SIMPLY JESUS
Jesus the Way Out
Hebrews 3:7-19
-There was movie a while ago starring Tom Hanks called Castaway
-It’s about a man who is stuck on a deserted island all by himself.
-To summarize the plot….He’s very lonely, loses a bunch of weight, and makes friends with a Volleyball he names “Wilson”.
-After not being rescued on this island for a long time he decides to take a chance.
-He knows that the only way he’ll be discovered is to get off of the island and get out into the vastness of the ocean.
-You can imagine the difficulty of making such a decision.
-One the one hand, he can survive on the island.
-It’s not exactly a place of abundance, but he can make it there.
-But on the other hand, he’ll never get home to his family and friends…and to civilization unless he goes out to sea.
-But at sea, there is no guarantee of survival.
-He could lose everything trying to get what he wants.
-What would you do in such a situation?
-In a lesser way that helps us understands what the Jews experienced when Jesus Christ arrived.
-They were comfortable being Jews, sticking with Moses, following the Law…they were surviving.
-But then God did something that changed the game.
-He took on the form of a man, and died on the cross for our sins.
-He offered us freedom from sin, from death, from the Law.
-But to have all the things that God offered through Jesus, they Jews would have to leave the comfort of their own…Jewishness.
-I’m pretty sure that’s a real word!
-They would have to accept that Jesus is superior to Moses.
-And leave all they had, to risk getting what they needed.
-And that is what chapter 3 of Hebrews is all about.
VERSUS 1-6 (REVIEW)
-Here’s what we learned last week in verses 1-6:
-JESUS AND MOSES WERE BOTH FAITHFUL MESSENGERS AND MEDIATORS.
-They had those things in common.
-Moses delivered the Law, Jesus delivered the Good News.
-Moses served as a go between for God and the Israelites, and Jesus is the mediator between God and all of humankind.
-JESUS DESERVES FAR GREATER GLORY THAN MOSES.
-Moses was a great man, but Jesus is better. Jesus is God!
-This was most clear from verse 5 & 6 which say that
-JESUS IS THE SON AND MOSES IS A SERVANT.
-There is really no comparison.
-Jesus is superior in every way, that’s the point of Hebrews.
-And perhaps the most fascinating part of chap 3 is that…
-THE OT RITUALS WERE ILLUSTRATIONS POINTING TO THE REAL THING; JESUS!
-All the rituals, rites, ceremonies, & sacrifices were just arrows pointing to Jesus.
-The Jews reading this letter knew about Jesus, had accepted Jesus, but in the midst of persecution they were contemplating going back to the Law and forgetting about the Son of God.
-And that’s where we pick up in verse 7:
VERSES 3:7-11
-This whole first section quoting from Psalm 95:7-11
7 That is why the Holy Spirit says, “Today when you hear his voice,
8 don’t harden your hearts as Israel did when they rebelled, when they tested me in the wilderness. 9 There your ancestors tested and tried my patience, even though they saw my miracles for forty years. 10 So I was angry with them, and I said, ‘Their hearts always turn away from me. They refuse to do what I tell them.’
11 So in my anger I took an oath: ‘They will never enter my place of rest.’”
-HE’S WARNING HIS JEWISH READERS NOT TO MAKE THE SAME MISTAKES AS THEIR ANCESTORS DID.
-We’re probably all trying to avoid the mistakes of our ancestors!
-Some of us have ancestors who were outlaws, scoundrels and horse thieves. Mine were Mormons and Methodists and Sailors!
-The Jews that this letter was written to had baggage in their family’s history.
-If you’ve taken the challenge to read the Bible in the year you’re know what I’m talking about.
-They lived in Egypt as slaves for over 400 hundred years.
-They built Egyptian buildings, tended Egyptian flocks, and did whatever the Egyptian Pharaoh told them to do.
-The Israelites were property of Egypt.
-Their sons/daughters were born slaves.
-The people of God were, exploited, abused and crushed…but God heard their cries.
-He saw their struggle from his seat on heaven’s throne.
-And he raised up an unlikely hero for them; Moses.
-For all the fanfare that Moses got from the Jews, he had a rather unimpressive start.
-It seems that the Jewish spokesman had a stuttering problem.
