When studying the Bible, it’s important that you keep the passage that you are looking at in context with the preceding passages. That’s an important principle regardless of which book you may be looking at, but it’s particularly true in the study of Hebrews. Hebrews is really one long message, or sermon. And so the chapter separations are not our friends. Fortunately, the author repeatedly reminds us to keep it all in context by the use of the word “Therefore.”

As someone once said, when you see the word “therefore” it’s important to see what it’s there for. And in this case it points back to chapter 5, particularly the last few verses, starting in vs 11. “Concerning him, that is Jesus Christ, we have much to say, and [it is] hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes [only] of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant.”

Then in vs 1 of this 6th chapter, it says leaving the elementary, or foundational principles of the Christ, let’s press on to maturity. So now virtually all that he has to say from this point on is in context with spiritual maturity. Keep that in mind, and it will help tremendously with the interpretation as we go forward. Don’t fall into the trap which so many have fallen into, which is to look at the verses ahead out of context, or on their own. Many well meaning people have gone astray in trying to decipher these verses not only without considering the immediate context, but also by not interpreting scripture with scripture. Scripture will never contradict itself. If it seems like it does occasionally, but then you must prayerfully reconsider your interpretation in light of other scripture. And as I said, in today’s passage that is especially true.

The following passage has sometimes been called “one of the Devil’s favorite passages” for the way in which certain persons have preached it out of context and end up condemning a young believer, or perhaps the struggling believer. Many Christians feel like giving up after hearing Satan “preach a sermon” on this text. Now that is not going to be the case today, I would hope, if we remember that he is talking about spiritual maturity. You cannot talk about spiritual maturity without prefacing the fact that it applies only to believers. Spiritual maturity is not possible in an unbeliever. And so we’re talking about a Christian’s spiritual maturity.

I can tell by the white hair, or lack of it here this morning that there are probably more than a few grandparents present. And of course, there are many parents here as well. And when our children were born, and in those first couple of years as they are learning to roll over, then take a step or two, and say a few words, we think that they are the cutest thing ever. I’ve seen some of you practically start drooling yourselves as you watch your grandchild do simple little tasks. And that’s normal, I suppose, for parents or grandparents to make over the cute little things that our children do.

But if our child was to not advance beyond that stage, and in ten or fifteen years they were still at the maturity level of a toddler, that would be something that we would be very sad about. We would realize that while we still love them, of course, they would never be able to experience all the things that they were meant to enjoy. And that would be a tragic thing.

That is what this author feels as he writes to these Hebrews There is a dark cloud hanging over these people due to their immaturity. But unlike a child with arrested development, it’s not a biological deficiency on the part of these believers that is the cause of it, it is a sin problem. It’s a lack of diligence. It’s a lack of obedience.

We have seen a repetition of the same theme many times so far in this book. He said in chapter 2, be careful of drifting away, then he warned against hardening your heart, then the exhortation against falling away. All speaking of the same condition. Growing lethargic. Growing calloused. Becoming hardened. Being stagnant. Becoming distracted and drifting away. Now, he adds to that, the danger of immaturity.

The author makes the point in the previous chapter that age alone does not produce maturity. By this time, he says, you should have been teachers. They had been saved a long time. But they needed milk and not solid food because they were still babies spiritually. Just a quick review indicates that their immaturity was evident because 1, they could not, or would not instruct others. 2, Because they were unable to discern good and evil. They aren’t interested in doctrine, so they are back and forth like the waves of the sea in their faith. They are up and down. I think that includes those that are emotionally unstable. They are governed by their feelings, rather than by their reason. “Come let us reason together, says the Lord.” And the third thing is that they lose so much valuable insight into the gospel, which robs them of their blessing. They have become dull of hearing, and so they miss out on what the Lord has to say, which would be of great benefit to them if they would listen.

So the author says in relation to all the negative things about their immaturity, therefore, let’s move on to maturity. Let’s grow up! Let’s get a move on. The RSV says, “let us press on.” It’s an active engagement. It’s exercising your faith. It’s putting feet to your faith. The KJV says “let’s press on to perfection.” That’s a poor choice of words. It’s maturity that is being spoken of. Completion. No one is ever going to be perfect on this side of heaven. But we can be mature. And maturity, according to chapter 5 vs 14, comes about through practice. Putting the word of Christ into practice. “But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.” Maturity is produced not by age, as we have already seen, nor by a repetition of elementary principles, what he calls milk, but it is produced by practicing obedience to God’s word.

Now these elementary principles of faith are not to be dismissed. He is not saying that these things are unimportant. On the contrary, he is saying that such things are foundational to your maturity. They are the foundation that we are to build upon. Back during the housing crisis we had here at the beach a few years ago, there were a number of places where you could see that the foundations had been laid, but then they had run out of money, or become bankrupt, and the foundation was laying there unused, and soon the lot grew up with grass and weeds. That’s sort of what is indicated here. The foundation is essential for growth, for building a proper house for the Lord, but it’s not enough to just have a foundation. You must build on it. Far too many Christians want to just focus on the elementary principles and not go on beyond that to maturity.

However, he names 6 of these foundational principles, or elementary principles of our faith. And it behooves us to look at them briefly, because they are essential to our faith, and you cannot build on the wrong foundation. Six things, and they can be divided up into three pairs which go together. The “A, B, C’s” if you will, of salvation.

A, is “faith and repentance.” He actually lists repentance first, “repentance from dead works.” Repentance is the first step in salvation. Recognizing you are a sinner, hopelessly lost, without God, and without hope, and confessing that to God. Dead works, according to chapter 9 vs14, are those things which the conscience needs to be cleansed of. They are works of the flesh, things which in the end, bring forth death. Thus they can be called dead works. Even religious works can be dead works if it is not done in Christ.

The second part of that is faith in God, which is the means of righteousness. Faith in what Christ has done on our behalf, results in righteousness. Romans 10:10, “for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.” Now these two inseparable principles, repentance and faith, form the first part of the foundation, which is our justification.

Next, the letter B, is “instruction about washings and laying on of hands.” After salvation comes baptism, or washings, as it’s translated in the NASB. There were other ceremonial washings that were done by the Hebrews in the early church. But such things are given as a sign, a figure of salvation. We are going to have a baptism today after the service. And it’s a living metaphor of salvation. We are buried under the water, signifying death to the old way of life, and are raised from the water signifying being raised to new life in Christ.

Then, laying on of hands symbolizes identification or association with the body of Christ. Baptism as well is identification with the church. Jesus was baptized, not because He needed to, but because He wanted to identify with sinners. And in like manner, laying on of hands is the way we identify with the church. I remember when I grew up in the church, and someone came forward and wanted to join the church, they spoke of extending the right hand of fellowship. Its agreement with, identification with other believers.

Then consider quickly the letter C, which he calls, “the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment.” Once again you see how these two are related to one another. Both of them are essential principles; our hope is in the resurrection of the dead, and the judgment of the world is closely associated with that event. But it’s interesting that these elements of what we call eschatology, or end time theology, are so much the focus of many preachers and churches. Hebrews is saying that these are important fundamentals, but we must not make that sort of thing our priority. Some people are just consumed with the end times, but they are still immature in regards to their faith.

So as the author says, let’s move on. Let’s press on towards the meatier, heavier things of God, things that lead to maturity. And with that he introduces one of the most difficult passages of scripture in all of the New Testament. Vs4 “For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and [then] have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame.”

Now no matter how you interpret this passage, it is a sobering text. And as I said earlier, many preachers have taken this verse out of context and caused many a young Christian to be discouraged or to become confused about his faith. But as I said at the beginning, the context is about spiritual maturity. Spiritual maturity must by definition be something that only pertains to spiritual people. Thus it must be in relation to Christians, but immature Christians. And the danger of immaturity is that they might not advance to maturity, but rather fall away, or drift away, or become hardened and calloused and unfruitful. So I think we can rule out that this is a reference to unsaved people who have played church, or made a profession, but never really were saved. That seems to be one popular interpretation.

In fact, the author’s description of these people clearly indicates a believer, one who has been saved. He gives five characteristics of these people that I can’t see how you can apply to anyone who is not a Christian. Notice; “Those who have once been enlightened.” That means, to have the eyes of their heart opened to their own desperate need of the Savior, to realize the truth of the gospel. That is being enlightened. “And have tasted the heavenly gift.” What is the heavenly gift? Obviously, it is the gift God gave from heaven. Salvation is a gift of God. These are those who have known a personal encounter with Christ, they have “tasted of the heavenly gift.” Then “Become partakers of the Holy Spirit.” When we are saved, we receive the Holy Spirit to dwell in us. Next, ”They have tasted the goodness of the word of God.” That means to experience the transformative power of the word of God. “And the powers of the age to come,” i.e., they have already experienced the miracle of eternal life.

So these people, he says, who have been converted, who are saved, and then have fallen away it is impossible to renew them again to repentance…” This is the problem. What is indicated in the phrase, “fallen away?” The Greek word is parapiptō, which means to fall away, or wander away, to slip aside, to turn from the right path. Now the problem is that many want to see this as a condemnation of apostasy, to condemn them to eternal hell. But as I indicated earlier, this is the same thing he has been talking about all throughout the book. Who here has been a Christian for a number of years and not slipped up? Who here has never gone through a state of backsliding, of wandering away from the truth?

I think it’s a progression of what he has been warning of the entire book. In chapter 2, he talked about the danger of drifting away from what we have heard, the word of truth. Then in chapter 3 he talked about hardening your hearts. It’s a progression, from drifting away to becoming comfortable in your sin. He says the Israelites who hardened their hearts fell in the wilderness, that means they died, because of their disobedience. Then in chapter 4 he talks about losing the rest that God has promised, because of that continued disobedience. The way of sin is hard. The yoke of Christ is easy. We think the opposite is true. We think that God’s way is hard, it’s no fun, but the way of the world is easy and great. But that’s not true, and if you go that way you will forfeit the rest that God has promised. The rest is contentment in Him and His provision and care.

Then in chapter 5 we see that this hardening results in dull hearing, which produces immaturity, which falls short of the full maturity in Christ, which is where we find that rest that God promises. And that is what is being talked about here. You end up with a believer who has become stale and cold and indifferent to the things of the Lord. You end up with a Christian who goes through the motions, but they have lost their first love. They have fallen into an adulterous relationship with the world again. They’ve become ineffective in the kingdom of God. They are clouds without water, plants that don’t bear fruit. They have become almost worthless for the kingdom of God.

Now what is to be done with such a person? Well, the author says, they can’t be saved all over again. You can’t lay the foundation of salvation, which is faith and repentance, all over again. That’s what he is saying here; “it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame.” In other words, you can’t crucify Jesus for them again, you can’t save them again. Salvation is eternal. Jesus sacrificed himself once for all. And that sacrifice has already been applied to them by grace. And the fact that they are living as if they have never been saved puts Jesus Christ to open shame and ridicule among the watching world. Listen, your half hearted Christianity brings shame on the Lord Jesus Christ. The world looks at you and says, “see, it doesn’t really work.” “They are just a bunch of hypocrites down at the church. I know what John or Charlie is really like.”

He gives a further analogy to illustrate what kind of person this is. Vs 7 “For ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God; but if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned.” Now this analogy must be looked at closely, or if you’re not careful you end up reinforcing the idea that such a person is going to hell, and there is nothing you can do about it. But I don’t think this is talking about hell at all, but rather about vegetation that has become unfruitful, and is close to being destroyed.

Notice that he’s giving two examples here. This is closely related to the parable of the soils which Jesus gave. But remember that Jesus gave four possible types of soil. Matthew 13:3-8 And He spoke many things to them in parables, saying, “Behold, the sower went out to sow; and as he sowed, some [seeds] fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate them up. “Others fell on the rocky places, where they did not have much soil; and immediately they sprang up, because they had no depth of soil. “But when the sun had risen, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. “Others fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them out. “And others fell on the good soil and yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.”

Now if you compare Hebrews and the parable of the soils, you will see that Hebrews choses only two of the four. I believe the two he chose are those who represent those who are saved. In the parable, I think the first two are not saved; one the birds of the air, which represent Satan ate up the word of God before it could take root. The second, it sprang up but quickly died out. It was only temporary. But the third illustrates someone who Jesus said believed, and began to grow but then the worries and cares of the world choked out any fruit. The fourth is again represented in Hebrews, the good soil, which bears good fruit.

Notice though something Hebrews says about the third soil, the thorny soil. vs 8 “but if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned.” It doesn’t say that it is cursed and then ends up being burned, but that this worthless vegetation is CLOSE to being cursed. To me, that is a great distinction. Jesus, in writing to the seven churches of Revelation, warns that if they don’t do the works that they did at first, He will come and take away their lamp. When David was almost killed near the end of his life by a giant, his people said do not go out to war anymore, lest your lamp be extinguished. It’s a manner of speaking of life. I believe that the Lord is speaking of taking the life prematurely of a believer who has turned aside from practicing the truth, and has no interest in progression of his faith, and has no evidence of fruit in his life. That is physical life. You can’t take away spiritual life because that is eternal life. If you have eternal life, then it must be eternal, it can’t be taken away.

Later on, in chapter 12 vs 6, Hebrews is going to say that if you are the Lord’s child, then He is going to chastise you and discipline you when you go astray. Jesus talked about the pruning the was sometimes necessary in order to make the tree more fruitful. So Hebrews is saying that such a person is close to receiving a curse instead of a blessing. They are an unfaithful steward, and as such he may even remove what they have and give it to another who will make proper use of it. God designed us in salvation to become fruitful. And when we continue in being unfruitful, as a Good Father, as a Good Husbandman of the vine, He will prune as necessary or He may even remove the vine altogether.

Now that is a dire warning. However, I don’t want to leave it on a dour note, and neither does the author of Hebrews. So he continues in vs 9 “But, beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you, and things that accompany salvation, though we are speaking in this way. For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints. And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”

The author of Hebrews is convinced that these people he is writing to, though immature, yet have shown signs of spiritual growth. There had been a true birth, he thinks, for he has seen unmistakable evidence of love and concern for others, expressed in deeds of compassion. Not simply words but deeds, participation in ministry of the church.

But he urges them to show diligence, to not be sluggish, so that they might realize the full potential of the promises that God has intended for us. We are to imitate those who have gone before us, most especially being imitators of Christ, who practiced obedience even while suffering, and that being found in conformity with the image of Christ, we might experience the full blessings of our inheritance in Christ. Let us press on to maturity. Let us hold fast our faith. And let us love one another and share in the ministry which God has called us to participate in. The world is looking for what we have, and they are looking for someone who can show them by their life the evidence that the gospel is real. Let’s show them Christ in us. Let’s press on in obedience to the word of God, and in so doing, we will grow in maturity, and inherit the promise of rest in Christ.

I’m going to try to do two things today that are probably inadvisable.  The first is that I’m going to attempt to cover the entire chapter in this sermon.  It’s only 14 verses, so it’s not impossible, just probably not advisable.  The second thing I’m going to do is attempt to exegete it in reverse.  I’m going to start with verses 11-14 and then afterwards I will do 1-10.  Now I do that because even though I may not be following the text chronologically, I think I am honoring the sense of the text.  I think that the author of Hebrews has been giving this great theological treatise, a sermon really, on the superior merits of Christ above every other institution or agency, and perhaps he senses a danger at this point that his audience is starting to get bored.  And so in vs 11, he suddenly diverges from his message, and gives a word of exhortation, that they need to sit up and listen and learn.

