All right. Well, good morning, and welcome to Red Village Church. As always, beautiful singing. I love the songs that Adam continues to choose for us to sing. They’re just so rich and dripping with scriptures and the truth of God’s word and his promises to us. So, thank you, Adam, for doing that for us.
If I’ve not met you, my name is Aaron, and I’m the preaching pastor here. I’m really happy you’re with us today. If you have a Bible with you, could you open up to the book of Hebrews? The text for our study is coming from Hebrews chapter three. If you don’t have a Bible with you, there are pew Bibles scattered throughout. That’s on page 581. This morning, I’m just going to read verses seven through eleven, but our text of study will actually be verses seven through nineteen.
So, as mentioned, I will read verses seven through eleven if you want to follow along with me, and then I’m going to pray, asking for the Lord’s help and his blessing on this time, and then we will get to work.
So, the Bible says, starting in verse seven, Hebrews three: “Therefore, the Holy Spirit says, ‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. Therefore, I was provoked with that generation and said, “They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.” As I swore in my wrath, “They shall not enter my rest.”’”
That’s God’s word for us this morning. Would you pray with me?
Lord, it’s good to be here. Thank you just for your gathered church. Thank you in your great wisdom that you saw it fit to speak to your people through preaching, even the folly of preaching. O Lord, we pray that indeed you would speak to us today, that today we would hear your voice. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
So, the Bible, the holy Scripture, is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, as it pierces the divisions of the soul and the spirit, of joints and marrows, as it discerns the thoughts and intentions of our heart when we read the scriptures. At times, you can just feel the weight and the tone of scripture, with some passages being more weighty and carrying a heavier tone. I think this is true of our text today. You can just feel the weight and tone of it, which really reflects the weighty tone that the author of Hebrews had, as he had this deep concern for his first readers. He was worried that his first readers were actually going to become apostates, where they would walk away from the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ.
This weight, this tone, is something that we feel throughout the entire letter of Hebrews. But at least for me, the weight and tone of this text today is particularly palpable. We are going to feel that a lot, I think, as we go through our text today, where in this passage, the author gives his next strong warning to his readers, a warning that he clearly hoped would cut to their heart in such a way that it would prevent them from becoming apostates. He hoped that it would be used by the Lord to compel his first readers, and by extension, us today, to hold fast to our faith by trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, before we dive back into our text, let me give you a short review of where we’ve been so far in our study. We started a few weeks back. As mentioned, Hebrews was written to early Christians, mostly Jewish Christians, who were entertaining the idea of walking away from the faith. If you’ve been with us in our study, you’ve heard a few times that the primary reason why the first readers were entertaining this idea was because of an increase of persecution that they were having to endure for their faith in the Lord Jesus.
It appears that they were contemplating walking away from the faith in Jesus with the thought that they would just go back to their Old Testament Jewish faith, to that which they once knew, to that which they maybe were most comfortable with, with the hopes that walking away from Jesus and going back to the Old Testament faith would lower the temperature of the suffering and persecution that they were facing. In short, this was like a business decision for them. The bottom line just wasn’t adding up the way they wanted it to, what they expected. So, they thought, “Just accept the sunk costs and move on from Jesus before any additional costs are added to them.” This was a business decision where perhaps Jesus Christ just wasn’t worth all of the suffering, all of the pain; he was just not worth persevering through all of the difficulty.
So, in this letter, the author warned his readers against making that decision. He did so in many ways, grounding all of his arguments in the reality that Jesus is simply better, that he’s superior, that Jesus is actually worthy of all things. The author did this in many ways, starting with the fact that Jesus is the definitive word of God, that God has spoken through the definitive word, that the Old Testament was pointing us to Jesus. The definitive word fulfills the Old Testament.
So, in the book of Hebrews, the argument that the writer continues to make is: how can you leave Christ to go back to something that was always meant to point us and lead us to Christ? This argument, this logic, included what we looked at last week, as the author wrote about Moses, the great character of the Old Testament. It seemed like the Jewish Christians were starting to wonder if Moses was actually the par excellence of the faith instead of seeing Moses as the one who was actually pointing us to the par excellence, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, as mentioned, today, as we come to this passage, we come to a really weighty warning from the author, which reminds us that he is not simply trying to write some type of theological paper to get published in a journal, like “Why Jesus is Better” or “Why He is the Definitive Word of God” or “Why He is Better than Even the Great Moses.” More than that, the weight, the tone, helps us see that the author was really pleading with his readers. He was pleading out of great love and concern for them that they would hold fast to the faith.