-He wasn’t a corporate bigwig, he was a sheepherder for his father in law…
-That doesn’t exactly paint the picture of a super hero.
-But suddenly he becomes God’s chosen man and he delivers a wonderful message for Israel.
-What was the message? Moses proclaimed God’s message:
-You will be my people and I will be your God! (Ex 6:7)
-I’m going to give you your own land and it’s flowing with milk and honey…always thought that sounded very sticky! (Ex 3:17)
-You’re going to be lenders instead of borrowers…(Deut 15:6)
-I’m going to bless you and bless all the people on the earth through you. (Gen 12)
-What would you say if God offered all of that to you today?
-Because we’re cynical Americans we’d probably say, “what’s the catch?”
-The only catch was that all of things god promised them were waiting in a land currently inhabited by their enemies.
-But God promised they’d succeed in taking the promised land.
-So did they charge right in? Not even close.
-They did exactly what no one would have expected them to do.
-After watching God destroy the Egyptians and throw off their chains of slavery our passage says…
-THEY HARDENED THEIR HEARTS BY:
-At every turn they questioned, doubted, whined & complained.
-They just couldn’t help themselves!
• CREATING IDOLS FOR THEMSELVES TO WORSHIP. (EX 32)
-That broke the first and second commandments.
• MARRYING PAGANS. (NM)
-When they married foreign women those women brought idols and false religion into Israel and corrupted them.
• REJECTING THE PROMISE LAND. (NM 14)
-At the height of their fear they said let’s go back to Egypt.
-After all they’d seen God do, they didn’t believe in his power.
-They even hatched appoint a new leader and reenlist as slaves.
• DOUBTING GOD’S ABILITY TO DEFEAT THEIR ENEMIES.
-They messed up God’s promise every way they possibly could.
-They had the worst possible response to the best thing ever.
-My family and I were watching America’s Funniest Home Videos.
-And there was this kid riding in the back of the car with his mother filming from the passenger seat. Dad’s driving.
-And mom says to the little kid; guess what?
-In a 3 weeks we’re going to Disneyland!
-As parents we understand the implications of that kind of trip.
-There is going to be a sacrifice of time, money, and mental health…involved in taking our kids to the Magic Kingdom.
-But it’s worth it, to give our kids the chance to visit that amazing place and have that once in lifetime experience.
-And we do it because we want our kids to have a great time, make family memories, and also because we love them.
-Well the kid in the video immediately starts bawling and throwing a tantrum because he wants to go to Disneyland today.
-He was completely ungrateful for what his parents were trying to give for him. The little brat!
-And that is just a glimpse of how the Israelites treated God.
-God was trying to take people who had nothing and give them everything. All they had to do is trust in him.
-But they wanted to go back to Egypt. And in spite of all he’d done for them, they didn’t have faith in him.
-And they faced a terrible consequence for their hard-hearted disbelief; they didn’t enter his rest.
-To that whole generation who doubted God said, “sorry. I’m turning this car around, and we’re not going to Disneyland!
-I’ve had enough. You are never going to see the Promised Land.
-You’re going to die in the desert.
-You’re going to die in your unbelief.
-You are going to miss the blessing because YOU didn’t believe.
-So our author begs his audience, and ultimately us, to not do the same thing.
VERSES 3:12-19
12 Be careful then, dear brothers and sisters. (He’s talking to Christians) Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God. 13 You must warn each other every day, while it is still “today,” so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God.
-Some people are shocked by this passage.
-How could Christians have evil, unbelieving hearts?
-How could Christians turn away from the living God?
-It happens all the time. Look around.
-People always want to debate this kind of thing.
-Is this saying you can lose your salvation?
-Or is this talking about people who are just drifting around?
-Some people find comfort in the notion that Christians might still be saved even though they are hard-hearted sinners.
-That’s not comforting to me and it’s not comforting to our Father
-The issue here, is that Christians must never turn their back on Christ. Not for any reason, not for any season.
-We’ll let the scholars debate whether someone can lose salvation
-But let’s stand in agreement on one thing today; Christians must never walk away from Christ.
-We have to take that warning seriously.
-And our author tells us how to do that..