Now I echo that sentiment today, because I think that this is tremendously important material that we need to know if we are going to have the full effect of our salvation in operation in our lives.  I think there is a dumbing down of the gospel in our age, in an attempt to make it relevant, in an attempt to hold people’s attention, or in an attempt to be entertaining, and the end result is that the average Christian doesn’t really understand neither his salvation, nor God’s purpose in saving him, and consequently has no clue as to what he is supposed to do now that he believes.  I’m afraid many people don’t even know what they believe.  They just have been told to believe in Jesus, that he died on the cross, that He loves us, and so we just believe, and now we don’t have to worry about going to hell anymore, and we can have a good life because God loves us and wants us to have a good life.  That’s the sum total of most people’s doctrinal understanding.

But the author of Hebrews is spending a lot of time and effort in the inspiration of the Holy Spirit  to tell us about the magnificence of who Jesus is, and what He came to do, and what He continues to do.  And it’s important to know all we can know about who Jesus is, because that is the basis for our belief, for our faith.  Also it’s important because the more we know about Jesus, the more we will love Him, and the more we love Him, the more we will be moved to live lives that are pleasing to Him.  It’s just like a relationship with a man and a woman when they are dating.  They start to spend time together.  She wants to know all about you.  She wants to know your past, your future, your plans.  And as you learn more and more about each other, your love grows for one another.  Thus it is important that we learn all we can about who Jesus is and what He did and continues to do.  Because that knowledge is what we base our faith on.  And our faith is the basis for being granted salvation and all the attendant benefits of salvation.  And our knowledge for God produces our love for God, which is the motivation for our obedience to Him.

So the Holy Spirit in vs 11 interrupts the theological treatise to reprimand the audience for their ignorance. And by extension, He is upbraiding the present audience here today as well for our ignorance.  Notice, He says, “Concerning him we have much to say, and [it is] hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.”  Concerning Him, I believe, is speaking of Jesus.  It could be that he is saying, concerning Melchizedek we have much to say.  And of course, he does have a lot to say about Melchizedek in the upcoming chapters. But this book is not about Melchizedek, it’s about Jesus. And so I think he saying we have a lot to say about Jesus, but you’ve become dull of hearing.

As I’ve gotten older, I have become dull of hearing.  I blame it on years of surfing.  There is something called surfer’s ear that affects us guys that spend too much time in cold water.  The ear canal builds up cartilage to protect itself from the cold water and wind, and eventually it closes up the ear canal.  So you can’t hear very well.  That’s my excuse, at least.  

But I don’t think the author has in mind surfer’s ear.  I think he’s talking about lazy listening.  I think we are not tuned to the things of God because it’s much easier to listen to music, or some sort of entertainment or a nice sentimental story.  The opposite of dull hearing would be sharp hearing.  It’s like Maggie my dog.  She hears some things a lot better than others.  She can hear me open a package of bread from the other side of the house and be there in a flash with her tail wagging.  She loves bread.  But she can’t seem to hear me when I tell her to get off the couch.  She seems deaf as a post then. 

I wonder if some of you have the same problem.  You can hear a couple of measures of the beginning of a song and tell me immediately what the name of the song is and who the author is, but you can’t find a verse in the Bible with a concordance. You’ve become dull of hearing because you haven’t trained yourself in the things of God. To use another analogy, you haven’t developed a taste for spiritual food.  That is what is said there in vs14, “But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.”  The key is training.  The more you train your voice, the better sense you have of being on pitch or in tune.  The same is true of spiritual things; it involves practice, training your senses so that they are not dulled by the things of the world, but trained in the things of God, so that we may be in tune with God.

Some of you have been Christians a long time.  I hesitate to ask for a show of hands, but I assume that many of you have been saved since you were children, or young adults.  And so vs 12 says to you, “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.  For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant.  But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.”

The problem with some of you is that maybe that your home church only gives you milk, and never feeds you solid food.  Some churches just serve whipped cream.   I love whipped cream.  I like it when my wife makes homemade whipped cream to go on chocolate cake. And it’s ok to have some every now and then.  But a steady diet of whipped cream is not good for you.  And furthermore, its not going to have the nutrition that you need to grow and maintain your body as it should be.  

Children, especially spiritual children, need to be fed milk at first, but then they need to move on to solid food, so that their body can mature and grow stronger.  And so it is with us.  Otherwise we remain “babes in the woods” so to speak.  And we cannot discern the difference between good and evil.  We end up being taken in by false doctrine, and by the deceit of the devil.

Now then, let us eat some solid food this morning, that we might move on towards maturity in Jesus Christ.  And one of the roles of Jesus Christ that we are considering is His position as High Priest of our faith.  And perhaps this is difficult because we can’t relate to this position of high priest.  We don’t see that sort of position in the church today and so we can’t relate to it.

But think about it this way for a moment.  If we accept the fact that God exists as He has disclosed Himself in His word; that He is the maker of the universe, the ruler of the world, the judge of the earth, in whom all righteousness and holiness dwells in inapproachable light, and we exist and live and breathe by His permission.  If we accept that premise, then what is our response?  To ignore Him?  That will hardly do.  To try to placate Him? How?  What are we to do? How do we approach Him?

Well Jesus gave us the answer in John 4:24  “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” So we must worship God.  He is Spirit, therefore He cannot be seen, so we must worship Him in spirit, and worship Him in truth.  We must worship Him as He wants us to worship Him, according to what He has revealed.  And in ancient times, God ordained priests to facilitate that worship.  They represented God to man, in revealing His truth, and they represented man to God, in offering sacrifices and gifts to God which was the way in which God wanted man to express his worship.  And among the priests, there was the office of the High Priest, who was the chief of priests, and He served a special function on the yearly Day of Atonement, in going before God in the Holy of Holies to offer the sacrifice for the sins of the people.

Now that’s what this author says in vs 1, “For every high priest taken from among men is appointed on behalf of men in things pertaining to God, in order to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins.”  Notice, the high priest is taken from among men, to act in the appointed role on behalf of men in things pertaining to God.  He is a man, appointed by God to act on their behalf.  And God appointed him to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins.

So Holy, Righteous God, required that priests act as intermediaries by offering sacrifices and gifts for the sins of man in order to be accepted by God. Man is a fallen creature, born in sin, with a sinful nature, and as such is estranged from God and cannot approach God.  The sacrifices and gifts could not of themselves atone for sin, but they showed man’s repentance over his sin, which God accepted, and He therefore provided a substitute animal to bear their punishment.  The priests facilitated this system of sacrifices and gifts to God.

Now such a priest had a dual responsibility.  To man he could, in vs 2, “deal gently with the ignorant and misguided, since he himself also is beset with weakness.”  In other words, since the priest also is a man, he has the same weaknesses and temptations that men have, and thus can have compassion on them.  

And because of his weaknesses, because he is a man born in sin, with a sinful nature even as they, vs. 3, “he is obligated to offer sacrifices for sins, as for the people, so also for himself.”  So he has to offer sin sacrifices for himself, and then for the people.  He is an intermediary, but a flawed one.  And if you were someone who went to a priest in those days, hoping to have him intercede for you to God, then you would have to hope that he had been faithful himself to offer sacrifices for his own sin, so that your prayers might not be hindered by his weakness.  

Another important characteristic of priests is that they did not designate themselves priests, but that designation came from God.  Now that’s important, because then as also now, many people are running around claiming to speak for God, when in fact, God has not appointed them.  I will never forget it was during Hurricane Sandy, I believe, which narrowly missed us here in Delaware but pounded New Jersey and caused more damage than any other storm to date in that state.  And I remember reading something just before the storm hit that a group of religious leaders from some sort of denomination that specialized in miracles and prophesying, had sent out a statement saying that all these preachers had been praying and formed a prayer chain or something like that around the Mid Atlantic region, and somehow God had told them that the storm would turn away and we would be spared of any sort of direct hit.  And I got an email from one of their followers to that affect as the storm was bearing down on us.  And I usually just bite my tongue and delete that sort of thing.  But I couldn’t help myself that day, and so I sent the guy an email reply with this quote from Jeremiah 14:14 Then the LORD said to me, “The prophets are prophesying falsehood in My name. I have neither sent them nor commanded them nor spoken to them; they are prophesying to you a false vision, divination, futility and the deception of their own minds.”  I never got any more emails from that guy again.

So God appoints those who truly speak for Him, and He appointed the high priests, not man, not some denomination, not some seminary, not some pastor search committee. And it says here that God appoints the priests. And now the Spirit uses that designation to extol the virtues of Jesus Christ as our Great High Priest in vs.5 “So also Christ did not glorify Himself so as to become a high priest, but He who said to Him, ‘YOU ARE MY SON, TODAY I HAVE BEGOTTEN YOU’”.   So quoting from Psalm 2:7, God speaking to the Messiah, appointed Him as His representative, as His Son.  And then quoting from Psalm 110, vs4, “YOU ARE A PRIEST FOREVER ACCORDING TO THE ORDER OF MELCHIZEDEK.”

What greater appointment for man’s High Priest could be imagined, than God in human form, Jesus Christ incarnate, being made forever to be our High Priest after the order of Melchizedek.  Now there will be much more to be said about Melchizedek in the passages ahead.  But suffice it for now that you know that in Genesis 14:18 he appeared to Abraham as both king of Salem, which was an ancient name for Jerusalem, and also he was designated as priest of God Most High.  And Abraham recognized him as the priest of God and gave him his tithes.  Now this event preceded the law of Moses concerning priests and the order of Aaron, the High Priest of Israel by several hundred years.  Melchizedek seemed to appear out of nowhere, without any precedent.  And Psalm 110 is quoting God as saying that the Messiah is a priest forever, not after the order of Aaron, not of the Levitical priesthood, but after the order of Melchizedek.

So Jesus was appointed High Priest by God.  The other characteristic that you will remember though of priests is that they were taken from man.  And vs 7 speaks to His humanness, or the days of His flesh.   “In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety.”

Many commentators think this speaks particularly of His suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane, but I think it doesn’t have to be restricted to just that incident, but throughout His whole life, He was constantly in communion with His Father and dependent upon doing His will.  Some of the hardest trials you will go through, and some of the deepest sorrows you may experience are not always associated with suffering pain and injury, but in doing what is right.  Going against what the flesh calls for, going against what the world calls for, and the loneliness and sense of desolation that evokes is reason enough for loud crying and tears.  

What this is referencing is the qualification of a priest that He is able to sympathize with those whom He represents, that is mankind.  Christ suffered all the things that we suffer, and much more than we could ever suffer.  He did what was right before God, without sin, suffering even until death. His faithfulness unto death qualifies Him even more than any earthly priest, who shared the same weaknesses of the flesh as his fellow citizens, because though He shared in the sufferings and temptations and trials of men, yet He was victorious over them in righteousness.  And because of His righteousness, or as it says because of His piety, God delivered Him from the chains of death, and He rose again from the grave victorious with the keys of death and Hades in His grasp.

In vs8, it says, “Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.”  Now this verse has caused a lot of confusion, because we can not imagine how Christ could learn obedience.  But I think it needs to be understood this way, “although He was a Son, (that is the Son of God, deity), even though He had a right to do what He wanted,  He learned obedience from the things He suffered in the flesh (that is in the things He suffered as a human.)  In other words, He humbled Himself and practiced obedience to the Father’s will in His flesh, in His humaness, even while suffering, which made Him qualified in experience to be our representative.  Even though He was omniscient, in His experience of suffering there was a sense in which He learned experientially what it was to be human.

And we learn to be obedient through suffering as well.  Unfortunately, we tend to learn more from our disobedience.  The way most of us learn is by learning the hard way.  We disobey, and suffer the consequences, and we end up learning through our disobedience.  It’s much smarter to learn though example.  It’s so much smarter to learn through obedience to what God has said in His word, rather than to think we have to figure it out for ourselves.  That goes back to the exhortation about being children that we looked at earlier.  Children learn through experience. And that’s why discipline is such an important part in a child’s upbringing.  But as you grow older, and more mature, you should be able to learn from other’s experience.  That’s wisdom.

And then vs 9 says, “having been made perfect…”  Once again, people have trouble with this idea that Christ had to become perfect.  But the best way to understand that word is to translate it as “complete.”  So He became complete by suffering in His flesh.  He became the complete, perfect High Priest because He was not only fully God, but fully man, and suffered all things in the flesh as a man, yet without sin, preserving His righteousness. 

Back in chapter 4:15 we read, “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as [we are, yet] without sin.”

So having suffered in the flesh, having been appointed by God, having been ordained after another order of priests, having been the righteous and Holy Son of God, we therefore have such a Great High Priest, who has became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation.

Listen, we just read that Jesus learned obedience from the things which He suffered and was saved from death through His piety. Is it not just as appropriate that the obedience of the redeemed results in their salvation? Is it so inappropriate to think that obedience and faith go hand in hand? Listen, you cannot have faith without obedience. Faith is not just a head knowledge, but a heart repurposed.  Remember the admonition of Jesus in Matt. 15:8-9  ‘THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS, BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME.  ‘BUT IN VAIN DO THEY WORSHIP ME, TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN.’”

Or perhaps we need to remember His warning in Matt. 7:21-23  “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven [will enter.]  “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’  “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’”  Notice the emphasis on doing God’s will, and then the opposite of practicing lawlessness which is a hallmark of lip service.  So then, practicing righteousness, obedience to God,  is hallmark of true worship.

The final qualification of our Great High Priest is that to all who obey Him,  He is the source, or the author of eternal salvation, being designated by God as a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.  Peter said in Acts 4:12 “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.”

He is not only the author of our salvation, but also the finisher of our salvation.  Hebrews 12:2 “looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of [our] faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

The fact that He is eternal, sitting eternally on the throne of God, interceding for His people, means that our salvation is eternal.  It’s eternal because the source of our salvation is eternal.  It’s eternal because HIs sacrifice is eternally effective, once for all accomplished, never to be repeated and permanently valid.  And it’s an eternal salvation because Jesus Christ, our Great High priest ever lives to make intercession for us, to help us in our time of need.  He is always available, ever working on the behalf of those who have put their trust in Him.  

I hope everyone here today has become a child of God through faith in Jesus Christ. Are you trusting in the sacrifice of Himself on your behalf for your acceptance with God?  There is no other way to God, and no other source of eternal life.  Trust in Him today as your Savior, Lord and King, and in HIs work as our Great High Priest. 

As we begin this study today in Hebrews, I think it may be important to ask the question, what is a priest?  Practically all religions utilize a priesthood.  And yet in the Protestant Evangelical tradition we don’t use priests.  We have a pastor.  We have certain officers such as deacons.  But we don’t have priests officiating in the sanctuary.  And so it might be necessary to explain why, and explain what the Bible says about priests, as a precursor to our study today.

According to the common understanding of both Greeks and Hebrews of the time when this epistle was written, priests were men who offered sacrifices and in general  busied themselves with sacred rites in a temple or sanctuary.  They were considered go betweens, or mediators between man and God.  They were considered holy in that they were consecrated to their work.  They were not concerned with profane things, but holy things of God. In Judaism especially, the religion of the Israelites, it was considered a sacred profession that was the birthright of the Levites. In other words, you had to be born a priest.   And they worked in the temple daily, performing their sacrifices and sacred rituals.

In addition to that position, you also had a high priest.  These were men who came from the ranks of the Levites, who originally were  selected by God to officiate as a priest, but as the leader of the priesthood, and who would enter once a year into the Holy of Holies to offer the sacrifices on the Day of Atonement.  He was often called the chief priest, because his position was foremost of the priests.