We will talk about this more in just a bit, but for now, let me stop and let that be our introduction. Let’s look back at the text starting at verse seven. If you’re new, I’m just going to walk through line by line, so if you have a Bible open, please keep it open.
So, starting in verse seven, you see the word “therefore.” This is the next “therefore” in the book of Hebrews. If you were with us last week, we talked about how the word “therefore” is almost like a hinge, where there is information on one side of the “therefore” that is meant to drive us to an application on the other side of the “therefore.”
For us today, as we start out in verse seven, the information on the front side of the “therefore” specifically refers to the last bit of information we looked at last week in verse six, where it says, “Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son, and we, his people, are his house, if”—which is a really important word—“if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.” This information, the “if,” is the author speaking toward one’s perseverance in their faith in Jesus Christ.
As one perseveres, albeit not perfectly, we don’t persevere perfectly at times. Perseverance comes slowly. Sometimes it has many ups and downs and struggles as we try to persevere. The great Spurgeon even talks about how, “by perseverance, the snail reached the ark.” So, perseverance is not always neat; it’s not always clean. It’s not as easy as we want it to be. But as one perseveres, if one perseveres, and holds fast to that which they confess, where they’re placing their hope, if that happens, that is a great evidence, a great proof that indeed they actually are part of the household of God. That indeed they have trusted in Jesus Christ, where they have turned from sin and turned to Jesus, so that by grace, through faith, they receive great mercy and kindness from God, who has taken out a heart of stone and given a new heart.
A heart where now the Spirit lives inside. Not only does the Spirit allow us to know God, or better said, be known by God as children, but through the power of the Spirit now living inside, we’re being sanctified to be holy, like God is holy. God seals us as his own, and in that sealing, he helps us to persevere.
So that information tied to one’s perseverance, if that is true of them, connects to our text. Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. Therefore, I was provoked with that generation and said, ‘They always go astray in their hearts; they have not known my ways.’ As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’”
Okay, now just hit pause. There’s a lot going on here. Let me try to work through that which we just read.
First, this information that I just read for you is all coming from Psalm 95. This is a great psalm of praise, a great psalm that declares the excellencies of God, who is worthy of all of our praise. God is worthy of our praise because he’s just so much better. He’s the one who can fill our hearts with joy. And because of that, because God is better, because he fills our hearts with joy, because he is worthy of all things, therefore, do not harden your heart.
By the way, may I say this? It’s another reminder of Hebrews that God’s word is for us, friends. This is what’s best for us, to worship the Lord, to follow the Lord, to obey the Lord, to see the Lord as supreme above all things. That’s the very best thing for us. This is where joy, purpose, meaning, and peace are found. And because of that, therefore, live in light of that reality and do not harden your heart.
Second, let me also point out, maybe in a subtle way, that to start at verse seven points us to an important theological truth: we believe that while the Bible was written by human authors, within their own unique personality, their own unique writing style, and their own unique vantage point, at the same time, the Bible is still fully inspired by God, where what we have in the scripture is breathed out by God, right? Without error, without any lack of anything when it comes to one’s salvation or walking in godliness and holiness.
What we see in the text, maybe in more subtle ways, is that verse seven simply says, “Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says.” So, not just because this is what the author of Psalm 95 says, but rather, “Therefore, as the Spirit says,” which declares that the words of the author in Psalm 95 are the words of the Spirit.
Third, just for sake of information, Psalm 95 is actually a very familiar psalm to the original readers. They were Jewish Christians. It’s one they had been very familiar with because this was used at times as a call to worship in the Old Testament temple. The writer of Hebrews is quoting this psalm in a way that would particularly grab their attention and how it applies to them, which we will get to in just a bit.
Fourth, as mentioned at the start, this is where we can really start to feel the tone and the weight of this passage. The author of Hebrews is clearly concerned for his original readers. You can just feel that he is worried that they might actually become apostates. In that concern, you can just feel the author writing to his first readers, and he’s like, “This is worth it.” It’s like they are standing at a crossroads on where they are about to go.
