Hebrews

Hebrews chapter 3 and verse 1.

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. He was faithful to the 1 who appointed him just as Moses was faithful in all god's house. 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. Moses was faithful as a servant in all god's house, bearing witness to what would be spoken by god in the future, 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. So as the Holy Spirit says, today, If you hear his voice, do not harden your heart as you did in the rebellion during the time of testing in the wilderness where your ancestors tested and tried me, through, though, for 40 days, 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.

So I declared on oath in my anger. They shall never enter my rest. See to it brothers and sisters that none of you has a sinful unbelieving heart that turns away from the living gods, but encourage 1 another daily, as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. 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.

Who were they, who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? And with whom was he angry for 40 years? Was it not with those who sins 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. Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. For we also have had the good news proclaimed to us just as they did, but the message they heard was of no value to them because they did not share the faith of those who obeyed. Thank you, Rory, and, good morning, everybody. Nice to see you, and, welcome to Cornerstone Church, particularly if it's your first time, I'm Tom Wallen Past here, and, welcome to you as well if you're joining online.

Do keep Hebrews chapter 3 in front of you. Make sure that you can see it. Let's pray together as we look at Hebrews. Heavenly father, we do pray that you would speak to us through your living word. Every time your word is opened, the holy spirit speaks today.

And we pray that you would help us to listen and help us to see Jesus with us in his name. Amen. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. Now in the Bible, as you might know, the heart is about much more than just the physical muscle. The word heart refers to the the inner part of us, to the human soul, to that bit of us, which makes decisions.

It refers to our determination, our sense of determination to live in a particular way. It refers to our affections, what we choose to set our love on, what we choose to treasure, and, what we choose to turn away from. All of that is our heart that inner part of ourselves. And according to Hebrews chapter 3, that inner part of us is gonna change in some way this morning. It lever become softer.

And more sensitive and more receptive to the voice of god, which speaks today, or it might become a little bit colder and a little bit more insensitive. And more callous to the word of god that we hear today. I remember when I used to work in, kitchens. I, I worked alongside a chef, an older chef. He was a big Polish man.

He was not quite sort of matty size, but he was not far off, you know, big Polish guy. And, he had been working in kitchens for years, and his hands were able to hold things that very few other hands would be able to hold. He had had his hands seared over hot grills for years and years and years going into hot ovens to retrieve food. And he was able to take baking sheets out of the oven and hold the hot metallic handles of pans. And it made the rest of us look like wimps, you know, certainly me, with my hand, I was not able to touch anything like he was able to touch.

I mean, this guy had hacked hands that had been callused over years of handling hot material so that he no longer even was sensitive to it anymore. Hebrews 3, what happened to his hands can happen to our hearts. A heart can grow insensitive and callous over time so that we no longer even feel the things that we ought to feel. Happened in the wilderness generation, didn't it? That that's the that's the kind of big illustration, really, in chapter 3 and 4.

Here are the Israelites. We've got to picture them in our minds eye. Many, many thousands of them who had seen things that would take your breath away. They'd seen these dramatic judgment plagues falling on Egypt. They'd seen pharaoh, the most powerful man in the world, upended by the power of god.

They'd seen how the blood of a lamb was able to rescue them from a destroying angel. They'd seen that. They'd seen an ocean carved in too by the hand of god. They had been led by day by a pillar of cloud and led at night by a pillar of fire. They had been to the great mountain, and in the gloom and thunder and darkness, they had heard the voice of god thundering from the top of Mount Sinai and felt the ground shake.

They had been led by Moses, who as we saw last week was faithful in all god's house. They had been led by a faithful man who preached the gospel to them, who told them the same good news that you and I hear He pointed them on and forward to Christ. And yeah, in verse 8 of Hebrews 3, when a testing time came. They were about. Not at first, maybe, but when the water started to become scarce and the food got a little bit boring, and the enemies looked a bit too scary.

And the voice of Moses started to grow tiresome in their ears. That's what we're told in numbers chapter 12, which is referred to in verse 5. By the way, numbers 12 verse 7. It's a very interesting passage because there you've got Miriam and Aaron, the brothers of the brother and sister of Moses. This is his own family, and they're starting to say to him, isn't there anyone else who can preach god's word to us?