Now as I said, we don’t have priests officiating in the church today at least in most Protestant evangelical churches.  And the primary reason is that we no longer have sacrifices to offer.  Hebrews 7:27 tells us that Jesus has offered one sacrifice for all time.  On the day He was crucified, you will remember that God tore in two the veil separating the temple from the Holy of Holies, rending it from top to bottom, signifying that the way to enter the Holy of Holies was open to all through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  Thus, we no longer need a priest, or even a high priest from the order of the Levites, to act as an intermediary for us.

But on the other hand, the book of Hebrews is going to spend a great deal of time telling us that Jesus is our great high priest.  And so if we are to understand Jesus, then we need to understand the function of the High Priests among the Jews, but particularly we need to understand how Jesus fulfills that office.

And by the way, in this new covenant, we that are saved are the new priesthood.  Peter said in 1Peter 2:9 “But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR [God’s] OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”  That’s what our job is now that we have become saved, to function as priests of God, as Romans 12:1 states, “presenting our bodies as a living and holy sacrifice, which is your reasonable service of worship.  John declares the same thing in Revelation 1:6 “and He has made us [to be] a kingdom, priests to His God and Father–to Him [be] the glory and the dominion forever and ever.”

And what the author of Hebrews is telling us in this passage is that we have a Chief Priest over us, who has gone into the heavenly holy of holies, and is officiating at the heavenly altar, so that we might have access to God and find help in time of need.

Now in chapter 3, vs 1 we were told to consider Jesus.  And so we have been doing that, considering Jesus in contrast to angels, to prophets, and to Moses, He is superior in every respect.  And today we are considering Jesus in light of His office as a High Priest, that we might better understand our position and the promises that we have in Him.

I could focus on a variety of human problems today with hopes that I might engage at least a few of you folks’ attention, in that you share a similar situation in your life.  But in the wisdom of God, I prefer to follow the teaching of this book, to fix our eyes on Jesus, and when we do that, we might find that he is sufficient to meet every need, whatever the need may be. Rather than focus on the problems, let us consider the solution to every need, which is Jesus.  And it is in His office of Great High Priest that we see Him most sufficient.

Now this idea of a Jesus as our Great High Priest has already been introduced to us in two other places.  The first was in chapter 2, vs17, “Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.”  The second mention is in chapter 3, vs1, which says, “Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus.” 

Now then let us consider Him as our Great High Priest. In chapter 4, vs 14, it says, “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.” 

But before we parse the rest of the verse, I want to point out the words, “we have.”  Let’s not overlook the little words in scripture.  It’s not that we just know about, but we have, we possess, or we belong to, such a great high priest.  We have a part in Him.  We have appropriated His work on our behalf.  That is really what constitutes our faith in Him, and what makes our faith efficacious. He has become our Lord and Savior and our Great High Priest by virtue of our faith and trust in Him.  He is ours, and we are His.  So let’s not overlook that important distinction.

A good illustration of that proprietary relationship to  the high priest is that in ancient Israel the high priest wore the names of the tribes of Israel on their breastplate, as part of their priestly garments.  They were identified with those who they were representing.  So it is with Jesus as our High Priest.  Our names, the Bible says in Isaiah 49:16, are written on His hands.  So He has become a man like us, one of His brethren, so that He might be our representative, our faithful high priest.

So now we have learned what it means to be our high priest, but what is indicated by “Great” High Priest? There were many high priests after the order of Aaron, but none of them were ever called great.  So what is meant by that title?  Well, I believe if we follow the order we have seen so far in Hebrews, it is quite simply that He is superior to every previous high priest. He is greater than every high priest that has ever come before.

And if you turn ahead a couple of chapters to chapter 7,  starting in vs 16, we see some characteristics of His greatness.  First it says that He became a priest not on the basis of ancestry, He was not of the tribe of Levi, but of Judah. He was appointed by God and not by man. And furthermore it says that He became a priest forever because of His indestructible life.  In other words, all Levitical priests eventually died and were buried, and thus their ministry ended.  But Jesus’s ministry continues forever, because He rose from the dead and as our text indicates, He ascended into heaven where He continues to intercede for us.

Secondly, He is our Great High Priest because His temple is greater.  In chapter 9 vs 24 we read that “Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.”  So He is greater because the earthly high priests officiated in an earthly holy place which was only a type of the one in the heavens, but Jesus has entered to the heavenly tabernacle, into the very presence of God’s throne, which is clearly greater.

And thirdly, He is our Great High Priest because He is not only human as all the other priests were, but He is also divine, as no other priest could claim.  And we see that illustrated back in our text, in vs 14, in HIs name and title.  Jesus is His human name.  It was a rather common name, Joshua in Hebrew, but Jesus in the Greek.  And it meant, “Jehovah is salvation.”  The angel said to Mary when he announced His birth, “And you shall call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.”  So in His humanity, He is able to represent His people, and He is able to be the substitute for mankind.

But He was not only fully man, but fully divine, which is represented in His title, “the Son of God.”  John chapter 1 tells us that He was in the beginning with God, and that He was God.  Jesus claimed that He came from God and He was going back to the Father.  Jesus always called God His Father.  Only as the Son of God, equal in divinity, but separate in roles, could He atone for the sins of the world.  And only as God could He be the Great High Priest who passed through the heavens and sat down at the right hand of the Father.  

Now let’s just clarify that phrase, “passed through the heavens.”  Generally speaking, when the Bible speaks of the atmosphere, it refers to it as the heavens.  It includes the immediate atmosphere around the earth, as well as the sun, moon and stars.  But the passage is not so much describing a geographic location as it is describing the act of Christ entering or passing through the veil that hides the heavenly realm, or the spiritual realm.  Ephesians 2 says about us Christians in vs 5-6 “even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),  and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly [places] in Christ Jesus.”  

That’s talking about something that happens upon salvation. Upon salvation we are vicariously seated in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus.  But for that to be true of you and me it must be true spiritually.  And it is in that spiritual realm that Jesus has passed through.  That was typified in the earthly high priest who once a year went into the Holy of Holies, by passing through the veil.  And so Christ has gone before us, passing through death, being raised incorruptible, and passed into the heavenly realm, the spiritual realm,  into the very presence of the Father. In that spiritual realm, He is above all power and authority, outside of time and space, and not confined to earthly limitations.  Thus He is greater because the scope of His ministry is spiritual, and not limited to the physical.

Now this faith in Jesus Christ, as the Son of God, this faith in HIs work of atonement, this faith that appropriates His office of High Priest over us, is called in vs14 our confession.  And the Spirit says through Hebrews that since Jesus is our Great High Priest, we must hold fast our confession.  Now what does it mean to hold fast?  It means to secure it.  To make something fast is to secure it.  It actually refers back to that idea of possession.  We appropriate these truths and secure them, trust firmly in them.  To have unshakeable faith in who Jesus is, and what He has done, and what He ever lives to do.  It’s the same idea as standing firm in your faith.  Be confident, be assured in who He His and what He will do.  So we must stand firm in our confession of our faith, holding fast to His promises.  “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,” according to Hebrews 11:1.

And faith is the means by which all that Christ has done and will do is appropriated by us.

Now vs 15 says that we can have that confident confession of our faith because Christ  sympathizes with us, in all our weaknesses, in all our temptations and trials, because He has been tempted and tried in all points like we have, yet without sin.  Jesus, in His humanity has suffered in every thing that we suffer.  Vs. 15 “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as [we are, yet] without sin.”  To sympathize is to relate to, and have compassion on, and He does so because He has shared similar experiences.

But our confidence comes not just because He has suffered the same things that we suffered, but that He did so without succumbing to sin.  A fellow human can commiserate with you in your suffering, but offer little help in overcoming temptation and trial.  Jesus, suffered in all things as we have, yet He triumphed over them, by not succumbing to sin.  I believe it was the theologian FF Bruce who said, “Such endurance involves more, not less, than ordinary human suffering.”  In other words, the suffering that Jesus endured without sin, is far greater than our suffering.  Thus, in overcoming it, He shows that He is able to help us in our suffering. Jesus withstood all temptation, He withstood all the strategies of Satan, all the pitfalls of the world, He withstood all the weaknesses and indulgences of man, and emerged the victor.  And because He is the victor over death and sin and the world, He is able to save to the uttermost those that trust in Him. We can hold fast our confidence because He overcame the world, and He is able to come to our help and defense.  Because He was sinless.  HIs sinlessness is an important attribute of His effectiveness as our Great High Priest.

I need to speak to something at this point that may offend some people here.  And I would say that I do not go out of my way to be offensive.  But just the other day I picked up a  silver medallion and chain.  I bought it just because it was in the junk jewelry section of a thrift store and I saw it was marked sterling silver, so I knew it was worth more than what they had it marked for.  It was a good deal.  But the medallion was commemorating the Virgin Mary. And around the outer band of the medallion was engraved the words, “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.”

Now folks, I must tell you that in no place in scripture is it indicated that Mary was conceived without sin. Romans clearly states that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. They have taken one of the essential attributes of Jesus, the Son of God, that qualifies Him to be our Great High Priest, and given it to someone else.  Mary was blessed among women for she was chosen to bear Jesus as her child.  But sinlessness is the attribute of God, not any man or woman. And Mary was only a woman who had the same weaknesses that we have.  She had the same need for a Savior that all men have.  Mary was a sinner just like you and I are sinners.  Mary was saved by faith in Jesus Christ. But in no way was she born without sin. And the scripture no where teaches that.

Then, on the reverse of the medallion is a large letter M, which symbolizes that Mary is the Mediatrix, which means she is the mediator between man and salvation, and that Jesus bestows graces through her.  Once again, this false doctrine is taking away from Jesus the characteristic that He only provides.  He, and He alone,  is the mediator between God and man.  1Tim. 2:5 says “For there is one God, [and] one mediator also between God and men, [the] man Christ Jesus.” 

And furthermore, to show how insidious this doctrine of Mary is, it is based on the idea that she was assumed into heaven, bypassing death, because she had never sinned.  So once again, the fact that Jesus passed through the heavens has been appropriated to Mary as well, which puts her on the same plane as Jesus Christ.  I would just encourage you to see for yourselves if there is any mention of such a thing in scripture.  There is none. It is a false doctrine that leads to a worship of Mary, and a perversion of the intercessory doctrine of our Lord Jesus Christ.  The whole point of this passage before us today, is to say that we have a Great High Priest, Jesus Christ, who has passed through the heavens, who was tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin, and now lives to make intercession for us, to help us in our time of need, because He has experienced what we experience, and because we are His people, and He is our High Priest, who represents His people before the Father.  And as such people, who belong to Christ, we are to body enter into the throne of grace to find help in time of need.  We don’t need to go through other human intermediaries. In fact, such people can never help us.  We don’t need to appeal to other humans who have passed into death to speak on our behalf.  Jesus performs that role for us, and He performs it perfectly, because He is the Great High Priest.  And to try to put another person in HIs place, or to make you go through another agency to get to Jesus, is to put a stumbling block before you, and diminish the work of Jesus Christ by saying that it was not sufficient.  Let me assure you, Jesus is sufficient. He and He alone is able to save. He alone is able to know our hearts.  He alone is sinless.  Consider Jesus!  Don’t be deceived into looking at any one else but Jesus.  He is sufficient.

Now the last verse in our text sums up our response to our confession of faith in all that Jesus has accomplished and will accomplish as our Great High Priest.  It says in vs. 16, Therefore, [since all these things are assured concerning Jesus as our Great High Priest,]  let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

Therefore, since all these things are assured concerning Jesus, we can come boldly to the throne of grace. A throne speaks of authority and power, while grace conveys the idea of compassion and provision. These two thoughts are combined in Jesus Christ. He is the God of infinite power, Creator of the Universe, Judge of the Earth, sitting on His throne after all authority in heaven and earth have been given to Him.  And, yet He welcomes us in complete and utter sympathy with us. Because He is one of us, and we are one with Him. We can come boldly because we are confident that He is ours, and we are His, by virtue of the atoning sacrifice which He made on our behalf.  His sacrifice for us is more than sufficient so that we may be bold to enter the throne of grace.

Notice what He provides to those who come to Him; mercy and grace.  Mercy is not getting what we deserve.  Grace is getting what we don’t deserve.  Christ doesn’t just give us mercy, but He gives us grace.  He not only forgives the penalty of our sin, but He gives us His righteousness and eternal life. He gives us complete and perfect access to God. Mercy and grace, and they are offered by our Great High Priest, who offered Himself as an sacrifice for our sin.  No other priest could make such a sacrifice, because no other priest was without sin.  And furthermore, because no human priest could take away sin.  Only Jesus Christ can forgive sins.

The author concludes that we might find help in time of need. I don’t know what needs you may have today.  But one primary need I know is applicable to every man and woman here today.  We all need to receive Jesus Christ as our Savior for the remission of sins.  Only through faith in Jesus Christ can we have eternal life.  As I quoted earlier, there is only one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.  Jesus said, no one comes to the Father except by Me.  Jesus became our Great High Priest so that those who believe in Him would find mercy and grace in time of need.   I hope that no one comes short of the grace of God by not accepting Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord.  Only through faith in Christ can we say that He is our Great High Priest, and only by His intercession can we find help in our time of need.  He stands ready to help you in your need.  Come to Jesus, He is mighty to save.

I hate to give the devil his due, but I think it was the Rolling Stones who said, “You can’t always get what you want, but you get what you need.”  That statement is true here this morning in regards to our subject before us.  It’s perhaps not what we would want to hear, or would want to consider on this Sunday morning, but it’s what we need to hear. It’s like when we feed our children, we don’t always give them what they like to eat,  we sometimes need to give them what they need.  What is good for them. 

In the next chapter of Hebrews, the author accuses the Christians there of having a nutritional deficit.  As it says in chapter 5:12-14 “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.  For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant.  But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.”

Now I think that sentiment is behind a lot of what the author of Hebrews is writing in the passage before us today. He’s writing to Christians, I believe, but Christians who are lagging in their spiritual development. 

Some commentators distinguish between the intended recipients as either Christians, or in some passages, non Christian Jews.  But I think that it actually is written to all Christians, but perhaps particularly to immature Christians, who might stop short of entering into all that their salvation was intended to produce.  And in that respect, I think it is very contemporary.  Because I think there are a lot of Christians today who are at risk of falling short in terms of spiritual maturity.  

And so far the epistle has given three warnings to Christians.  The first was a warning against drifting away in chapter 2.  The second was a warning against hardening your hearts in chapter 3.  And now we see a third, which is the possibility of not entering God’s rest in chapter 4.  All of which are speaking primarily to believers.  I think the author is exhorting Christians to continue to be strong in their faith and not come short of all that God has designed our salvation to produce in us.

Now  one of the great benefits of our salvation is peace, contentment, and rest.  That is one of the promised blessings of salvation.  Jesus said in Matthew 11:28  “Come unto Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”  And again in John 14:27  “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.”

That sounds like something that we could all use, doesn’t it?  Peace and rest.  I suppose that’s why many of you came to the beach, to seek rest, to try to find some peace out of all the hustle and bustle and stress of the world that you may have been caught up in all year.  Peace and rest are great blessings that God has promised to His children, and yet if we are honest, most of us would probably admit that is not our daily experience.  And so this passage we are looking at today is dealing with rest.  How we can enter that rest that God has promised us.

The passage starts on that premise in vs1, “Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it.”  That is something to be feared- that we should come short of this rest that God has promised.  That would be a tragedy, that we might have rest available, but yet fail to appropriate it and experience it for ourselves.  The good news is that it is obviously intended for us to have it now.  It’s not something that  was only available to the early church, or as the preceding chapter indicates, it was not a rest exclusive to the ancient Israelites who had been wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, waiting to enter the promised land, the land of rest.  But God’s rest is available to us today.  It is a blessing of salvation, and furthermore, it is an essential element of salvation.