This is actually a point of decision: are they going to follow Jesus or are they going to walk away from him? I don’t think the author is just concerned, like perhaps on the trajectory of where his first readers are headed, you know, where they might one day end up. I think he’s concerned that they are actually at that point, as they’re reading this text. You get the sense of that because of the urgency throughout this passage and the text that is read today.
“Today, if you hear his voice,” not down the road, not when it’s convenient, not when you have a little more time, not when you have a little bit better headspace. No! Today, right now, in this exact moment, with lots of urgency. As you stand at the crossroads, do not harden your heart.
By the way, we feel this urgency of the author not just simply because of verse seven, but just a bit later we get to verse fifteen. Same thing, same quote, same urgent call to respond today. Then in the following passage in Hebrews four, verse seven, same thing: “Today, today, if you hear the voice, do not harden your hearts.”
Friends, we must respond today because there’s no promise of tomorrow. Not only that, we must respond today because if we don’t respond today, what often happens is, little by little, our hearts become colder and colder, where little by little, our hearts become harder and harder, to the point it becomes increasingly difficult to hear God’s voice. We almost conclude ourselves in layers and layers of deceit, and all these layers just have a way of getting so twisted around in our own hearts and our own minds that it’s almost impossible for us to hear today.
Fifth, this quote from Psalm 95 is actually recalling a story from Numbers 13 and 14. So last week, there was a quote from Numbers 12 about the story of Moses and his siblings, Miriam and Aaron, who were causing pain towards Moses because of their own sinful insecurities. Now, today, the author of Hebrews is picking up a story from Numbers 13 and 14.
In that story, the people of God were in the wilderness after being set free from the bondage of slavery in Egypt. As they were in the wilderness, they were on a trip to the promised land, the land of Canaan, which is the land where they were to find rest. I will talk about this more in just a second.
As they came to Canaan, before entering into the promised land, they decided, “You know, we should send a group of spies into the land to find out what we might be coming up against as we enter into the land.” Particularly, they wanted to find out if the people who were already dwelling there were weak or strong, if there were few or many, to find out about the cities and strongholds that they were in, and to find out if the land was rich or poor, if there was fruit on the trees or if the trees were barren.
As the spies entered into the land to get that information, the spies discovered that the land that God promised them was beautiful and rich with fruit, particularly rich with grapes, pomegranates, and figs. It was also a land rich that was flowing with milk and honey. So really, on that end, it could not be more ideal.
However, the spies also found that there was a problem—a big problem. There were powerful nations in the land who lived in strong and fortified cities. Maybe the biggest of all the big problems was that the land was filled with the sons of Anak, who were like a giant people. They were so giant that the spies, in comparison, felt like grasshoppers next to them.
When the spies came back to Moses and the people to give the report on all that they found, ten out of the twelve said, “Hey, we considered our options, and we’re going to make a business decision here: there’s no way it would be safe to go into this land that God promised us, that the Lord is leading us to. It’s just too dangerous; it’s just too high of a cost. No way!”
Then, as the ten gave their opinion, two spies, Joshua and Caleb, gave their dissenting opinion. Their desire was to no longer delay, but today to trust in the Lord, to trust in the promise that he made to them, to trust that he is good, to trust that he would fight their battles and lead them into the land.
Well, as the people were presented with the information and heard the different thoughts from the spies, they agreed with the ten. It just didn’t seem wise. It didn’t seem like going to the promised land was in their best interest, so they decided that they were not going to cross over into Canaan. They were not going to go into the land that God promised them. Instead, they hardened their hearts.
Now, let me mention here that when we make decisions, no doubt we should use wisdom and discretion. In fact, one of the great ways we test God is when we make decisions that are just foolish, where we reject counsel, and we back ourselves into a corner because we didn’t heed or seek counsel. We just kind of did what we wanted to do and put ourselves in a jam.
But that’s not the testing in Numbers 13 and 14. That was not that type of testing because God gave them very clear commands and instructions on what he was leading them to do. They were to trust in him and enter into the land. They were to trust in him amidst all the difficulties and challenges they faced.
But they didn’t trust him. Rather, they tested God by rejecting his commands. They rebelled against the Lord and his good desires for them, which resulted in God judging his people in such a way that none from that present generation of decision-makers would enter into the promised land, except for Joshua and Caleb, who did finally after forty years later, after wandering for forty years.