Are you? You're really the only 1 that we have to listen to. Can't god speak through others? They started to grumble against the preaching of god's word, and then it became clear that for all of their privileges, they did not believe. That's the big issue here.

The grumbling about food and water and the complaints about the preacher, and the demand for more signs It was all a lack of faith. It was a lack of faith. That was the root of every other issue. You can see it here in verse 12. Unbelieving heart is what we're warned against.

Verse 19. They were not able to enter. Why? Look down with me. Verse 19.

They were not able to enter. Why? Because of their Unbelief. Chapter 4 verse 2, we're told they did not share the faith of those who obeyed. Sad.

Yeah? For 40 years, they had seen the work of god with their own eyes. But in a time of testing, they renounced their faith in god, and they turned against Moses, and really they wished they'd never become Christians after all. Tragic. And for that reason, verse 17, the author to the Hebrews tells us that their bodies perished in the wilderness.

Can you imagine that in your mind's eye? You've got the river Jordan flowing and on 1 side of the river Jordan, you've got the promised land, canaan, which is where they had been promised and where they were called to go. But on the other side of the Jordan is the wilderness of Zinn, and there you just see row after row after row of headstones. This is the generation that perished on the wrong side of the Jordan. Why?

Because of their unbelief. But with all that in mind, you can't help but ask how did that happen to that? How did that happen to them? Did they all decide on 1 day to get together and just think we've had enough of this. We've had enough of this.

It's been really good up until now, but now as a community, we've decided we wanna go another way. Did it did it happen like that? Just on 1 day. They decided they were done with God and it was time to harden their hearts. No.

The perishing in the wilderness was a result not just of 1 decision on 1 day. But many decisions on many days. That's how it happened. It happened through a sequence of today's. See that?

Not just on 1 day. But today and today and today and today. It was a sequence of today's that revealed their unbelief and which led them to be buried on the wrong side of the jordan. And as we gather all these thousands of years later today on this morning, the Holy Spirit would have us here today that what has happened before can happen again. The use of the Bible here in the Bible is absolutely extraordinary.

In this chapter. There are 4 touch points of history here. There's the wilderness, touch 0.1. There's the time of Psalm 95, touch 0.2. There's the letter to the Hebrews touch 0.3 and then there's us, touch 0.44 touch points in history, and notice how this is all introduced in verse 7 as the Holy Spirit doesn't say said, does it?

As the Holy Spirit said, no, as the Holy Spirit says, this is what he says today and on every day in which this story has been talked about. And therefore, do you see the implications of that? Because what that means is that the problem of distance between us and the wilderness generation now disappears? Because we might argue as we come to this, Well, the Bible isn't really god speaking to me. It's not speaking to me today.

It's about them, then. This Bible is really about, and I can see it here, those who are in the wilderness. It's about them. Or it's about these Hebrew Christians, but it can't be about me because I wasn't there. I wasn't there.

And yet, look at what god's word says. In verse 7 and 8. So as the Holy Spirit says, today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion. You think, yeah, but he wasn't there? The writer of Psalm 95 wasn't there.

How can it say as you did in the he wasn't there? And these Hebrew Christians weren't there either, and neither are we there? Physically speaking. But the point is whenever this story is opened, and whenever god's word is preached, the wilderness comes to us. It comes rising out of history, and it comes hurtling to meet us in the present day.

So that spiritually speaking, we are there. And god says to us today, what he said to them and to them and to them and he says to you and I here today do not harden your hearts. Do not harden your hearts. Oh, verse 12, see to it brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful unbelieving heart that turns away from the living god. Do you see?

What they did, the holy spirit says we can do. What happened to them, the holy spirit says can happen to us. The heart hard. To the word of god. It can happen.

Got it. Maybe you can remember a time in your Christian life, or maybe you might be honest enough to say that that time is right now. Where your determination to follow Christ has dried out. Or maybe you would say of yourself today that spiritual things just don't excite you in the way that they once did. Anymore.

Maybe you can remember a time when someone in your life got converted. And at that point in your life, there was nothing more exciting than that. Nothing more exciting than that to hear of someone converted. Maybe you can remember a time in your life when a neighbor might have opened up to you about god. And there was a day when you would have been on that.

You would have been on that. Eager to see if there's an opportunity to say something about the savior. Maybe you can remember a time in your life when you actually used to make plans to serve the lord. You used to think about it, to plan to serve the lord, but nowadays you no longer plan to do that in the way that you once did. Maybe you can remember a time when certain sins in your life would have been shocking to you.

