the danger of fierce battles are preferable to the humdrum of the trenches There are days when we fly and days when we run but most days we walk And we need to keep walking is what the author says because perseverance is the fruit of genuine faith Genuine faith is persevering faith Now as you've been hearing me it may sound like i'm saying well it's all up to us then is it all up to us?
What about preservation if i'm going to talk about perseverance What about preservation the perseverance of the saints the preservation of the saints well preservation is true I mean the apostle paul and fallipians one verse six says i'm sure of this that he can begin a good working you will carry it on to completion Until the day of Christ Jesus he does that Think of the promise of Jesus in john 10 27 my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me I give them eternal life and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand These promises are true preservation is true. It's not all up to us. God himself holds on to his people and never lets us go But perseverance is also true. God's people hold on to him and buy his grace.
That's something we continue to do It's the fruit of genuine faith. We may be weak in our faith. We may falter in our faith faith may grow dim But it is never extinguished completely and it can be revived. It can be refreshed.
It can be nurtured It can be fed. It can grow stronger And so what we're saying is not so kind of flip it You know what's safe always safe sort of doctrine the view that sometimes gets made it about that you can profess belief today And then live however you want tomorrow or you can profess to be a child of God who live like a child of hell That's not true. That's not the biblical doctrine. That's quite different from a genuine believer struggling with sin remaining sin learning to hate our own sinfulness Learning to die to sin and live to righteousness Learning these things while we struggle at fall short of the glory of God and so continue in sin Not to excuse it but to acknowledge it and the genuine christian then can be exhorted and the genuine christian hears the hope and hangs on So that we might say this when people fall away It isn't proof God's promises fail It isn't proof that you could be a genuine christian and lose your salvation falling away is the fruit of spurious faith falling away is the for those who fall away in the end Finally and completely They prove that they never belong to jesus in the beginning and this is the this is the message of first john two 19 john says that they went out from us, but they were not of us for if they had been of us They would have continued with us, but they went out that it might be complained that they all are not of us And so the writer here in hebrews is not warning Them about a danger that does not actually exist he is warning them about a real danger and a real possibility But what is it?
Well, it's not a real possibility We must say for those who are truly in jesus because jesus holds them and no one can snatch them out of his ae But it is a real possibility for those who are in the church and who appear to be in jesus who profess faith in jesus and have been baptized and take the sacrament but but subsequent events reveal they were never really his at all How do we know which is which and who is who? Perseverance You continue believing in jesus our question our interest is elders when we do member new member interviews Is is not so much tell us a time in your past when you first began to believe Some of you know when you first believed some were raised in the faith and they look back and say you know, I don't know that I ever know I remember a day when I first began to believe our question is not so much can you date it in the past? But are you believing now? That's what truly matters And so we all have a responsibility here the writer says exhort one another help one another That that we don't fall away And we have to then acknowledge that there are people among us here at radima brothers and sisters those who professed faith Who have drifted and have wandered away At least from this congregation And there are people in the process of drifting away from this congregation now there may be good reasons We're not a cult if you join radima you can leave radima Right if you become a member here and god will eat you can become a member somewhere else in the body of christ We understand that that happens and god does that and there's a front door to back door and we just want to see you Well settled happy in jesus wherever you land And so sometimes people leave us, you know who are members and they're just landing somewhere else in the body of christ For all kinds and centuries of reasons that we don't always have to share publicly But it is possible For people to on the way to leaving or on the way out of leaving our congregation are also potentially Leaving jesus himself and the writer saying let's care for one another enough to help each other hold on to jesus Note what it is we are to hold on to until the end he says he says our original confidence Of what are we originally confident of what are we cubed confident in confident not in ourselves not in our own works Not in our own strength not in our own cleverness not in our own faith But confident in christ and the power of salvation that is found in christ we want you to have your faith settled not on the fact that you have faith We want your faith to be settled on the object of your faith and have your confidence in Him and so we are to hold on to our original confidence He says the very message of the gospel that saved us in the first place and which is a reminder that the gospel is not merely a message We need to hear once so that we can come to faith at the beginning of the person life And the gospel that makes us a Christian the good news of our crucified and risen lord It also keeps us in the faith keep on putting your confidence in jesus He says And so then he turns to the experience of israel in the wilderness and he invites us to consider disobedience and unbelief And I think then we have to say let's be honest about disobedience and unbelief In the wilderness, this is verse 16 to 19 and we'll read 16 in just a second But in the wilderness you remember with moses the people spoke out against god and against moses saying things like why Why have you brought us up out of egypt to die in the wilderness?
There's no food. There's no water. We loathe this worthless food and they're talking about manna from heaven And the meat of coil god provided every day miraculously They didn't like though god's plan and they didn't like god serving moses and they were bell who were these people noticed for 16 For who were those who heard in rebel was it not all those who left egypt led by moses? They had passed out of egypt passed through the red sea miraculously Walked right up to the shores of kenen but didn't trust the lord The last people you would have expected to leave were the first people to do so verse 17 and with me was he provoked for 40 years Wasn't but those Was it not with those who sinned whose bodies fell in the wilderness?