But for forty years, those who rejected God, who had hardened their hearts toward God, continued to provoke the Lord in unbelief.
Okay, so with that story in mind, back to our text. The early Jewish Christians were at the crossroads, entertaining hardening their hearts toward God by walking away from the Lord Jesus Christ and walking away from their confidence and hope. In the text today, if you hear his voice, do not be like the people of Numbers 13 and 14. Do not harden your hearts on the day of testing in the wilderness, where they tested God in ways that proved they were not going to trust in him.
In turn, God rejected them, even though he did many signs and wonders among them for forty years. All these things that God allowed them to see—including the plagues, the Passover, the parting of the Red Sea, the pillar of cloud by day, the pillar of fire by night, manna and quail from heaven, and water to drink—all these incredible events were allowed by God. Yet, these people continued to test the Lord and prove that they were not actually trusting in the Lord because they were so consumed by themselves.
Therefore, in verse ten, God was provoked in his judgment toward that generation. He said, “They always go astray in their hearts,” proving over and over again they did not know God’s ways. Because of that, God swore in his wrath that they shall not enter into his rest.
Okay, now let me just hit pause to talk about this word “rest.” Rest is actually one of the more important themes that runs throughout the Bible, which is a theme that has nothing to do with kicking up one’s feet and relaxing. When the scripture speaks of rest, this is actually a picture of fellowship with God. This fellowship was actually started in creation. Remember on the seventh day how God rested with mankind? So that rest is a picture of fellowship.
But then, as sin entered into the world, rest with God was broken. In the Old Testament, one of the great themes tied to one of the great questions is: how do we get the rest back? In a sense, God’s people entered into the promised land. They were to enter into a picture of rest, of fellowship, trusting in the Lord. This was the rest that the people of Numbers 13 and 14 rejected—a rest that God swore in his wrath they would not enter into.
I’d love to share a little more about this theme, but there’s a lot going on in our passage today. We will actually get to it more in our next passage, so we’re going to keep going. But just for now, in the context of hard hearts and unbelief, there is a lack of trust in the Lord. God swore they would not enter into his rest.
That is an incredible, heavy warning—one that we really must hear, and one where the author of Hebrews clearly hoped his readers would hear. He hoped they would hear it in ways that they would not harden their hearts, but rather have eyes of faith and soft hearts before the Lord to trust in him, to trust in his word, to trust in his promises, and to trust in the better land that is to come when our Lord returns.
To trust with perseverance all the way to the end, even in the midst of suffering and persecution, trusting in God.
Verse twelve: keep going here. I think you feel the weight and tone coming from a real pastoral heart of the author. I think there’s real tenderness as he warns his readers. So, yes, not just a strong warning is given, but a real pastoral heart where he desired the best for his readers in the text: “Take care, brothers.”
Take care, brothers and sisters! Or see to it, or watch out, or be mindful, brothers and sisters, lest there be any of you with an evil, unbelieving heart that is leading you to fall away from the living God. This is the right, having real pastoral care, real pastoral concern. He didn’t want to see any who were at the crossroads actually walk away from Christ. He wanted none of them to fall away. Even if just one fell away, it was just too many. He wanted them all to continue to persevere, to persevere in ways that they were hearing the voice of the Lord.
This is a warning that he gives. This is not coming from a spirit of self-righteousness or pride, as he warns his readers. This is not obnoxiousness. Rather, as the writer of Hebrews gives his warning, it comes from a real spirit of gentleness, with the hopes that he would win his hearers back.
Verse thirteen: if you anticipate your eyes there, the author encourages his readers to stay together, doing so in ways that they’re exhorting one another. He says to do that every day as long as it is called today, which is just further urgency here in this passage.
As often as you gather together, every time, every opportunity, every church service, every small group, every interaction outside of the normal church structure, every day have rich, genuine fellowship with one another where you’re seeking to exhort one another. You’re seeking to minister grace to one another, both with your words and your actions, where every day, every time you’re together, you’re actively seeking to build each other up, to be more and more like Christ, doing so in the text that our hearts may not be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
I mentioned earlier that every time we don’t respond like today, with urgency, we don’t respond to the voice of the Lord or Father’s word. What happens? It just adds more and more layers of hardness around our hearts, whereas each layer becomes more and more deceived—deceived by the traps of sin and all of its forms.