Let me explain it in regards to salvation this way. Salvation is composed of three elements, all of which are necessary.  First is justification, second is sanctification, and the third is glorification. Justification is the defeat of the penalty of sin.  Sanctification is the defeat of the power of sin. Glorification is the defeat of the presence of sin, and that happens when we are resurrected to new life with a glorified, sinless body.  

But it is in fully realizing and appropriating all the victory that is available in Christ that we are truly set free. It is only when we appropriate all that salvation offers, that we truly can have peace and be truly at rest.  

I think this idea of rest is best illustrated by the idea of a flock of sheep that are under the care of the shepherd.  Jesus likened Himself to a shepherd, even the door of the sheepfold, and he who enters in by Him will go in and out and find pasture.  Rest is not sleeping, nor some sort of eternal bliss, but it is a life under the care and comfort of the Good Shepherd, a life that has peace knowing that He is guiding and providing all that is good in life.  That life in Him is abundant life, fruitful life.  Fully trusting and following and living under the authority and direction of the Shepherd produces the rest that the sheep must have if they are to grow and mature and have the abundant life that God wants for them to have.  Sheep must have that rest if they are to be healthy and flourish.  They can’t survive on their own outside of the care of the flock. So this rest which is provided by the Shepherd is essential to their life.  All the comfort and security and peace that the sheep need in order to thrive is found in complete submission to the Shepherd’s care and direction.

What Hebrews is warning against, and exhorting us to, is for Christians to fully enter in to all that their salvation promises.  So many Christians come short in that they are happy to receive justification, but they come short of sanctification.  And without sanctification, they will fail to receive the rest and blessings and spiritual development that their salvation is designed to produce..  They want  justification, but then they want to live in the flesh.  But sanctification is learning to live in the Spirit’s control. 

Now the author goes back to the former illustration which he used in chapter 3, which is that of the Israelites who wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, and were not able to enter God’s rest because of unbelief.  He says, in vs2, “For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also; but the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard.”   The disobedient Israelites then are to be a warning for us, in that they had the good news preached to them, they had the promises of God, and yet they failed to enter all that God had promised them.  In the same way, he is saying we have had the good news preached to us, we know the promises of God for rest and peace, but if we are not careful we will forfeit them by failing to continue in our faith.

I want to make sure that you know what he is talking about here though.  He uses some words or phrases almost interchangeably.  For instance, in vs2 he says their hearing the gospel wasn’t profitable because it was not united by faith. In chapter 3:19 it says they were not able to enter His rest because of unbelief.  In vs18 it says they were unable to enter because of disobedience. In chap.4 vs 6 it says they  failed to enter because of disobedience. In vs11 we’re warned “let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall, through following the same example of disobedience.”  So it’s clear that unbelief and a lack of faith and disobedience are all ways of speaking of the same thing. A lack of faith is a lack of believing in what God has promised, and because you don’t really believe the promises that results in disobedience to the truth of God, which prohibits you from experiencing the rest of God.

When the Israelites refused to enter the land, it was an act of disobedience, as well as fundamentally a lack of faith.  So we see that disobedience is a lack of faith, and a lack of faith results in disobedience.  Faith is not just an intellectual thing, or an emotive quality. Faith is action.  Faith is doing what God says.  Disobedience is acting on your own wisdom, according to your instincts.  Faith is never inactive, but active.  Thus James says, faith without works is dead.

We sometimes camp out so strongly on salvation is by grace and not works, which is true, but in so doing often neglect to emphasize that faith produces works.  James says in chapter  2:20-22, 24 “But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless?  Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected; … 24 You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.”  

Now if James can say that man is justified by faith and works, then it certainly is true that man also is sanctified by faith and works.  It’s not just the hearing of the gospel but by the appropriation of it,  the doing of it, by which we receive the profit of our salvation.

So, he says in vs3, we who appropriate the promises enter that rest.  We who act on the promises in faith, enter into the rest of God. But what exactly is this rest of God? Some people have traditionally thought of the rest as referring to the hereafter, the rest of heaven.  But I believe that what is really meant here is the rest that God promises to His people is the rest that He himself enjoys.  And that’s illustrated by the author’s reference to Genesis 2:2. , where God is said to have rested on the seventh day from His work of creation.

I noticed something about creation in studying this that I have never seen before.  In each day of creation, the Bible is careful to say about every day that it is an actual 24 hour period.  And in each case it says, and it was evening and morning, the first day, or the second day, etc.  Evening and morning is given for each day, until you come to the seventh day.  And no mention is made of evening and morning.  And the reason for that is because it symbolizes that God’s rest is continuing. It is a rest that is meant to be shared with His people who respond to Him in faith and obedience.  

That’s why in the previous chapter the author quoted from Psalm 95, in which God warns that they shall not enter His rest. He says today do not harden your hearts in disobedience, and thus forfeit the rest that God has promised.  That was a promise and a warning to the Israelites under Joshua, and it was a promise and a warning to the Israelites under David who were by then living in the land of promise, but still had not come to that rest, and it’s a promise to us, who are Christians under the Lord Christ, who are being warned not to come short of that rest.  God’s rest has been open to His children since the time of creation, but it can be forfeited by disobedience.

Therefore, it says in vs6, it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly had the gospel preached to them failed to enter because of disobedience.  But the rest of God remains open for us to enter.  The promises of God are still in effect. And in fact, the Holy Spirit urges you to enter it today.  Today, He says, do not harden your hearts. To put it off is to harden your heart.  Today is the acceptable day.  Do not harden your hearts by the deceitfulness of sin.  That’s from vs 13 of the previous chapter.  That’s what it means to harden your hearts.  To follow your own wisdom, to reject the word of God, to think that you know better than the Lord.  That’s the deceitfulness or the lie of sin, and it ends up hardening your heart to even further disobedience against God.  Today repent of your rebellion, repent of your unbelief, and God will give you His rest as you follow Him in faith and obedience.

Vs.8 says, “For if Joshua had given them rest, He would not have spoken of another day after that. So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.” Now what day is that? It’s not Saturday, it’s not Sunday, it’s not sometime in the future, it’s Today.  It’s not sometime in the past, or in the future, in the sweet by and by, but it remains available, and it is today.  Today do not harden your hearts, but enter into His rest. God’s rest is available today.

So what is the rest, that God promises to us?  I believe it is the rest from our works, and allowing Christ to work in us.  It is the rest from our purposes, and allowing God’s purposes to work in us.  It is the rest from the insistent desires of our flesh, and Christ living in us through the Spirit. It’s not relying on our strength, but relying on God’s strength. It’s not confidence in our wisdom, but confidence in God’s wisdom.  Here it is in a nutshell; vs10 “For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.”  

It says in Psalms 46:10, “cease striving and know that I am God.”  The peace of God is found in peace with God.  Cease striving against Him.  And allow Him to be Lord of your body, soul and spirit.  Matt. 11:28-30 “Come unto Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, 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 YOUR SOULS.  “For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

In our flesh we say, “Oh, the way of God is too hard.  It’s not much fun to be a Christian.  I have too many things I want to do.  I want to live life to the fullest.”  But God says the way of the sinner is hard, but the way of the Lord is easy.

So now we know what God’s rest is, the next question is how do we appropriate it? How do we enter it? Well, we’ve established it’s through obedience, but obedience to what?  The answer is obedience to the word of God.  Vs.12. “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

The word of God, the word that I am preaching, is not the word of man, but it is a living, effective, diagnostic, cleansing agent of God, which probes into the inner parts of man, to his very soul and spirt, to discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart.  The word of God reveals our motives.  The word of God is like a cleansing agent which scrubs away the sin which darkens our understanding and veils the light of God.  It is the living agency of the Holy Spirit which brings us to repentance, which reveals the secrets of the heart.  In Isaiah 55 God says that HIs word will not return void, without accomplishing His purpose.  It is the path of sanctification.  It is the way of life, it is the source of truth. In it we find rest.

And the word of God, likened to a two edged sword cuts and pierces the hardness of our heart. It is the tool that God uses to circumcise our hearts.  And when this agent of God is employed from hearing the word preached, from reading and studying the word, then we can start to experience the rest that God has promised, as it informs our faith, and encourages our faith, and washes our hearts and minds in the word.  This is where we get God’s perspective.  The world hammers it’s perspective at us relentlessly, through media, entertainment, advertisements and all sorts of daily activities.  But the word of God is powerful. Romans 1:16 “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”  The word of God is the power of salvation to everyone who believes.  You want the power of God to work out your salvation in your life?  Then spend time in he word of God and follow it’s instructions and live according to it’s direction.

And just as the word of God distinguishes the thoughts and intentions of the heart, so God knows our hearts.  There is nothing hidden from Him.  He knows our motives.  He knows how we really feel.  He knows when we have sin in our heart that we are holding onto.  Vs.13, “And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.”

Since God knows our hearts, then why don’t we then open our hearts to Him, and ask Him to come in, and take all the rooms of our heart as His own.  To occupy all of our heart.  That’s the secret to sanctification.  Our loves, our life, our devotion, our feelings, our minds, all of our being we surrender to the Lord.  And when we do that, we will enter into His rest.  He will cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  He will change our hearts, and renew in us a right spirit, that we might do the things which are pleasing to Him. 

There remains available a time for us, a day for you, to enter that rest. And today is the appointed day that God wants you to come to Him.  Come to Jesus today, and enter that rest.  Jesus says, “Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” 

I would like to ask you a rhetorical question today, but one nonetheless I want you to consider carefully in your hearts.  The question is this; does God care about orthodoxy?  Now a few churches that perhaps are no longer really orthodox may have co-opted that word as part of their title.  And that is not the kind of orthodoxy I am referring to.  What I mean by orthodox is that which is right, or true.

So the question is does God really care about what is right or true, or does He just want people to think about Him in some sort of generalized way, with some sort of sentiment or affection, and He likes it when we bring up HIs name and He gets especially happy when we say nice things about Him.  And that is all that really matters to God.  All the other stuff, such as truth, righteousness, justice, holiness, doctrine and so forth is not really what’s important to Him.

Well, I said it’s a rhetorical question because I am going to give you the answer.  And the answer is found in the words of Jesus in Matthew 15:8-9 “THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS, BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME. BUT IN VAIN DO THEY WORSHIP ME, TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN.’”  

Now I could give you dozens of other texts to support this argument, that God cares about orthodoxy, but I will just give you one more, one that I probably quote every week, which John records Jesus as saying in John 4:24  “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”  So clearly, there is truth, and God wants us to worship Him in truth, that is, in orthodoxy.  

As I said last week, God is not obligated to accept worship that is not in alignment with His truth.  Cain and Abel are good examples that are given right at the outset of the scriptures, in which both offered up worship to God, and yet Cain’s offering was rejected and Abel’s offering was accepted.  

Our text that we are looking at in Hebrews is part of an ongoing sermon or message that we are just looking at a part of today.  And it proposes a difficulty because each segment is built upon the preceding passage, and so it helps to have knowledge of what was said previously.  However, I don’t have the time to review everything up to this point.  I will say though by way of context that in this passage, there is a contrast, or comparison between Jesus and Moses.  And the author is saying that Jesus is superior to Moses in every way as the spokesman of God, and as the minister of God.  And in continuing that comparison, he is giving a warning to those who have heard the word of Jesus and turned away, and he uses an illustration of the Israelites who rebelled against Moses as an warning for us.

Now it’s interesting that in regard to the question of orthodoxy, in regards to our worship being in Spirit and in truth, the author gives us in vs7 a quote from Psalm 95, which he attributes as authored by the Holy Spirit. Vs. 7 begins, “Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says…” He is going to quote from Psalm 95, but we know that David is the human author of Ps.95, but Hebrews is saying that the author of this scripture is from the Holy Spirit.   This fulfills Jesus statement concerning worship perfectly, doesn’t it. Scripture is of the Spirit, so we can be assured that it’s the truth of God.  So we find the truth about God, the truth about worship, from the word of God.  

And that’s such a basic doctrine of Christianity that it should go without saying, but unfortunately in this day and age there is a tendency to think that God reveals himself in other ways, and they often take precedence over the word.  But Jesus said in John 17:17, “Your word is truth.”  We need to be on guard against people that are speaking as if they speak for God, as well as those people who think that God speaks to you in an audible voice in your head.  God has spoken in His word.  Back in chapter 1 vs2, it says that in these last days God has spoken to us in His Son.  And we have the word of God made more sure in the inspiration of the scriptures, as 2 Peter 2:21 says, men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.  

So first and foremost, if we are to know the truth about God, so that we may worship the Lord God in Spirit and in truth, then we must go to the source of truth, which is the Holy Scriptures. 

Notice also that vs 7 says, “The Holy Spirit says, present tense. Not said 2000 years ago, though He did speak then, but He also speaks now, present tense.  He says to you now, ““TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE, DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS AS WHEN THEY PROVOKED ME, AS IN THE DAY OF TRIAL IN THE WILDERNESS, WHERE YOUR FATHERS TRIED Me BY TESTING Me, AND SAW MY WORKS FOR FORTY YEARS. “THEREFORE I WAS ANGRY WITH THIS GENERATION, AND SAID, ‘THEY ALWAYS GO ASTRAY IN THEIR HEART, AND THEY DID NOT KNOW MY WAYS’;  AS I SWORE IN MY WRATH, ‘THEY SHALL NOT ENTER MY REST.’”

Now as I said this is a quote from Psalm 95.  And it’s interesting that there are two parts to this Psalm, the one quoted here is preceded by a call to worship.  Just to give you a sense of it, in verse 1,2 and 6 it says, “O come, let us sing for joy to the LORD, Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving, Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. … Come, let us worship and bow down, Let us kneel before the LORD our Maker.”  So Psalm 95 is clearly a call to worship the Lord.  And in that context, the Psalmist continues under the direction of the Holy Spirit to call God’s people to worship and then warns against disobedience as illustrated by the Israelites in the wilderness.  So worship and disobedience are contrary to one another.  

Notice also the emphasis on “Today.” “Today if you hear His voice…” Today emphasizes the urgency of the word of God.  Today is the acceptable time.  Today while it is still today.  He equates putting off until tomorrow or until a more convenient day is the means of hardening your heart.  Today is the day God calls you to repentance.  Tomorrow may never come.  Some of you here today may never again hear the gospel presented to you as you have heard today.  Last Friday a family was on Route 1, I believe, heading home from vacation and a car came across the median and hit them and 5 of the 6 family members were killed.  So there is an urgency to the message because we do not know the day or the time when we will die, but also there is an urgency to answer the message because to resist it, or put it off until tomorrow is the means of hardening your heart against God. And that is exactly the purpose of this illustration, as it says “TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE, DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS.”

Now we can identify the exact situation the Spirit is referring to here, by the use of the words, “WHEN THEY PROVOKED ME, AS IN THE DAY OF TRIAL IN THE WILDERNESS, WHERE YOUR FATHERS TRIED Me BY TESTING Me, AND SAW MY WORKS FOR FORTY YEARS.” He is referring to two events, one at the beginning of the exodus of the children of Israel, and the other at the end of their journey, when they were ready to enter the Promised Land, the land of Canaan. The first is recorded in Exodus 17, when the children of Israel came from the wilderness of Sin, and they complained and grumbled against Moses because they were thirsty and said, and said, “Why, now, have you brought us up from Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?”  God told Moses to strike the rock, and water came out.  But what they did was displeasing to the Lord, so that Moses named the place Massah and Meribah, which means test and quarrel, because they tested the Lord there.