-GUARD OUR HEARTS FROM: several things
• EVIL: WILLINGLY ACTING IN OPPOSITION TO GOD.
-We should be concerned when we find ourselves willing engaging in evil things.
-That’s not who we are called to be. You know what evil is, guard your heart from it.
• UNBELIEF: THE SLOW EROSION OF OUR FAITH IN CHRIST.
-Unbelief is always waiting out there for us as alternative to faith.
-I’ve rarely met people who just decide to quit on Jesus.
-But I’ve often met people who slowly gave Him up over time.
-They miss a week of church, then it’s a month, then it’s a year, and they are shocked to realize they really aren’t walking with Christ anymore.
-They aren’t being discipled, they aren’t in the word, they stopped praying altogether and they aren’t sure how it happened.
-Unbelief is a sneaky enemy of Christ’s church. Guard yourselves.
-Don’t think that can’t happen to you. It can happen to any of us.
• BEING HARDENED: CALLOUS TO THE THINGS OF GOD.
-That was the fate that befell the Israelites.
-They just forgot how good, and great and powerful God is.
-They started putting the emphasis on themselves.
-They started trusting in their own power and their own wisdom.
-The started off loving God and ending up resenting Him.
-Pushing him away. Neglecting his commands.
-And the result was tragic. They died in the desert of their sins.
-Faith is not an award we win for accepting Christ.
-It’s not a plaque we put on the mantle and let collect dust.
-It’s not something that we put in a safety deposit box and it’s good for all of time.
-Faith is more like a garden. It’s a living active thing.
-It has to be fed and nurtured. Plants require sun, water, and soil.
-Our faith depends on prayer and Scripture and fellowship.
-It’s a fight to keep the weeds of evil, and unbelief cleaned out.
-But our faith comes with a tremendous promise. Vs 14
14 For if we are faithful to the end, trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed, we will share in all that belongs to Christ.
-What a tremendous guarantee for us!
-THE FAITHFUL WILL SHARE ALL THAT BELONGS TO CHRIST.
-Think about what we’ve learned so far. Everything belongs to Christ. He is the owner and creator of heaven and earth.
-Through faith we have become sons and daughters.
-But here we see that we’ll share in all that belongs to Christ.
-We’ll share in everything. Heaven. The new earth. All of it.
-Who will share in it? The faithful. The people who follow Jesus.
-Don’t make it more complicated than that. It’s simply sticking with Jesus. Only Jesus. Simply Jesus.
-He offers more the same warning in verses 15-19:
15 Remember what it says: “Today when you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts as Israel did when they rebelled.”16 And who was it who rebelled against God, even though they heard his voice? Wasn’t it the people Moses led out of Egypt? 17 And who made God angry for forty years? Wasn’t it the people who sinned, whose corpses lay in the wilderness? 18 And to whom was God speaking when he took an oath that they would never enter his rest? Wasn’t it the people who disobeyed him? 19 So we see that because of their unbelief they were not able to enter his rest.
-Next week we’ll talk about God’s rest.
-But I’ll close by taking you back to the deserted island for a sec…
-It might surprise you to realize that we are all castaways.
-The Bible says that our sins have separated us from our God.
-Like the character in the movie, many of us are surviving but there is something more that we really need.
-There is something more that we hunger for and crave.
-And the only way we can get it, is to leave the island of self, and take a chance on Jesus.
-The ancient Jews were taking a big chance to leave Egypt and head out for the promised land. It was a big step of faith.
-The Jews that received this letter were taking a big chance on JC
-Leaving everything they knew, leaving Moses leaving the law, and going all in for Jesus. It was a great big step of faith!
-And for some here today it seems like such a big risk, to let Jesus become the Lord of your life.
-To let him reshape your identity. You may scared of the implications of trusting Jesus.
-You like your life the way it is, it’s predictable…even if it’s predictably bad.
-But you sense there is something more to be had.
-There is something bigger out there calling to you.
-There are better things, eternal things, waiting for you through Jesus. You can share in all that belongs to him.
-But all that comes with a warning for Today. If you don’t find faith, you’ll die in the desert island called disbelief.
-I want to give you a chance this morning to declare your faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus is your way out.
-God is calling some of you until you wade into the surf of your disbelief, get off the desert island.