So again, I was thinking about this here, and this frightening warning that we must hear. Honestly, my mind started to go back toward people I know who at one point professed faith in Christ and became apostates, who walked away from him later. This includes people I went to seminary with. I know some pastors that walked away—friends, people who were even at one point members here at Red Village Church.
Some of these people I thought about at one point I really admired. I admired them because I thought they had this incredible, vibrant walk with the Lord. As I thought of all these different people, by the end, as they walked away from their profession, it was even hard to recognize them anymore.
It’s hard to recognize them in terms of their character, their integrity, their values, their love for others, their love for God, their love for his word, their love for the gospel. In the end, as they walked away, it’s almost like they were completely different people from when I once knew them.
For these various people that came to mind, virtually all of them, it was kind of this slow change that took place over time, where little by little, their hearts were growing harder and harder, where little by little the deceitfulness of sin was grabbing more and more of their lives to the point that at the end, they were so deceived by sin, their own self-deception. As mentioned, it’s like I never knew them—they were so far different.
I think that is often the case when it comes to apostates—those who shipwreck their faith, who walk away from Jesus Christ. It’s often just little by little deceit that comes by not responding today as a heart grows ever slightly harder and harder.
As mentioned, over time, it gets so twisted around that they can’t hear anything, even like strong, heavy, weighty warnings in our text that come from a pastoral heart of concern.
Remember, keep going. Verse fourteen: clearly, the writer of Hebrews was hoping, anticipating that the deceitfulness of sin would not capture his first readers. It seems like he had real hope that indeed God did give them a new heart, that their profession of faith was actually real and genuine.
We see this in the text where he simply writes, “For we have come to share in Christ.” This is the reason why he had hope that none of their hearts would be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin: because they shared Christ. They’ve been transformed by the power of the Spirit with a new heart, with the Spirit now living inside them, where the Spirit is now growing his people through little by little sanctification, so that through the Spirit, like, they could actually hear the warning that he was giving to them, hear it in ways that they would respond.
This mentions the hope that the writer certainly had for his first readers—this hope that indeed they were sharing in Christ. However, by their actions, their entertainment of walking away from the faith, the author seemed to be growing concerned that maybe their profession actually wasn’t genuine, that they weren’t actually sharing in Christ.
We can see the author had that concern because of how he finished out the passage today. Take your eyes to the end of verse fourteen: “We have come to share in Christ, if…”—which is again, that’s a big word—“if indeed we hold our original confidence and hold it firmly to the end.”
If we persevere in our faith, if we don’t walk away, it’s only if we do those things that we prove we actually share in Christ. You know, this year, this is the author not trying to give his readers some type of false hope or false confidence or some type of false assurance. He’s shooting it straight with them.
Their profession of faith, our profession of faith matters as it is tied to our perseverance in that profession. I’ll say it again: not that we’re going to be perfect in our perseverance, but when, if we share in Christ, friends, we will persevere. We will persevere in ways that we’re seeking to hold firm to Christ, trusting that in the end, Christ is actually the one holding firm to all those who he calls to himself.
This warning—scripture is also clear that many can proclaim Christ but not actually share in Christ. To give an illustration of this reality, the author goes back to Psalm 95, goes back to the book of Numbers, goes back to what happens in Numbers 13 and 14 after the people rejected the counsel of Joshua and Caleb, which was also a rejection and rebellion against the Lord and his desires for them.
The author goes back to those passages by giving his first readers just a series of rhetorical questions—questions where they clearly knew the answer, questions that the author was hoping would be a further warning to his readers to not fall into the same traps that the people of Numbers 13 and 14 fell into so that he would actually drive them back to Christ.
So, verse fifteen: take your eyes there. “Today, again today, right now, in this exact moment, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts like the people did in the rebellion.”
Verse sixteen: “For who was it who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? Was it not that entire generation?” The entire generation who were receiving so many of God’s great workings.
And with whom was he meeting the Lord? With whom was he provoked for forty years? Were they provoking the Lord as they wandered in their wilderness before the next generation finally crossed over into the promised land?
The text says: “Was it not those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?” which is referring to their death. “And to whom did the Lord swear that they would not enter his rest? Was it not to those who were disobedient?”
We’ll get more of this theme of rest in the next passage. The people in Numbers rebelled against God, right? They did not get that benefit—the benefit of rest.