So they grumbled, they complained, and they were even ready to stone Moses. Many people who have become Christians have feelings like this. Sometimes there are problems in the family. Sometimes there are problems in the business. I’ve heard Christians say, and I can sympathize with them, “Ever since I’ve become a Christian. My whole life is turned upside down. And now I’m really suffering and going through all kinds of trials.” And sometimes they wonder if “maybe I made the wrong decision.”  

The problem a lot of times is that we have the wrong perspective as Christians.  We have a temporal perspective instead of an eternal perspective.  We expect as Christians that God is going to take away all the earthly trials and tribulations so we can enjoy an abundant life.  The problem is the same as that of the Israelites.  Our focus is not on how we may serve God, but on how He needs to serve me.  So when God doesn’t meet my temporal, fleshly expectations in the time and manner that I want to be served, then I lose patience with Him.  We’re ready to disown God, because we are convinced that He must not love us if He allows us to go through difficulties.  We even go so far as to think God is a liar, that He doesn’t keep His promises.  And that’s exactly what the Israelites did in the wilderness.  That pattern of rebellion continued, and culminated in their refusal to enter into the land of Canaan.  And so God brought judgment against them and said this generation would not enter the land, but they would wander in the wilderness for 40 years until they all had died.

Then 40 years later, the Israelites do the same thing all over again.  This time it’s found in Numbers 20.  The entire generation of their fathers had died in the wilderness.  This is the second generation. And they come to the very same place, Massah and Maribah, that their fathers had complained about, and this time they do the very same thing.  They complain and say, “If only we had perished when our brothers perished before the LORD! Why then have you brought the LORD’S assembly into this wilderness, for us and our beasts to die here? Why have you made us come up from Egypt, to bring us in to this wretched place? It is not a place of grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, nor is there water to drink.” And once again God brought water from the rock to supply their need, but again God was displeased.

I found myself just the other day comparing my life with those who don’t even know the Lord.  And from my perspective at that moment, it seemed that the unrighteous lived lives of ease and plenty.  But the lot of my life was learning to do without, and facing all sorts of trials.  And I think it’s very common for us to start to compare ourselves with others when things don’t go exactly as we would like them to.  And we become disgruntled in our faith. Even worse, in our hearts we start to turn away from the Lord.

So because of their hardened hearts, their testing of God, and provoking God to anger, He says in vs 10, “THEREFORE I WAS ANGRY WITH THIS GENERATION, AND SAID, ‘THEY ALWAYS GO ASTRAY IN THEIR HEART, AND THEY DID NOT KNOW MY WAYS’; AS I SWORE IN MY WRATH, ‘THEY SHALL NOT ENTER MY REST.’”

Notice that God is concerned about the heart.  He said first, “Do not harden your hearts.” Now He says, “they always go astray in their hearts.”  The heart is the soul of man, the seat of the will, the intellect and the emotions of man.  The scriptures say that the heart is deceitful and wicked and unknowable. But God will disclose the secrets of the heart.  Man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart.  Thus, as we said at the beginning, Jesus who knows the hearts says “THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS, BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME. BUT IN VAIN DO THEY WORSHIP ME, TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN.’”  

David said in Psalm 51:17 “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.”  The essential necessity then for worshipping God in spirit and in truth is that we first have the right heart.  Salvation is an appeal to God for a new heart and it is promised as a result of our conversion in Ezekiel 36:26-27 “Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”  When we receive a new heart, that is a new mind, new attitudes, and a new will, we will find that we have a desire to be obedient to the Lord, and the old things will pass away, and all things become new.  That’s the essence of salvation that is missing in many church goers today.  They may intellectually believe in God, but they have not had a transformation from God, a new birth that results in their conversion.  And that is a supernatural act of God to give you a new heart.  

Without that transformation of the heart, you cannot please God.  You cannot enter the rest that God promises, because your heart is not aligned with God.  And so the author of Hebrews says in vs12, “Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God.”  Notice now there is a further progression of a hardened heart, and that is an evil, unbelieving heart.  

Now that word used for falling away is the same word we get apostasy from.  I won’t try to pronounce it in Greek, but it sounds very similar to apostasy.  Apostasy is a serious sin.  It’s a sin of renouncing God.  And there have been many people that perhaps were brought up in a Christian home, or a Christian church, and then have gone on to renounce God altogether and become an atheist. That’s becoming apostate.  I’m not sure that is what this verse is talking about.  I think it has to be taken in context with the next two verses, and in that regard I think it’s talking about someone who is withdrawing from church, they have drifted away from fellowship with God.  After all, that is what chapter 2 vs1 warned of, the danger of drifting away. That tendency to go astray leads to a second danger, that is the danger of hardening your heart.  And I think it’s saying that happens by withdrawing from the fellowship of believers.  

That’s why the next verse, 13, says, “But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called “Today,” so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”  The antidote to falling away is to get together with other believers day after day and encourage one another. The enemy is always trying to get the Christian alone.  But like an ember in a fire, when you draw it out of the fire pit and put it off by itself, it begins to go out and grow cold. 

But to come together in assembly, to fellowship with one another, we stimulate and encourage one another so that hardness of the heart does not happen.  A few chapters later, in Hebrews 10:24-25  we read, “and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds,  not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.”  So the falling away He is warning us of comes often through isolation, where the enemy is able to wear us down through trial and temptation, and thus get us to sin against God.

And that idea of harboring sin is endemic to hardening of the heart.  Notice it says in vs.13, “so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”  Sin results in hardening your heart.  Sin is deceitful.  The enemy tells us that a little sin doesn’t matter.  That God will forgive you.  That you’re just human.  That a man (or a woman) has to do what a man’s gotta do.  That’s the deceitfulness of sin.  It’s the lie that your sin will have no consequences.  But don’t forget the verse that I quoted last week from Galatians 6:7 “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.”   Do not think that you can live in unrepentant sin and not have to worry about it because God doesn’t care about it.  That’s a lie of Satan.  God is not mocked.   God will not be tested as the Israelites tested God in the wilderness of Sin.  God reproves and chastises those who are His. 

So a hardened heart is that heart that holds onto sin. And true worship of God is impossible if we continue in sin.  But the evidence of our salvation, the evidence that we are children of God, is that we continue in our faith.  And that continuance of our faith is what our sanctification is all about. That perseverance in faith is the means by which we are able to participate in all that Christ has promised us. Vs.14, “For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end.”  To become partaker of Christ is to partake of His nature first, and His ministry, and then His inheritance.  That’s our goal, to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. A heart that is cleansed and holy through faith in Christ, receives the fullness of the indwelling Spirit of Christ, who helps us to live like Christ, so that we might one day be raised like Christ, to be like Christ because we shall see Him as He is, and then to reign with Christ.  That’s what it means to be partakers with Christ.  That’s what it means to be sanctified through Christ.

And that perseverance of faith in trials, that continuance of faith to the end, is something that happens day after day, even today, as long as it’s today.   I like that quote from Winnie the Pooh, in which he asked, “What day is it?”  And Piglet squealed, “It’s today!”  And Winnie the Pooh squealed in return, “My favorite day!”  I think Today is God’s favorite day as well.  Today is the acceptable day of salvation.  Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as when they provoked Me.”  No matter which day of the week it is, if you’re alive it is always today.  Today is the time to turn to the Lord in repentance and faith.  Tomorrow may be too late, but there is time today.  Do not harden your heart today.  But call upon Him today while He may be found. 

Isaiah 55:6-7 “Seek the LORD while He may be found; Call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way And the unrighteous man his thoughts; And let him return to the LORD, And He will have compassion on him, And to our God, For He will abundantly pardon.”

So”TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE, DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS, AS WHEN THEY PROVOKED ME.” Then the Spirit asks in vs16 “For who provoked Him when they had heard? Indeed, did not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses?” In other words, it was those who had come out of captivity.  In the church age that would indicate that we who are Christians who have been brought out of captivity can provoke the Lord to anger by hardening our hearts.

Then the Spirit asks another  question in Vs. 17 “And with whom was He angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?”  To continue the parallel with the New Testament church, then that would correlate with Paul’s admonition to the church at Corinth, who were coming to church to eat the Lord’s Supper with unconfessed sin and the indication is that God put them to death.  Listen to 1Cor. 11:29-32 “For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly.  For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep. But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged.  But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be condemned along with the world.”  God will bring discipline to bear on His children that harden their hearts in disobedience.  And that discipline can even progress to the point of God taking your life, so that you are judged in the body, but saved in the spirit. (1 Peter 4:6) (1Cor.5:5)

And then one final question in vs18 “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 not able to enter because of unbelief.”  So there is a progression here which the Spirit warns starts with a hardening of the heart, which leads to going astray in your hearts, which results in an evil, unbelieving, disobedient heart, which brings about the judgment of God. 

Now I pray that no one here today hardens your heart against what the Holy Spirit is saying.  I’m not saying it.  Roy Harrell doesn’t know your heart.  I may see some outward evidence that indicates a condition of the heart, but I don’t know your heart.  But God knows your heart.  The good news is that God is willing and able to give you a new heart, to replace that heart of stone with a heart of flesh. To put His Spirit within you, so that you will keep His statues and walk in HIs ordinances.  So that you might walk in the truth, that you might walk in the Spirit.  And it’s available to all who call upon Him in faith and repentance.  David called out to God after His sin, and prayed, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”  Pray that prayer today, while it is still today, that  you may know the forgiveness and cleanness that God can give.  If you confess your sins, God is faithful and just to forgive your sins, and cleanse you from all unrighteousness.  Today you have heard His voice. Do not harden your heart.  Call upon Jesus today and enter into HIs rest.  

The book of Hebrews is a very challenging book to preach from, if not the most challenging of the New Testament, with the possible exception of Revelation.  Part of the difficulty in preaching it is that it is itself presented as a sermon, and so to bite off a passage and try to present it as a stand alone message is difficult.   The passages are designed to build upon the previous passage, and the whole book is series of arguments built one upon another, which reaches it’s grand summation in chapter 12.  

But if there is a constant theme to the book it would be to consider Jesus.  To look at Jesus intently.  To study Jesus.  He is the Message, He is the Messenger, He is our Creator, He is our Savior, He is our Redeemer, He is our High Priest, He is our example that we are to follow, and He is our Lord, to whom we must bow in obeisance and obedience.  He is the source of life, the source of wisdom, and the solution to all life’s problems.  So we must consider Jesus.

We have been looking in the previous two chapters at many of the characteristics of Jesus, and we will see even more this morning.  In the essence of time I’m not going to review all that we have said in previous messages, but I will point out that in the first word of our text, “therefore”, we know that this passage is built upon the previous arguments of the last two chapters.  You can read those chapters for yourself, or if you’re really industrious, you can read my previous messages on our website, thebeachfellowship.com, and you can hopefully learn all that “therefore” refers to.

In today’s passage, the Holy Spirit is telling us that Jesus is superior to one who was considered by the Jews to be the greatest prophet of all time, who was Moses.  And I’m afraid that some in the church might not be all that familiar with Moses and his ministry.  I’m afraid that a lot of people’s theology is informed by a movie called “The Ten Commandments” starring Charlton Heston who played Moses, or perhaps for our younger generation learned of Moses from an animated movie called the Prince of Egypt.  

And I would just recommend in passing that in cases of where Hollywood has attempted to portray some person or event in the Bible on film, I would highly recommend that you skip the movie and read the book.  I have yet to see Hollywood represent the Bible accurately.  And if you’re basing your theology on some movie you have seen then you are probably sorely misinformed.  So I urge you to read the Bible, of which the entire book, from Genesis to Revelation, teaches Jesus.  

But as my Dad used to say, I’ve stopped preaching and gone to meddling.  So let’s get back to our text.  However, if we are to understand the significance of what the Holy Spirit is saying in comparing Jesus to Moses, then it behooves us to know a little about Moses.  So as a refresher, let me say at the start that the Jewish people highly revered Moses above all other historical figures.  He was the man to whom God spoke face to face. He was a man who saw the glory of God. 

In Exodus 33 and 34 you may remember Moses saw the glory of God and it was reflected in his countenance so that when he came down from the mountain, his face shone so brightly that he had to put a veil over it. He was the one who led Israel out of Egypt. He was God’s chosen instrument to liberate His people from captivity. But beyond that, Moses was the one who gave the law.  Moses and the law were synonymous, and he is considered to be the author of the first five books of the Old Testament, called the Pentateuch. 

And as I said earlier some Jewish rabbis  even taught that Moses was greater than angels. Usually in the Old Testament we see that God spoke to prophets in visions, but to Moses, He spoke face to face. In Numbers 12, when God rebuked Aaron and Miriam for their jealousy of Moses, God said, “Hear now My words: If there is a prophet among you, I, the LORD, shall make Myself known to him in a vision. I shall speak with him in a dream. Not so, with My servant Moses, He is faithful in all My household;  With him I speak mouth to mouth, Even openly, and not in dark sayings, And he beholds the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid To speak against My servant, against Moses?”

God spoke to him in the burning bush. He spoke to him out of heaven. He spoke to him on Sinai and wrote the commandments with the finger of God. God spoke directly to Moses almost daily in the Tabernacle. The hand of God preserved Him as a baby, and the hand of God dug his grave at the end of his life. And between these two points of his life, there is nothing but one miracle after another in the life of Moses. During the greatest time of Israel’s history, it was Moses through whom God worked and God spoke. It was Moses who led the nation of Israel out of Egypt. It was Moses who led them through 40 years in the wilderness. It was Moses who instructed them from the mouth of God.  And so no man was more highly regarded among the Jewish people than Moses, and arguably, no one more highly regarded by God.

Yet the Holy Spirit says through Hebrews that we are to consider Jesus as worthy of more glory than Moses. This word, “consider” is made up from the Latin term sidus which means, a star. In fact, combined with the “con” means to “observe the stars,” consider.  That’s the English translation. Now, the Greek word is different. The Greek word is katanoeō, which means to fix the mind upon.  The word means set your mind to gaze intently on Jesus. Consider Jesus.

The world, even the so called Christian world, offers us many things for our consideration. There are many things constantly battling for our attention.  Things that are appealing to us in our flesh. There are so many possible topics that I could preach on this morning which would find a greater interest perhaps in the congregation.  Things like “How to live your best life now.”  “10 steps to fulfillment.”  “Dealing with family problems.” Etc, etc.  But the problem with those kind of topics is that while they are appealing to us, they are all about us.  And oftentimes it is nothing more than spiritualized self help doctrine. 

This kind of self interest doctrine  is kind of like having underdeveloped taste buds.  Good taste is an acquired thing.  The world offers up all kinds of things for us to taste, to eat of.  But what the world offers never really satisfies.  It offers up sweet things that may give you a sugar rush, but in the long run will leave you searching for more.  The things of God are an acquired taste.  You have to be taught to appreciate them.  But the more you consider the things of God, the more you appreciate it. And the more you grow spiritually mature.  The more you feast on spiritual food the less you find you have an appetite for physical things. 

When you’ve got problems, when you’re discouraged, when you experience broken relationships, when you’ve got health issues, whatever the situation, whatever the heart ache, the answer is not to consider yourself, but to consider Jesus.  Set your mind on Him. There used to be an old hymn that we sung at church when I was a boy, “Turn your eyes upon Jesus.” And a line in particular promised that when you turn your eyes upon Jesus  “ the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.”  Turn your eyes upon Jesus.  Fix your gaze upon Jesus.  Consider Jesus.

Hebrews 12 teaches that as believers we are running a race. And the key to running the race and finishing it well is to get  your eyes off yourself.  Fix your gaze on Jesus, and stay the course.  That’s what this author is really saying here, especially at the end of vs6.  Finish the course.  Stay focused on the author and finisher of our faith.  Run the race with patience and endure to the end.  Keep you eyes fixed on your captain. He has gone before us, so we can follow in His footsteps.  We know where to run, and how to run, by keeping our eyes on Jesus.