But now, somehow, you've begun to accommodate them and they no longer work your conscience in the way they used to do. Remember that chef, I don't think on his first day in the kitchen, he would have been able to hold a blazing hot baking tray, but give it enough today's and what he was sensitive to at first, no longer troubles him. Maybe you can remember a time when signs of spiritual life in your children would have been about the most thrilling thing you could see. But somewhere along the line, whether they make their 11 plus or get into the first team has become more important. Can happen, can it?

Can happen? It has happened before and it can happen again. But his thing, it doesn't just happen overnight, does it? It happens because of a series of today's over time. CS Lewis great Christian author, wrote a book called the Scrutate letters.

And, if you're not familiar with it, the Scrutate letters is basically a series of letters written from a senior demon to a junior demon, and they're trying to work out between them how can they they can derail the faith of this new convert. And so in the book, whenever they talk about the enemy, they don't mean satan, as we might think they would, they mean Jesus. The enemy is Jesus to them, and the hymn they talk about is their patient. Just look at this quote. It's over 3 slides, Alex or Steve, if you'd be happy to put it up, but I think this is so perceptive.

The enemy Jesus has guarded him your patient from you through the first great wave of temptations. But if only he can be kept alive, you have time itself for your ally. The long, dull monotonous years of middle aged prosperity, or middle aged adversity are excellent campaigning weather. You see it is so hard for these creatures. To persevere.

The routine of adversity, the gradual decay of youthful loves and youthful hopes, the quiet despair. Of ever overcoming the chronic temptations with which we have again and again defeated them. The drabness which we create in their lives and the inarticulate resentment with which we teach them to respond to it. All of this provides admirable opportunities of wearing out a soul by attrition. If on the other hand, the middle years prove prosperous, our position is even stronger.

Prosperity, prosperity nits a man to the world. He feels that he is finding his place in it. Well, really, it is finding his place in him. That is why we must often wish long life to our patients. 70 years is not a day too much for the difficult task of unraveling their souls from heaven and building up a firm attachment to the earth.

Friends, what do these demons know that we sometimes forget or don't expect? They know that the best way to harden the human heart. Is not on 1 day, but on many different today's. Just a little sin ignored today. It won't hurt.

Just 1 sermon not thought about today. It won't really matter, will it? Because tomorrow, I'll get on it. Tomorrow, I'll kill that sin. Tomorrow, I'll submit to Christ in that area.

Tomorrow, I'll ask that friend for a bit of prayer support with this issue. But here's the point in Hebrews 3. The Holy Spirit will never, ever tell you to do it tomorrow. He will always tell you to do it today. That quote, if I can please Steve from Matthew Henry, The deceitfulness of sin hardens the soul.

1 sin allowed makes way for another. And every act of sin confirms the habit. Let everyone beware of sin. And so I think in the end, the main thing here is that on whatever day god's word is opened, god's voice is heard. And we will always be changing in some way depending on what we do with the voice of God today.

If you and I choose not to listen today, this morning, and if we actually go away from here and make no plans to respond to the voice of god today, then we will become a little bit more insensitive today, a little bit colder today, and that may very well confirm the habit. And set us on a road which leads to all of the places that we've seen so far. But on the other hand, and this is the really, really great news of this passage. If we do listen to the voice of god today, and we settle it today, that we're going to turn again in faith to our savior. If we make plans today, to bring our hearts to him and ask that he would make them soft again.

Then many wonderful things will happen for us. Chapter 4 verse 1 is an extraordinary verse. Therefore, the promise of entering his rest still stands. And you think, well, what is that rest then? What is what is he actually talking about there?

Because if that was said in the days of Psalm 95, then Kaynan and the promised land could not have been it. Could not have been. Because in Psalm 95, hundreds of years later, he says the promise of god's rest still stands. So where Joshua led them as good as that was and as restful as that was, there was that there was something bigger that was being talked about there. There was a great arrest.

Which was available to the people of god in the days of Moses, and which remained available to the people of god in the days of the Psalm, and which remained available to the church at the time of this letter, and which brothers and sisters is available to us today. A greater rest. The promise of the rest still stands today. Last week as we gathered for worship. Dean was leading the service, and he began with these words from the lord Jesus in Matthew 11.