Finally, we’ll end this morning in verse nineteen. “So we see, looking back over time, that all those people who hardened their hearts, who rebelled against the Lord, who died in the wilderness in judgment, we can see that they were unable to enter into rest because of their unbelief.”
If we pull on the thread of every sin that we commit, every ounce of hardness that we might have, every rebellion against the Lord, every deceit that we give into, as we pull on the thread, this is actually the end: it’s unbelief. It’s a lack of trust in God, a lack of trust in his word, a lack of trust and belief that indeed he’s better, that he’s worth suffering all things in order to have.
Now, I want us to close our time here just by giving you two lists. The first list is a list of how we are to respond to the voice of the Lord—how we respond in ways that display a perseverance in the faith, ways that display sharing in Christ. I think there are multiple things in the passage that kind of help us toward that end.
The second list is a list that gives some indications that you’re simply not responding to the Lord, that you’re actually hardening your heart, that you are falling into the traps of the deceitfulness of sin, which could actually be a really scary indication that you’re moving toward becoming an apostate because you actually don’t have the Spirit living inside.
To give you these two lists, I thought it might be good for me to tell you that this week I debated the order I should give the lists to you. Should I give the list first on how to respond to the voice of the Lord, or should I give that second? Likewise, should I give the list of indicators of a hard heart first or second?
Typically, I like to end sermons on a high note—with a lot of encouragement, a lot of exhortation. But this week, I actually decided against that. I’m going to give us the encouragement first, listen to how we’re to respond to the voice of the Lord, and I’m going to finish with indicators that maybe you’re just not responding to the voice of the Lord right now.
The reason why I want to finish in this fashion today is simply because I’m hoping to capture the weight and the tone of this passage. I say it again: this passage is so critical for us to hear. And if we’re actually going to hear it, we must feel the weight; we must feel the tone, and I think we actually must sit in it for a bit.
So first, how do we respond to the voice of the Lord?
First on the list: we respond to the voice of the Lord with urgency. Now, we talked about this a few times, but I want to bring it again just because of how essential it is to the passage. Verse seven: “Today, today, if you hear his voice.” Verse thirteen: “Exhort one another every day as long as it’s called today.” Verse fifteen: “Today, if you hear his voice.” As mentioned in our study in Hebrews four, verse seven, we get there again. He appoints a certain day today, saying that through David, so long afterwards, and the words already quoted: “Today, if you hear his voice.”
Friends, God’s word, this is not something for us to get around to when we’re ready, when it’s convenient, or when perhaps we have more important things that we’d like to do crossed off our list. Rather, with urgency, we respond today. That’s an indication of the Spirit living inside.
Second: we respond to God’s voice with humility, where we tremble before the Lord in his word, where we don’t make false assumptions about it, because the word is there to search our hearts, to convict us, to discipline us, to exhort us—like all these things, for our good.
In Hebrews, how we respond with humility to the voice of God is by humbly letting the warnings cut to our hearts, to not dismiss them, to not give some type of false assurance. Rather, with humility, we hear and heed the warnings by humbly responding to them.
Verse twelve: “Brothers and sisters, take care. Pay humble attention lest there be any of you with an evil, unbelieving heart that is leading you away from the living God.”
Third: respond to the voice of the Lord by living in community. So when I look back over the years at the people who walked away from faith in Jesus Christ, it almost always started by them walking away from community first, where more and more of their lives were living in isolation—which at times was physical isolation, where they were physically removing themselves from others.
But at times it’s just more of an emotional isolation, where they’re putting up more and more walls—where less and less people are involved in their lives, in their struggles, and in their sin. Less and less people are there to help them—like emotionally isolating friends.
When we respond to the voice of the Lord in verse thirteen, rather than being isolated, we will exhort one another every day in ways that we’re lovingly helping one another share in Christ and share in his joy, helping one another to break through from the deceitfulness of sin that can capture our hearts, where we lovingly help each other to persevere to the end, no matter the struggle, no matter the difficulty, no matter the trial that we might face.
Fourth: we respond to the Lord simply with trust—trust and belief, particularly trust and belief in the Lord Jesus Christ and what he has done for us in the message of this gospel, where he died for sinners to take on the judgment of our sin, to free us from the bonds of our sin, only to rise again on the third day, where he promises to lead all of his people to a better and truer Canaan that is to come, which is eternal life.