Now in instructing us to consider Jesus, the Spirit is going to say that Jesus is superior in His office, superior in His work, and superior in His person as contrasted to Moses. Superior in His office, He is the apostle and high priest, whereas Moses was just an apostle.  Superior in His work, because He is the builder of the house, whereas Moses was a servant in the house.  And  superior in His person, because He is the Son whereas Moses was a servant.

Now let’s look at each point in a little more detail.  First of all, the Holy Spirit says Jesus is superior to Moses in His office.  Hebrews has said in the previous 2 chapters that we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for just a little while. He said that He’s the captain of salvation. He said that He’s the sanctifier.  He said that He calls us brother. He said that He destroyed Satan and death. He said that He could deliver us out of bondage.

Now He gives Him two titles and this is where we’re going to see His office. He says that we should consider Jesus because He is the Apostle and the High Priest of our confession.  But in getting to this point, the author incidentally gives us three things that characterize us as believers.  And I don’t want to brush over these, because I think that they are instructive. Notice first that He calls us three things; holy, brethren, and partakers of a heavenly calling.  

Let’s consider what it means to be called holy.  We are considered holy because we are considered righteous.  Justification by grace is that God has counted our sins towards Jesus, and transferred His righteousness to us, that by faith we might be righteous, holy towards God.  But as we said last week, being holy refers to being consecrated, sanctified.  All of those words simply mean set apart.  God has set us apart from the world, to be used for worship in the heavenly tabernacle.  

In the tabernacle of the Jews, the utensils and instruments used in priestly service were first of all sprinkled with the blood of the sacrifice, which made them holy, set apart for temple service.  It was no longer to be used for common things, but holy things.  That is sanctification in a nutshell.  It is being set apart by our justification through Christ’s blood for holy things.  

And because we are sanctified, Jesus is not ashamed to call us His brethren.  Heb. 2:11 “For both He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one [Father;] for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren.” Jesus also was sanctified or set apart for the work and purpose of God.  He came not to do His own will, but the will of Him who sent Him.

So Jesus’s work of redemption has made it possible for us to be part of the family of God.  Brothers and sisters of Christ. Children of God.  And that leads to the third characteristic that we have, which is partakers of the heavenly calling.  That means partakers of salvation.  We have answered the call of God by faith in Christ, and received the inheritance of the kingdom of God.  Now all of that comes through Jesus Christ.  Christ working for us, and in us, and through us. 

So seeing all that we are and will be in Christ, consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession.  He is the  Apostle, in bringing the message of God to us, and He is the  “High Priest,” bringing us before the Lord God and guaranteeing our acceptance.  Apostle simply means sent one.  Jesus sent out 12 apostles to preach the gospel.  But Jesus was the foremost Apostle, sent from the Father to bring the message of the gospel, the word of God.  John 12:49 “For I did not speak on My own initiative, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me a commandment [as to] what to say and what to speak.”

And as our High Priest, Jesus is God’s representative to man, manifesting the exact nature and character and truth of God, and He is man’s representative to God, having become like us in all things, yet without sin.  He is the bridge from man to God, and from God to man.  Moses, you will recall, was God’s man through whom He spoke, but Aaron was the High Priest.  Jesus is better than Moses in that He fulfills both offices perfectly.  So Jesus is superior in His office.

Secondly, in vs2, the Spirit says that Jesus was superior in HIs work.  And here is a simple comparison of the work of Jesus with that of Moses to show Jesus is superior.  The most obvious conclusion is that Moses was a type of Christ, a picture of Christ, whereas Jesus is the completion of that picture.  He is the fulfillment of all that Moses prefigured. 

Notice first that He says in vs2, that Jesus was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was in all His house.  Jesus was faithful to His mission from God.  John 6:38 “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” Jesus always did the Father’s will. He was faithful unto death.  I believe that we will be judged on our faithfulness.  I think one of the marks of sanctification is faithfulness.  Faithfulness in little things is a big thing in the eyes of God. Jesus said in Luke 16, if you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in great things.

It’s interesting that Moses is not compared to Jesus on his weakness, but on his strength.  He says that Moses was faithful. For 40 years, Moses was faithful to God as he led the children of Israel in the wilderness. And so the author compares Jesus to Moses in a favorable light, that both were faithful to God.  

But notice that it says Jesus was faithful to Him who sent Him, as Moses was faithful in all his house.  What is meant by all his house?  It means household. It speaks of the household of God, the believers. The Old Testament believers of Israel. Moses was faithful in God’s household. He was a steward or the keeper of Israel. It says in 1 Corinthians, “Moreover brethren it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful.” Now a steward is somebody who doesn’t own the house, he manages it for the owner. God owns the house of Israel, Moses ministered to the house. He was in charge of dispensing the word of God to the people of Israel. And Moses was found faithful. 

And Christ  also was faithful to His house. Who is Christ’s household?  The answer is found in Ephesians 2:19. “Now therefore you are no more strangers and sojourners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God.” The household of God then is the  church. We’re the house of Christ.

1Peter 2:4-5 “And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God,  you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”  

What a tremendous thing it is to be a part of Christ’s household.  To be a part of the family of God.  We are made holy, righteous, even a holy priesthood, so that we might offer up spiritual sacrifices which are acceptable to God, all because of what Jesus has done for us.  So Jesus is superior in HIs work because His work is superior to that of Moses.  Moses was faithful to his house, Israel, but Jesus is faithful to the church universal.  And that’s far superior.

If Jesus has done a mighty work in you, that you have been made part of a royal priesthood, offering up sacrifices to God, then I trust that it might be said of you that you are faithful in your house. You are faithfully employing the gifts and resources that God has  given to you as  spiritual sacrifices to God.  

I am reminded of the story of DL Moody.  Moody was a poorly educated, unordained, shoe salesman who felt God’s call to preach the gospel. Early one morning he and some friends gathered in a hay field for a season of prayer, confession, and consecration. His friend Henry Varley said, “The world has yet to see what God can do with and for and through and in a man who is fully and wholly consecrated to Him.” Moody was deeply moved by these words. He later went to a meeting where Charles Spurgeon was speaking. In that meeting Moody recalled the words spoken by his friend, “The world has yet to see what God can do with and for and through and in a man who is fully and wholly consecrated to Him.” Varley meant any man! Varley didn’t say he had to be educated, or brilliant, or anything else. Just a man! Well, by the Holy Spirit in him, Moody determined to be one of those men. Then suddenly, in that high gallery, he saw something he’d never realized before.  It was not Mr. Spurgeon, after all, who was doing that work; it was God. And if God could use Mr. Spurgeon, why should He not use the rest of us, and why should we not all just lay ourselves at the Master’s feet and say to Him, “Send me! Use me!”? D. L. Moody was an ordinary man who sought to be fully and wholly committed to Christ. God did extraordinary things through this ordinary man. Moody became one of the great evangelists of modern times. He founded a Bible college, Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, which sends out men and women trained in service for God.  And my prayer is that you too might be a person that is wholly consecrated to God, that He might do a mighty work through you.  

Thirdly, Jesus is superior in His person. His person is superior verses 5 and 6.  Verse 5, “Now Moses was faithful in all his house as a servant.” In Exodus 40, eight times it refers to Moses’ obedience to do all that God commanded him. That’s pretty amazing.  In Exodus 35 to 40, 22 times it refers to Moses faithfulness to obey all that God commanded him. Can you say that about your life? Could God say of you that He obeyed all that I commanded him or her to do?     

That’s the key to sanctification, by the way.  It’s obedience.  Obedience to the word of God. Rom. 6:19 “For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in [further] lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.”  Obedience to righteousness results in sanctification. 

So Moses was faithful. Moses was faithful as a servant to the house.  But Jesus is faithful because He is the builder of the house. Vs.3, “For He has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, by just so much as the builder of the house has more honor than the house.For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.”  And so we see that Hebrews declares that Jesus is God, and thereby greater for He created all things.

Notice verse 5. “Now Moses was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken later.”  In other words, Moses was faithful as a testimony to those things which were yet to be said in Christ.  Moses was a type.  Jesus was the fulfillment.  We can learn a lot about Jesus through Moses.  But not completely.  Jesus is the completeness of the picture we see in Moses.

Jesus said Moses wrote of Him.  John 5:46, “For had you believed Moses, Jesus said, you would have believed me for he wrote of me.”  And so it is that the word of God tells us in Hebrews 3:5 that Moses was only a servant who pointed to something which would come after that. He was a steward of another’s house.

Verse 6, “But Christ,” “not a servant, but a Son” over His own house, whose house are we.” Do you know who Christ’s house is? You say this church  building or that church building is the Lord’s house. No, a building is not the Lord’s house. “Whose house we are.” We are the Lord’s house. We are built together, Ephesians 2:22 says,  for an habitation of the Spirit. We are the Lord’s house. 1Cor. 3:16 “Do you not know that you are a temple of God and [that] the Spirit of God dwells in you?”

How can we be sure that we’re really His house? Verse 6, “whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end.”  Now this statement causes some concern to those who may not be familiar with the full teaching of scripture in regards to salvation.  But the truth of salvation is that you couldn’t save yourself, it is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.  Salvation is by grace.

So in the same manner, you couldn’t keep yourself saved. If your salvation depends on you keeping yourself saved then none of us have a hope.  What is it saying then? It’s saying this, “whose house are you if you hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end.” That simply means that the continuance of your faith is the proof of the reality of your faith.The continuance of your faith is evidence that you are really saved. Falling away is evidence that you were never of the faith. 1 John 2:19 it says, “They went out from us, but they were not of us.” Listen to this, “For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us, but they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not of us.”  You may stumble from time to time, you may get off track from time to time, but the fact that you continue to follow after the Lord is evidence that you are the Lord’s.

Now in addition to that premise, remember what I said last week about salvation.  We are justified, sanctified and glorified in our salvation.  All three elements are essential.  And in a kind of subliminal way I think this passage today we’re looking at is speaking of sanctification.  Sanctified is the second stage of salvation.  I think it’s possible to be saved, and yet fall away from our purpose, from our salvation, not to eternal destruction, but to a lost reward.  Not to losing our citizenship in the kingdom of God, our place in God’s family, but in losing our purpose; our sanctification.  And that is going to result in our being saved, yet though as by fire.

And part of the sanctification process is that God will discipline those that are HIs children, that they might be obedient, and that they might be kept from destruction. Heb. 12:6-8, 11 “FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES, AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES.”  It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom [his] father does not discipline?  But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. … 11 All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.”

So discipline is the means by which we bear fruit.  John 15:1-2, “I am the true vine and my Father is the vine dresser. Every branch of me that bears not fruit, He takes away. Every branch that bears fruit, He purges it that it may bring forth more fruit.”  So the goal of sanctification is that we might bear fruit, that we might be faithful, that we might be obedient and fulfill our calling in Christ Jesus. 

So in conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, consider Jesus.  Consider Him first of all as your Lord and Savior.  If you have not truly become part of the household of God by faith in Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and to be made holy and a child of God, then I urge you today to receive Him as your Savior.  Salvation is the free gift of God.  Call on Him to forgive you, to remake you, and convert you, to adopt you into the family of God.  

Secondly, to you who are Christians already consider Jesus. Learn to live your whole life with your eyes on Him.  As we look steadfastly upon Jesus, the things of this world start to grow dim.  And we find that He is sufficient for every need.  He is superior to every temptation, to every trial.  He is worthy of our worship and our service.  He is worthy of all glory and honor.  Let us give Him our all, and may we be found faithful when He comes.

I presume that if I were to ask you why you came to church today, you would answer something along the lines that you are here to worship God.  The next question though I would ask is, what is worship?  And to that I suppose I might get a great variety of answers.  Worship seems to have a rather loose description today in ecumenical circles. 

I had a friend that recently passed away, and she had never been to our church, but she had heard of it.  She lived outside of DC, but never came to this area to the beach.  However, she did visit Naples, Florida during the winter a few years ago and while there she saw an ad for a worship service on the beach.  So being familiar in theory with what we do here, she decided to go and try it out.  And she said that it was a lot of fun. She said that during the service they had some music playing and a giant beach ball that the congregation kept bouncing up in the air.  

Now, I guess that might be entertaining.  But I doubt that qualifies as worship.  I commonly hear people asking, “What is the worship style of your church?” People tend to think that there are a variety of flavors available, such as at Baskin Robbins, and you just need to pick the kind that you like.  However, our worship should not be about pleasing us, but pleasing God.  The quality of your band, the quality of your meeting place, the quality of your congregation, or the quality of your speaker is not indicative of the quality of your worship.  God is the judge of what worship is acceptable to Him.  Cain and Abel both came to worship God.  But God accepted Abel’s worship, and not Cain’s.  It’s important that we know what is pleasing to God.

And by the way, that shows that sincerity is not a guarantee that your worship will be acceptable.  Jesus said, “God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” So it’s essential that our worship is according to God’s truth.

Another question is what happens when we worship?  What is Jesus doing as we worship? I think this passage today reveals that Jesus is engaged in His High priestly ministry. In chapter 8:2 Jesus is described as a minister in the tent which God erected. “We have such a high priest, who has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens,

a minister in the sanctuary and in the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man.” The Hebrews used to have a tent, a tabernacle, and then a great, beautiful temple, but in the New Testament they had someone’s living room, a river bank, or a beach.   But Hebrews tells us that this new covenant is far better than the rituals and ceremonies of the old temple service.

How is that possible?  How is this spiritual worship better than the pomp and ceremony, the costumes of the priests, the burning candles and incense, the aroma of burning sacrifices? The difference is as the author of Hebrews told us in vs.9, in spiritual worship we see Jesus.  We look at Him, we study Him, we obey Him, we serve Him.  We worship Him.  He is the physical manifestation of the nature and essence of God.  And the Spirit of Jesus is in the midst of the true tabernacle, His church.  He said, “Where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there  in their midst.”

So the first aspect of true worship is that Jesus is the worship leader; He is the Chief Shepherd, or the chief pastor of the church.  He is the captain of the church.  He leads HIs children into the presence of God.  To come before God we must be holy, righteous.  And we are made righteous by the author of our salvation, who is Jesus Christ. Vs10, “For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.” Only by representative suffering may man regain his purpose of fellowship with God. It is necessary that our debt be paid and our Lord has paid the debt. And by paying the debt, God is freed to give to men what he has determined to give them, adoption as children of God, and by extension the inheritance of authority and kingship over the earth.

Conceivably, God could have engineered a way to save us that did not require the suffering of the Son of God. But it was fitting for Jesus to save us at the cost of His own suffering and death. This is the ultimate illustration of the fact that real love, real giving, involves sacrifice. As David said: “I will not offer to the Lord that which costs me nothing.”  (2 Samuel 24:24). God’s love for us revealed  itself in sacrifice and God could not make a substitutionary sacrifice unless He added humanity to His deity and suffered on our behalf.  And in like measure, our worship requires sacrifice. Love requires sacrifice. Worship without sacrifice is just empty flattery.

There is a principle of hermeneutics which is called the principle of first mention.  That is, if you are trying to understand a word of scripture, then it is often a good idea to go to the first place in the Bible that the word is used, and as you study it’s usage in that context, it will usually be an indication of how you should interpret it in later passages. 

And it’s interesting that the word worship is first used in the Bible in reference  to sacrifice.  Abraham, you will remember, was obeying God by taking his son Isaac to the mountain that he might sacrifice him to the Lord.  And as Abraham is considering what must have been the horror of that thought, that he would put to death his son, in hope that God would raise him up again from the dead in order to keep his promises to Abraham, he turns to his servants and says, in Genesis 22:5, “Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go over there; and we will worship and return to you.”  