Come to me. All you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest. For that inner part of you.

The rest spoken of in the book of Hebrews is not just a return to Eden. And it is not just a journey to a physical land. It is, and it always has been about rest for the soul in Jesus Christ. And so today on this morning, and I mean today, if we do feel some hardness of heart, some cold that has began to creep in. Then let us come to Jesus today.

Brother and sisters, the lord Jesus is an expert in hard hearts. He is so used to dealing with them. And he offers himself to us this morning that if we will come to him, he stands ready to get inside our arteries and to clear them out. And to make the spiritual heart soft and supple again as it was created to be, and to give us back that conscience that we might have seared through years of unbelief. And to cleanse us from every sin and to give us rest from our self justifying works.

But it has to be today. It has to be today. You have to combine what you hear today with faith. Friends, it is not enough It is not enough just to hear that Christ has died for you. It is not enough just to hear that he can fix your hard heart.

It is not enough just to hear that he has risen from the dead for your justification. It is not enough. It must be combined with personal trust today. That's what the Holy Spirit is saying to us this morning. They had a choice.

They said no. You have a choice and you've gotta decide, but it must be today. Today, as the Holy Spirit says. Do not harden your heart. We can speak so easily about tomorrow, can't we?

As if tomorrow has ever belonged to us. I'll do it tomorrow. Too much on my plate at the moment. I'll do it another time. It's gotta be today.

It's gotta be today. Combine what you hear about Jesus with faith today, and your heart will be saved. And then when you've done that, encourage your brothers and sisters to do it too. Have a look at verse 13. Encourage 1 another daily as long as it is called today.

You want to encourage a brother or sister to follow Christ, please don't leave it till next Sunday. Cause they may not be here, and neither might you. Do it today. Encourage them today. That none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness.

I just don't know if we really appreciate how important we actually are to 1 another. How do you stop your heart getting hardened? And my goodness? I hope from what we've looked at, you don't want that to happen to you. How do you stop here, encourage 1 another, and let yourself be encouraged as long as it's called today, and you won't be hearted by the deceitfulness of sin.

This is why the author to the Hebrews is going to say to us later on, do not give up meeting together. As some are in the habit of doing. Because if you give up meeting together, then what have you lost? You've lost an opportunity to encourage a brother or sister, and you've lost an opportunity to be encouraged by a brother or sister. And if those things fall out of your life, there is a lot less in your life to keep you from developing a hard heart.

Don't give up meeting together because if you don't want your heart to get hard, You need to both encourage and be encouraged as long as it is called today. Today. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart. And encourage 1 another as long as it is called today. In America, apparently 1 person dies every 34 seconds from a cardiovascular problem.

And of those problems, coronary heart disease is the single biggest killer. More than any other single cancer, more than any other single disease, it's heart disease, which is the biggest killer. And from what I can tell, and I'm I am definitely not on my strong foot here. With coronary heart disease, 2 things happen. These fatty deposits build up in the arteries, and the artery becomes both narrower and harder.

The artery is meant to be a supple soft thing. But with this type of disease, the arteries actually grow stiff, and they get hard. And that can happen for a number of reasons. Can happen because of age, and there's not much we can do about that. It can happen because it runs in the family, and there's not much we can do about that.

But it can also happen, and this here's the 1 we're all supposed to be worried about. It can also happen because of neglect. If we don't take care of it, if we don't look after it, it can literally go hard. It's interesting that, isn't it? 1 person every 34 seconds.

That's a huge number of people. 1 person every 34 seconds who either dies of or dies of something related to a hard heart. Well brothers and sisters are serious as that is. A hard heart of that kind can only kill you once. But according to this passage, there is another kind of heart disease that has far more lasting consequences.

Today if you harden your heart. Don't harden your heart. Come to Jesus. Come to Jesus. He's an expert in hard hearts, and he's ready.

He's ready to come and either save it for the first time or to come and make it soft again. But hearing is not enough. Responding in faith today is what is called for. Let's take a moment of quiet. Now just give you an opportunity now to respond and maybe just to do that for either the first time or the hundredth time to say lord Jesus, come, make my heart soft.

Heavenly father, we praise you that the promise of rest in Jesus Christ still stands today and we ask that none of us here would fall short of it in Jesus' name.