Friends, this is at the start, the middle, the end, and all points in between when it comes to our trust in the Lord. It is a trust in his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one we respond with urgency to, by running to him, by centering our hearts towards him, by looking to him, and by continuing to look to him, by seeing Jesus as better than all things and indeed worth leaving all things in order to have.
This leads to the warning of the passage, which is the warning of leaving Jesus behind in order to have all things, as the world, the flesh, and the devil have defined them.
As we close, let me just give you a few indications that perhaps you’re just not responding to the voice of the Lord—that you’re not hearing the warnings, which is a warning that perhaps you’re actually headed toward becoming apostate because you never truly had saving faith in Jesus Christ.
Now, I’ll say it again: none of these are going to be perfect in all that we do. But as we hear these warnings, friend, please respond by running to Christ. Doing so today.
So I have a handful of things.
First: simply, you have no urgency to respond to the things of God—obviously on the opposite end of what we just talked about. Rather than responding today with urgency to the voice of the Lord, as you look at things, it’s kind of more along the lines of, “I hear the voice of the Lord, but I’ll get to it when I get to it.”
All right, I’ll respond to the voice of the Lord only when the voice corresponds to what I want because there’s almost always a reason or excuse, some validation on why you’re not responding to the voice of God.
Second: you have no conviction over your sin—conviction in ways you’re actually trying to actively seek to turn from it, to repent. Rather, you continue to entertain sin, where you’re trapped more and more by the deceitfulness of sin because you’ve stopped trying to flee from it. You’re trying to see how close you could get to sin without falling in, rather than fleeing, where your sin just doesn’t bother you the way it once did.
Third: another indication is that you’re simply isolating yourself from Christian community, which is something I just mentioned in the previous point. But let me further mention here that either you’re completely isolating yourself from all forms of Christian community, but probably more likely, you’re finding different community to dive into.
The community that you’re embracing is one that does not resemble exhorting one another in love and good works in obedience to the Lord and his word, where you’re not being spurred on or spurring others on to the proclamation of the gospel to the world around us.
Fourth: you are testing God. In your disobedience, you’re just kind of testing God to see how he reacts—almost like daring him to do something in your disobedience, which is true of the people in Numbers. In the context of Hebrews, one of the great ways that we can test God, friends, is by doing nothing with these ongoing warnings that this book gives—warnings that keep saying they have real weight and a real tone tied to them.
Friends, don’t test God; rather, trust God, which is actually the last indication I want to mention: you’re just simply not trusting in the Lord with your life. In verse nineteen, your heart has been captured by unbelief—unbelief in the Lord, unbelief in his good word. You don’t believe in his glory, his plan, his purposes, his judgments, and ultimately, you don’t believe—you don’t trust in his son. You don’t trust in Jesus Christ as creator.
You stop seeking to hold on to him as you’re trying to hold on to other things instead.
Friends, if these indications of falling away hit close to home, perhaps you walked in here this morning and this kind of sounds like you. Listen, I’ve got good news for you today: if you would not harden your heart, but today, if you would turn from sin and turn to Jesus by believing that indeed he did die for you, only to rise again from the dead to see him as better in all things, he promises to welcome you into his rest.
Friends, that’s the only response we can have to the warnings: is to trust in Jesus, to trust in his plan, to trust that he is good.
Red Village Church, take care, brothers and sisters, lest there be any among us with an evil, unbelieving heart that leads us to fall away from the living God. Rather, Red Village Church, brothers and sisters, may we share in Christ, doing so in ways that we long to exhort one another every day as long as it is called today.
However many days the Lord may give us together, brothers and sisters, may we do so by holding on to our original confidence firmly to the end, where we continue to profess, where we continue to trust and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, where we continue to trust and believe that his wooden cross and empty tomb really do mean everything.
Red Village Church, we trust and believe that the weight and the tone of God’s amazing love, grace, mercy, joy, and peace through Jesus Christ is more than enough.
Let’s pray.
Lord, we pray that today in this moment, you’d help us to respond with faith, with trust, with belief, with repentance. Lord, whatever deceitfulness of sin that we’ve carried in here this morning, I pray that you’d help us to nail that to the cross of Christ, that indeed we would find forgiveness, healing, and hope. And, Lord, I do pray that you would help us to persevere all the way to the end.
We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.