Can you conceive of the word worship being used to convey the idea that you would offer up your son in obedience to the Lord in a sacrifice?  And yet that is the context of the word worship.  And I would suggest that sacrifice is what God requires of us in worship today.  Consider Romans 12:1,”Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, [which is] your spiritual service of worship.”

So the author of Hebrews says, it was fitting for God, from whom are all things, and to whom are all things, to perfect the captain of their salvation through suffering.  Why was it fitting?  Because Hebrews 9:22 says that  without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. Because before the grace of God could be expressed, the justice of God had to be satisfied. Thus it was fitting that Jesus had to pay the ultimate price for our transgressions, so that we might receive the grace of God.  God couldn’t and wouldn’t wink at sin.  God didn’t stop counting our sins in the church age.  He just counted them against Jesus.  He punished Jesus so that we might be made righteous and holy.  So that we might become adopted into the family of God.

Notice that word “perfect.”  In no way does that infer that Jesus was not perfect.  He was perfect in all things, without sin, blameless, otherwise He could never be the spotless Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world.  But perfect in this sense means complete.  He completed our salvation by becoming obedient unto death.  He completed the Father’s plan, He was faithful.  He persevered even unto death. He added something to His nature which made Him the complete, perfect Savior.  And that was human nature.  He became like us, that we might be made like Him. That we might be His brothers and sisters in God’s family.

And that leads us to another characteristic of worship which is presented here in this passage. 

Jesus is gathering us into worship as God’s family.  “For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all from one Father; for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren,.” We are all of the same human family, so Jesus is not ashamed to call them (that is, us) brethren. He could not be our brother unless He was also human like us.

So that is what He means when the author quotes from Isaiah, “I will put my trust in Him.”  Jesus put His trust in God, that because of His righteousness He would not allow His holy One to see decay, that God would raise Him from the dead.  So we as His brothers, put our trust in God as well, that God will raise us from the dead because of the righteousness of Jesus Christ which He applied to us.

The next verse is another quote from Isaiah; “Here am I” says Jesus, “and the children you have given Me.”  The church of Jesus is designed to become family.  The principal perspective of  New Testament worship is that the church is a family.  That is how we impact one another, as family. We are to love one another as we love a family member.   Worship is the assembly of the family of God.   

We are coming to God our Great King, in all HIs glory, but we are coming as HIs children.  Accepted into the family of God by the atonement of Jesus Christ on our behalf.  Church programs can not change us, but our adoption changes us. Col.1:13 “For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son.”  We have become children of God. Made like Jesus, with His nature, clothed in HIs righteousness, conformed to HIs image.

And that act of being conformed to His image is indicated in the phrase, “sanctified.” Sanctification is essential for worship.  I think it is really better to read it, “For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one…”  Jesus sanctifies us, but we are being sanctified.  Sanctification is a progression.  We are justified by faith in Jesus Christ.  But we are sanctified, or set apart to righteousness in obedience to our profession, as we follow in the footsteps of Jesus.  Eph. 2:10 “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”

Sanctified means to be consecrated, holy, set apart for service to God.  It was used in the temple worship to describe vessels used in service to the Lord which were first sprinkled with blood, and then set apart to only be used for holy service.  That is what we are to be; holy to the Lord. Set apart, consecrated.  We are no more to be consumed with common things, worldly things, but to be set apart for good works. 

Going back to Romans 12, after it says we are to present our bodies to the Lord for service, which is our acceptable service, it then follows, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”   Our worship then requires sanctification, being set apart from the world, to be ministers of God.

Not only does Jesus sanctify us for worship, but Jesus leads us in our worship.  The writer quotes from Psalm 22. “I will proclaim your name to my brethren, In the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.”  Notice first that our relationship to Jesus is emphasized again. Jesus did not divest himself of his humanity because he had finished his work on earth.  He was raised in that humanity, and ascended to heaven in his humanity, and remains in his humanity that he might forever be our brother. 

And then notice two things in this verse that Jesus does to lead us in worship.  He proclaims or preaches the name of God to His church, and Jesus leads the singing in the congregation. The word congregation there is the Greek word “ekklēsia” which is the word we get our word church from.  It means “called out ones.”  Ties right in with being sanctified, doesn’t it?  We are called out from the world, into the adoption of sons, that we might be the family of God.  And in that family, Jesus leads us in worship of God.  His word is proclaimed, and HIs songs are sung.

It’s interesting to remember that the songbook of Jesus was the Psalms.  That is what the book of Psalms was for the Jews, it was their hymnbook.  And everywhere you turn in the New Testament the Psalms are being quoted or referred to.  Jesus quoted the Psalms extensively.  

Paul said be filled with the Spirit as you are singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.   Our access to understanding the emotional life of Jesus is found in the Psalms.  This is where David expresses Christ’s personality and His emotions. Consider this Psalm that Hebrews is quoting, Psalm 22.  We find Jesus quoting from this Psalm while suffering on the cross.  Vs.1, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?”  The whole Psalm goes on to describe the sufferings of the cross. It’s interesting that the author just finished saying it was fitting for Jesus to have suffered, and then quotes from this Psalm to show our relationship to Him.

What’s important for us to remember about the Psalms is that they are scripture.  And so though we don’t often sing the Psalms today, but it remains that when we sing songs, we need to be singing scripture, and teaching doctrines of the gospel, even as the Psalms do.

I’m afraid that all too often our popular songs we sing in the church today do not really reflect the complete gospel as taught in the Psalms.  Some folks must think that for a song to be praise to God, it must be joyful and upbeat.  But I would suggest that is not what a study of the Psalms teach. The Psalms express worship in all aspects of life; not only in exuberance and cheerfulness, but also in fear, anxiety, heartbreak, loneliness, brokenness,  and repentance.  Unfortunately the church has abandoned singing the songs that Jesus sang.  But ironically the author of Hebrews talks so much about the new and better era of the church, but uses the Psalms to tell us about Jesus.

In God honoring worship, not only is Jesus the worship leader, but Jesus does the preaching of the word.  “I will tell of your name to my brothers.” In the preaching of the gospel it is Jesus himself who speaks.  In the power of the Spirit of Christ, Jesus preaches as He is preached. Romans 10:14 “How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?” 

It is oxymoronic that we can claim to worship God without the preaching of the word of God.  1Cor. 1:21 “For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.”  To know God, is to worship God.  Jesus proclaimed the name of God means that He proclaimed the attributes of God, the wisdom of God, the plan of God. 

In Ephesians 2, Paul says that Christ preached to those who were near, and those who were far off. Those near were those who heard Him, those far away are those who heard the apostles preaching. For instance, Christ preached in Ephesus through the preaching of Paul.

Another aspect of worship is that Jesus delivers us from the power of sin and death and the devil. [Heb 2:14 “Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil.”  We can’t worship the Lord if we are held captive by Satan.  

David said in another Psalm, “if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.”  Our bondage to sin keeps us from fellowship with God, which is the heart of worship. Jesus died on  the cross not only to deliver us from the penalty of sin, which is death, but also the power of sin. Romans 6:8-11 “Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him.  For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

The second part of this principle is found in our text in vs15, “and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.”  Sin is addictive, is it not?  All sin has an addictive quality to it.  And whatever you are addicted to, you are enslaved to.  The unsaved person lives a life of sin because they believe this life is all that they can count on.  “Eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”  The theme song of the 60’s generation was expressed by a band called the Grassroots, with a song called “Let’s live for today.” Sha la la la la la live for today, Sha la la la la la live for today, And don’t worry ’bout tomorrow, hey“ Live for today.  That’s the motto of the world.  As John Lennon said, imagine there is no heaven, there is no eternal life.  Get as much as you can because you only have one life and it’s going fast.  But Christ has come to show us a better way, a way to eternal life, a way to be set free from the lies of the devil.

The final aspect of worship is that Jesus has come to help us in our need.  The goal of worship is not to meet our needs, but the wonder of worship is that when we worship Jesus, He also meets our needs.  Vs16 “For assuredly He does not give help to angels, but He gives help to the descendant of Abraham.”  I said last week that angels are not offered salvation.  Those angels who rebelled against God are condemned to eternal punishment.  But God has made it possible to reconcile man who rebelled to come to Him.  

And specifically that is those who are descendants of Abraham.  We are told in the scriptures that to be a descendant of Abraham is to be of the faith of Abraham. Galatians 3:7 “Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham.”

Jesus is able to help us because He is One of us, He is fully human and fully God.  He is able to help us because He suffered in all things as we have suffered, yet without sin.  Vs17 says, “Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.  For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted.” 

When we come to Jesus in worship, believing in Him as our Lord and Savior, coming to Him in our time of need, in our time of loneliness, or abandonment, or suffering, or sickness, or temptation, or depression, or anxiety, coming to Him no matter what the trouble may be, we can find in Him an ever present help in time of need.  He is able to empathize with our weaknesses, having experienced the same temptations and trials of humanity that we experience.  Yet because He is also the sinless Son of God, our great champion who has defeated the enemies of mankind,  He is able to help us, to be our faithful High Priest, to be our Mediator.  Because of the surpassing greatness of His atonement, God has adopted us as sons, and we share in the inheritance of sons, even in the inheritance of Jesus Christ.  

Romans 8:32 “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?”  We have a tremendous inheritance, in which God has promised good to us, He has promised life to us, even eternal life, and an eternal inheritance in glory with God.  

The final question for you today in light of all this, is are you a son or daughter of God?  Have you been made holy and righteous through faith in Christ Jesus?  Have you received the adoption that is offered as children of God?  Worship of God is only possible as we have been made holy by faith in what Jesus has accomplished for us.  Trust in Him today as your Savior and Lord, that you might be made a child of God and receive all that God has desired for us.

In ancient times, there was a type of warfare that was often employed, which is illustrated in the familiar story of David and Goliath.  Everyone here I am sure is familiar with this story.  But what I want to emphasize from the story is the manner in which the battle was fought between the Philistines and the Israelites.  Goliath was the dread champion of the Philistines.  And everyday he would come out and taunt the army of God and challenge them to put up a man who would fight him.  And if you remember, he offered the Philistines to be the slaves of Israel if their champion should win, and said that if the Israelite lost, then they Israelites would serve the Philistines.  

Now that was a popular method of combat in those days; to allow your champions to duel together which decided the fate of the battle.  It meant much less cost and loss of life for either side.  But if you remember, the Israelites had no one that wanted to take on the giant.  Goliath was such a formidable, powerful warrior that defeating him must have seemed impossible and a sure way to an early, inglorious death.  But of course you know the story, and David, who was a type of Christ, (those of you who have been coming to Bible study knows this) David who was a type of Christ offered to take on the champion.  And by the strength of God, he prevailed.  

Though the Bible teaches this is an actual, historical event, it also serves as a metaphor of what Christ did on our behalf.  We as the church are the army of God, and the devil is the ruler of this world, who taunts us, and tempts us, and has enslaved the world through his deceit.  But Christ came to our rescue, and as our champion, as the Captain of the hosts of the Lord has fought against evil and prevailed, and we that are his have prevailed as well.  We are no longer enslaved to the devil and the world, but we are victorious over sin and death through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Martin Luther, the great reformer who lived in the 1500’s, wrote a hymn called “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” in which he speaks of this victory over Satan.  

A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing;

Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing:

For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe;

His craft and power are great, and, armed with cruel hate,

On earth is not his equal.

Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing;

Were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own choosing:

Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He;

Lord Sabaoth, His Name, from age to age the same,

And He must win the battle.

And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,

We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us:

The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him;

His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure,

One little word shall fell him.

Now that is what this passage we are looking at today is teaching us.  Jesus has been presented in the preceding verses as superior to the angels in every way.  The author now goes to the next logical step, which is that not only is Jesus superior in position and authority, but also in power, and has defeated the angelic powers that rule in the heavenly places.  Ephesians 6:12 tells us this is so; “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual [forces] of wickedness in the heavenly places.”  And in defeating these angelic powers and overcoming sin and death, He has set free man from his enslavement to sin, and restored to man what he lost in the fall, which is his dominion over the world.  

Jesus is Superior, He is our Champion, He is the second Adam, He is the representative Man, He is fully God and fully Man, the hypostatic union of divinity and humanity in perfect fellowship with God, because He is the Son of God and perfectly able to intercede for men, because He is the Son of Man. So Jesus avails for man, as man’s champion, as man’s perfect representative, as foreshadowed by David triumphing over Goliath on behalf of the people of God.

Now the author of Hebrews broaches the subject of man’s favor of God by saying as his introductory argument what we read in vs5, “For He did not subject to angels the world to come, concerning which we are speaking.”  Note carefully what he says here; God did not subject to angels the world to come…”  The key is understanding what he means when he says, “the world to come.”  He is referring to the new heavens and the new world which will be remade at the consummation of the Kingdom of God, when Jesus Christ returns in judgment and to claim His church.  Peter says in 2 Peter 3 that this present world and it’s works will be burned up with an intense heat, but we are looking for a new heaven and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

The point that is being made, is that though we don’t see our destiny being fulfilled now, man was created to have dominion over the world.  Angels were not created for that purpose. But let me preface this by saying that I believe the Bible teaches that God has created man in two stages. The first stage was the physical creation in which the world was to be our dominion.  The second stage is the spiritual creation. In the spiritual creation we have been promised restored dominion over the world, or worlds.  But in the physical creation when man fell he relinquished his dominion to the devil and his angels.

Now let me try to explain. In Genesis 1:26 it says, then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”  God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.  God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Now there is a month of sermons in those verses, but let me just focus on my point; God said man was to rule over the earth, to rule over all of creation, to subdue the earth.  We were made in the image and likeness of God, to be a fitting companion for God.  To rule and to reign with God.  But at the fall, man sinned, sin entered into the world, and death by sin.  And because man listened to the serpent’s lies and deceit, Satan usurped the power to rule this world which was rightfully ours.   Consequently, I John 5:19 says, “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.”

A theologian named G. K. Chesterton once said, “Whatever else is, or is not, true, this one thing is certain. Man is not what he was meant to be. Instead of having the mastery, he is mastered. Instead of ruling, he is enslaved. Instead of being characterized by strength, he’s characterized by great weakness. Instead of being an ally of the Lord God, subject to Him, the Scriptures tell us that he is a rebel against God. Instead of being characterized by glory, he’s characterized by shame. Man seeks his destiny by tyranny and cruelty. There is still something planted within the nature of man that leads him to want to rule.”

So the present condition of man, mastered by sin, but he’s promised dominion. Martin Luther said, and I paraphrase, “man was tied in a knot, which only God can unravel.” What’s the solution? Well, after saying, “But now we do not see yet all things put under him,” the author goes on to say, “But we see Jesus.”

But it is not immediately as the Son of God which the author describes, but as the Son of Man.  And he quotes from Psalm 8, a psalm of David. The psalm is speaking regarding man, but it can also be interpreted Messianically, as the Son of God.  But literally, it speaks of man, and the author of Hebrews is interpreting it that way, though seeing it fulfilled in the representative man, the Man Christ Jesus.

In Psalm 8 which is quoted in part here in Hebrews, David speaks in wonder at the consideration which God has given to men.  He says, “What is man, that You are concerned about him?”  David finds it astonishing, as he considers the grandeur of the heavens, or looks out at far distant mountain ranges, and recognizes the smallness and insignificance of man in comparison to the magnitude of creation.