You know they got to the jordan river And you remember they sent spies on ahead to check out the land into which god was bringing them And in numbers 13 and 14 You remember 12 spies went out and then they returned and 10 of them said There are giants in the land we can't go in And in chapter 14 verse 2 the whole congregation then responded to the 10 Would that we had died in the land of egypt or would that we had died in this wilderness? Why is the lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our lives and our little ones will become a prey would it not be better for us to go back to egypt They distrusted the lord among the spies only joshua and kalib trusted the lord Believed his promise and said the lord is with us do not fear the people of the land And then all the congregation said stone them with stones Let's kill joshua and kalib for trusting the lord and his work Encouraging us to do what he told us to do But then it says the glory of the lord appeared at the tent of meaning to all the people and in verse 11 of numbers chapter 14 And the lord said to moses how long will this people despise me? How long will they not believe in me?
It's but of all the signs I have done among them And so of that entire generation of people over the age of 20 who came out of egypt only joshua and kalib entered the promise land and the rest died in the wilderness They didn't get to enter that promised land of kennen Numbers chapter 1 verse 46 tells us the number of adult males who departed egypt with moses It was 603,550 added in the likely number of women and children you can figure well with the men and women Over the age of 20 you can figure that an average of 90 israelite adults died every day over 40 years until the entire generation was gone They were disobedient and sin is disobedience and god took it very seriously They provoked him and they died and so it was that it was their children and their grandchildren who made it into kennen And so hebrews chapter three verse 19 says so we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief So the root of their disobedience was unbelief And so it is with sin where we are disobedient there we will find unbelief Dealing with our own sin is never just about correcting behavior It's never just about stopping ourselves from doing bad things and starting to do good things It's more than that because lurking behind or alongside our specific disobedience is a more fundamental problem of unbelief So take the 10th commandment for a moment and reflect you shall not covet You know when you cover your neighbor's spouse you cover your neighbor's house you cut her car His job her family anything that your neighbor's what do you do it? You aren't just disobeying god. You are also not trusting god You're not trusting that god is good and that he is good to you and that what he has given to you is exactly what your good father in heaven thinks is good for you and wise for you and just right for you right now So that covetousness shows a lack of contentment and gratitude to our father for what he has provided and a lack of trust in him That he's looking out for us So unbelief Stands behind the disobedience And therefore as we are brought face to face with our own sin and we ponder it we need to respond Not only to our specific disobedience We also need a repent of the unbelief that's striving disobedience And that's uh that's hard and that's ugly and that's no fun at all But the beautiful thing is because the gospel is enough It's enough to cover you It's more than enough to deal with your faithlessness and your doubt And it is bigger than your biggest sin and it is deeper than your deepest failure and is surer than your greatest doubt And so you pick up the whole big mess that you've discovered uh new in your life And both your unbelief and your disobedience and what do you do with it? You take it to the cross You take it to the cross where there is mercy for the chief of sinners So that the path of repentance in the christian life is not just stop doing what's bad and start doing what's good I'm always forgetting that when i'm talking to my kids about things i want them to stop doing things I want them to start doing my vice my advice so often is unsound or not gospel Because what the gospel says is yes repent of what you've been doing and before we just flip that and say not start doing what's right Repent and take it to jesus rest in jesus entrust the the filth of your sin to jesus and remember that you are clean before god in jesus that you're righteous In god's sight in jesus rest in jesus in faith and not unbelief And then look to jesus by his spirit to help you Begin to do what is good instead of what is evil And so the writer here says we also need to help each other we need to help each other hold on to jesus by being honest With each other about our disobedience and unbelief my old pastor Uh to quote him at life ligan back and he's now the chancellor and ceo of the archaeological seminary He was the pastor at first president i was there and uh he he i've heard him tell the story more than once that he He felt a definite call to ministry at the age of 14 He says it in his own words i had felt for a number of years that the lord might be calling me into the ministry But i was very young and i didn't trust those inclinations I thought maybe i was thinking like a kid thinks you know i'm gonna grow up to be a policeman or a fireman But i had a strong sense that the lord was leading me into ministry and then he says in his first year of college He says i drifted away from the lord for a period of time I was still going to church i was still going through the motions of being a christian i was i wasn't evolved and gross and hang this public sin But i was spiritually dead in the water and my father called me one day And he said i'd like for you to come home from school tonight and i would like you to spend the evening With us and have supper with your mother and i and talk and legged says well i I knew what he wanted to talk about and i was mad i didn't want to talk about that with my dad And dad in his own way after supper just sat down and said son Your mother and i are concerned about you because we know that you know what the lord has for you And we just don't feel like you are pursuing that we don't feel like you are walking in the way that the lord would have you And that's all that he said And i was says legged reduced tears immediately because the lord used that exhortation from my father to pierce my heart And that's what the writer of hebers is saying to us about what we can do for one another His brothers insist just in christ as the lord gives you a relationship with other believers as as parents dealing with our children as friends in the body of christ dealing with one another as brothers and sisters God may just have given you a relationship that nobody else has Such that you could be the one to give spiritual encouragement To call them back from drifting away and to call them to resting in christ And by him and his power then walking with christ may the lord work that in us may we be such friends Spiritual friends to one another let's pray Father in heaven.
Thank you that you know your sheet that jesus leaves the 99 and he'll go and find one lost Sheep and safely bring them home. Thank you that we're in the hands of a faithful Shepherd We do pray bless you and praise you That you hold us nothing can separate us from the love of god which is in christ jesus And we ask then that that would melt our hearts and give us a tender heart Give us a trusting heart help us to lean on jesus and so persevere in his name i pray Amen. Amen. Let's stand together and so