As David considers the creation of man, and God’s purpose in putting all things in subjection to him, David asks, “What is man, that you are concerned about him?”  David realizes that man was intended for so much more. I’m reminded of the song by a popular band called Switchfoot which has the line, “we were meant to live for so much more…”  We were meant to live with God, to be like God, to be one with God, and to rule with God. And David is astonished as he considers this.

The psalmist goes on to say, “YOU HAVE MADE HIM FOR A LITTLE WHILE LOWER THAN THE ANGELS.”  The key to that sentence is “for a little while.” It can actually be interpreted two ways, and both are true; We were made a little lower than the angels, and we were made or a little while lower than the angels.  That is, until the world to come comes in it’s fulfillment.  This, I believe, is the reason for the jealous anger of Satan towards the church.  He wanted to be like the Most High.  But chapter 1vs14 says that God chose to make angels His ministers for the sake of those who would inherit salvation.  And salvation belongs to men, not to angels.  Angels who have rebelled against God are eternally damned.  But for man, who has rebelled against God, He has prepared a way for us to be reconciled to Him, and to escape our condemnation.  

In fact, in 1 Cor. 6:13 Paul said that we who are Christ’s will one day judge angels.  Angels are superior to us now in power, and in the fact that they are spirit beings, and not subject to natural limitations of the body such as we have.  But at the consummation, when Christ appears, 1John 3:2 says we shall be like Christ, for we shall see Him as He is.  At that time, we will no longer be lower than the angels, but we will be exalted, and glorified, and share in the inheritance of Christ.  What a magnificent thing to consider.  No wonder David said, “What is man, that you are concerned so about Him.”

David says, “You have crowned him with glory and honor, and have appointed him over the works of your hands, you have put all things in subjection under his feet.”  Now as I have already said, man lost his crown.  Man lost his glory at the fall.  Man no longer has dominion over the world, but the world has dominion over man.  As the scripture says, “in Adam all died.”  As Adam our forefather sinned, so sin passed to all men, and therefor all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

But God raised up another Adam, the Second Adam, to take the place as the representative man, as the author of a new creation, even Jesus Christ.  He as our champion was able to overcome the world, and triumph over sin and death, and He is exalted in heaven to sit at the right hand of the throne of God.  And through His victory, we are victorious.  Ephesians 2 tells us that we are spiritually seated with Christ in the heavenly realm.  Listen to this; Eph. 2:1-7 “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,  in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.  Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.  But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,  even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),  and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly [places] in Christ Jesus,  so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

So for now, the author of Hebrews tells us in vs.8, though we were intended to have dominion, we do not yet see all things subjected to him.  The world is still in darkness.  Death and sin still exist in the world.  The angels of the rebellion still have a measure of power on this earth.  We do not yet see all things subjected to man. 

But we do see Jesus.  He is our champion. He is our representative. We do see Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels for a little while, but now He is no longer so, but He is seated at the right hand of the Majesty on High, God having put all things under His feet.

We see, as we look out over the world, creation is not subject to man. Man is not what he is going to be. All things are not yet put under him. But if we  look up and see Jesus, what do we see? We see the guarantee that these promises will be ours, because he is our great representative. He is the Champion that has defeated sin and death for all men.

There is something interesting which is inferred here, I believe, and verified elsewhere in the scriptures, that Jesus in making Himself a little lower than the angels, in taking upon himself human nature and human flesh, became one of us, and remains one of us.  He took upon Himself human nature, and remains so, for our sake. He betrothed human nature to Himself, forever. That He might be our great High Priest, the perfect Mediator between God and man.

Charles Spurgeon said, “We know that had (Jesus) only been God yet still he would not have been fitted for a perfect Savior, unless he had become man. Man had sinned; man must suffer. It was man in whom God’s purposes had been for a while defeated; it must be in man that God must triumph over his great enemy.” So Christ is forever wedded to human nature. He ascended into heaven in human flesh, and will in the same manner come again. 

Now that is love that is incomprehensible. Imagine a king of a great country, of great wealth and power, falling in love with a peasant girl in a far away country.  And because of his great love for her, laying aside the privilege and rank of his own country, to became a peasant in her country.  Or in a more contemporary setting, imagine a super hero movie where the supernatural, immortal hero falls in love with a mortal young woman, and somehow relinquishes his immortality for the sake of having his love on earth.  Such illustrations pale in comparison to what Christ has done for us in taking on human flesh and human nature, that He would forever be our bridegroom.

Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor.  Because He was willing to humble Himself even to the point of death, to subject Himself to torture from His own creation, to being reviled and yet silent, to being whipped, to being spit upon, to being naked and hung up for the world to walk by and shake their heads.  What humility was Christ’s.  And because He committed Himself to suffer death, He was crowned with glory and honor.  He was exalted to the right hand of the Father.  And because He is at the right hand of God, we can rest assured that His sacrifice was considered acceptable to God. 

As Paul says in Phil. 2:8-11 “Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.  For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,  so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth,  and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Notice in our  text the last little statement, “That He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone,” which outlines the spiritual significance of His death.  In other words, the spiritual application of His death was to provide the means for the new birth to everyone who believes in Him. In dying, He died for us.  He died so that we might live.  He paid the price that was due to us, so that we might have life through Him. His death wasn’t merely His own physical death, but was the substitutionary atonement which was applied on man’s behalf.

Now that is the grace of God that the author speaks of.  Grace is getting what you don’t deserve.  Mercy is not getting what you deserve.  Grace is getting what you don’t deserve.  It’s a gift of God.  God gave His only begotten Son to die, so that whosoever believes in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life.  That is the love of God.  It required a satisfaction of God’s justice.  But in addition to that, God gives us life by transferring to us the righteousness of Jesus Christ.  That results in new life.  Spiritual life.  We are a new creation.  Man’s second birth is by the grace of God, through Jesus Christ who tasted death as the representative man, as our Champion. Though He triumphed over sin, He suffered unto death, for our sakes.

And as He is now exalted on high, so we shall be.  We who believe in Him, who worship Him for who He is and what He has done, will be caught up together to be with Him, in the new heavens and the new earth, as His new creation, that we might receive glory and honor with Him.   O Lord, What is man, that you are thus concerned about Him?  I can hardly fathom this tremendous inheritance that you have procured for us.  The question remains, what is your response to this grace?  What is your response to Him today?  Will you bow your knee to Him, and worship Him, and exalt Him, and live for Him today?  He has given an invitation to all, to come to Him, to find remission of your sins and to have the new life which is eternal, in which we will find our fulfilled destiny as sons and daughters of God.  Do not delay.  Come to Jesus, the author and finisher of our salvation.

Today I just want to examine these first four verses of chapter 2.  I don’t want to rush over this very important application and the question that Hebrews provides here in this section.  And so we are going to go word by word and line for line, to make sure that we get the full import of this message which was written to the early church, because it is applicable to the modern church as well, if not even more so.

Chapter 2 starts with the phrase “for this reason” or depending on your translation, it may say “therefore,” which points back to the argument given in chapter one, which was that it is the last days,  or the last era, and God has spoken in these last days through Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  The argument made the point that word or gospel which He has spoken is greater than that of the prophets of old.  They spoke having seen through a veil, not having the full revelation at that time.  But in these last days, God has spoken completely and perfectly through His Son.  Jesus is not a messenger from God, He is the message from God.  He has spoken perfectly through His Son. 

The other point made in this opening argument is that Jesus is far superior than the angels.  Angels, for all their supernatural power, are created beings.  And Jesus made all things, thus He made the angels.  Furthermore, He is the Son of God.  He is seated at the right hand of God.  And no angel was ever asked to sit at the right hand of God.  They were created to be ministering spirits for the sake of those who inherit salvation.  That is those of us who are saved.  Angels are messengers of God.  Jesus is God, and thus His message is superior not only because of His message, but because of His position.

Therefore, in light of all that preceded in the previous chapter concerning the superiority of Jesus as the Son of God, in light of the superiority of His word which He has spoken, the author then says, “For this reason, we must pay closer attention to the things which we have heard, so that we do not drift away.”

Now let’s break that down.  “We must pay closer attention to the things which we have heard…”  The KJV says we must pay more earnest heed.  The idea there is a danger of not paying close attention.  Earnestness indicates not only sincerity, but also a sense of intensity, and perhaps even urgency.  There is a very real and present danger to becoming complacent about the things of God.  The gospel is not just about a future salvation from hell, though it is definitely that.  But it is also a way of life.  Jesus said it was the words of life. It is the truth and the life.  It is the way to God.  It is the way of abundant life. It is the water of life that washes us clean.  It is the light that lights our path which keeps us from stumbling or even worse, from the  destruction that is on either side. 

It says specifically we must give more earnest heed to the things that we have heard.  Give heed to the word. Give heed to the preaching of the word.  Give heed to the reading of scripture. Give heed to the assembling of yourselves together.  The gospel, the word of God, is the things which we have heard.  They are like signposts on the road of life.  They are warnings to keep us from straying, to keep us from falling.  Bind the word of God upon your heart.  Write them upon your doorposts and put them on the back of your hands and upon your forehead.  In other words, take heed of the word.  Give earnest heed.  Pay closer attention.

We must pay closer attention because we are so easily distracted.  I think that the enemy has so designed the world so that there are  many distractions that keep us from the word. The world was a distracting place as it was, and then they invented cell phones.  People are so distracted now days that they are completely unaware of anything going on around them. People are routinely run over by cars or trains because they are distracted by their phones. The world is a distracting place.  And we need to renew a sense of urgency about what we have heard, lest we drift away from what is important.

That phrase, to drift away, speaks to the subtlety of falling away.  To drift is to be without an anchor.  To be without markers.  To be unaware of your bearing.  Sometimes I like to go to Assateague Island to surf.  And it’s a pretty neat surf spot if the wind and swell are in the right direction.  But one thing I don’t like about it is that sometimes it can be a little disorienting.  Especially during the winter time when there aren’t a lot of other people around.  I’m used to surfing at Indian River Inlet on the north side, and there is a jetty there which kind of keeps you in position.  But at Assategue there are not a lot of landmarks.  And a lot of times the current can really move you along without you realizing it.  I’ve often been out there for a while and then looked back at the beach and it looks totally unfamiliar.  Ive drifted so far along the beach, either because of the wind or currents, that I am not able to tell where I am.

And that tells us something about drifting.  Drifting is characterized by not realizing that you are moving.  It’s such a slow, imperceptible movement, and yet it is relentless. There is a danger in drifting in the Christian life. Let me tell you something that is very important.  Salvation is not obtained by our works, but salvation is worked out.  Phil.2:12 says, “work out your salvation with fear and trembling.”  In other words, the life of the Christian requires work.  

There are the currents of the world which are pulling at you, and moving you away from the Lord.  In surfing sometimes it takes a lot of paddling to fight against the current. And likewise it takes a lot of effort to keep from being swept along by the world. The winds of the spirits are doctrines of demons that toss you here and there, like the waves of the seas, causing you to drift away from the truth.  Perhaps the tides of life are causing you to drift, the rise and fall of fashions and trends and popular things which cause you to be distracted from the earnestness that is essential to faith.

Make no mistake, folks, faith is not easy. It’s not easy believism.  Theologians tell us that faith is comprised of three elements, which in Latin  are  notitia, assensus, and fiducia, which means “knowledge, assent, trust.”  Knowledge is important in that you have to have knowledge of the truth, and then believe in the truth, that is assent.  To recognize and believe that something is true.  But to have saving faith, you need the third element, which is trust.  And trust, ladies and gentlemen, is not simply an intellectual exercise.  It is faith in action.  It is putting your actions to  faith.  True faith is  swimming against the current. It is persevering.  It is holding on tightly. It is standing firm. Standing firm against the schemes of the devil.

There is an old story about an ungodly, evil farmer that died.  And it was discovered in his will that he left his farm to the Devil. So the estate ended up in court, and they didn’t quite know what to do with his bequest – how do you give a farm to the Devil? Finally, the judge decided: The best way to carry out the wishes of the deceased is to allow the farm to grow weeds, the soil to erode, and the house and barn to rot. He concluded, “In our opinion, the best way to leave something to the Devil is to do nothing.” We can leave our lives to the Devil the same way – by doing nothing, by drifting wherever the currents drive us.

So how do we protect against drifting away?  First, we need a sure anchor.  Hebrews 6:19 “This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil.”  Jesus Christ is our anchor, He is our Savior, He is the strength of our life.  When we stay close to Him, and keep our eyes fixed on Him, He will be an anchor to us, to keep us from drifting. 

And again in chapter 10, we see that devotion to the Lord extrapolated to the devotion to the church. Hebrews 10:23-25 “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful;  and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds,  not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging [one another;] and all the more as you see the day drawing near.”  Hold fast, that is to hold on tightly. Persevere.  To physically put yourself in the place where you are encouraged, where you are strengthened.  A place where you are exhorted, and if necessary, where you are corrected.  You need to be in church on a regular basis if you want to keep from drifting.  The devil will attempt to distract you from devotion to church with every strategy imaginable.  I urge you to make going to church and Bible study an essential part of your week.  Just the physical act of putting yourself in church is an act of surrender to the Lord.  And it is an act of war against the devil.  And I will tell you, it’s an encouragement to other believers, and a testimony to those who are weak.  We need to stop thinking of church just as something that is for our benefit, and realize that it is in church that we can encourage one another.  As it said in chapter 10: let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another.

Now let’s consider vs2, “For if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty, how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?”  What the author is referring to here is that the law in the Old Testament was conferred to Moses through angels.  There are three passages in the Bible that confirm this, I don’t have time to turn to them.  But in Deuteronomy 33:2, Acts 7:53, and in Galatians 3:19 they all speak of the angels of the Lord acting as messengers to Moses in delivering the law.  

And what he is saying to this primarily Hebrew audience is that you know the consequences and repercussions that were built into the law, and how the law given through angels was unalterable, or unchangeable.  Going against it was accompanied by dire consequences.  So if that is so with the word of angels, then how much more is it so with the word of the Lord Himself? Jesus came to earth and delivered this gospel in person.  Considering the significance and magnificence  of that, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?

Now let me speak a moment to the idea of how shall we escape? What are we escaping?  The idea of salvation infers that we are being saved from a calamity.  We are being delivered from condemnation.  We are being rescued from the judgment and wrath of God that is coming upon the entire world.

And I want to emphasize that coming judgment by turning your attention to a few verses in which it is talked about. Hebrews 9:27 says, “It is appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgement.”  There will come a day when God will judge man, and every word and deed will be called into question.  It’s not very popular today to talk about the judgment to come, or the wrath of God, but if it were not so, then why did Jesus have to die?  What are we saved from, if not from the condemnation of the world?  So I want to just read some verses that talk about the judgement to come and what we that have believed have escaped from.

Ecc. 12:14 “For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether [it be] good, or whether [it be] evil.”

John 5:28-29 “Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.”

Romans 14:11-12 “For it is written, [As] I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.
2Cor. 5:10 “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things [done] in [his] body, according to that he hath done, whether [it be] good or bad.”

2Tim. 4:1 I charge you therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom.” So without question, the Bible speaks of coming judgment.  And this judgment is often referred to as the wrath of God.

Romans 1:18 “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” But thanks be to God, Christ has made a way to be saved from this coming wrath, when God shall judge the world.

Romans 5:9 “Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath [of God] through Him.”

2Peter 3:9-10 “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.  But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.”

And then one more finishing up in Hebrews 10: 26 “For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,  but a terrifying expectation of judgment and THE FURY OF A FIRE WHICH WILL CONSUME THE ADVERSARIES.  Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on [the testimony of] two or three witnesses.  How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?  For we know Him who said, “VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY.” And again, “THE LORD WILL JUDGE HIS PEOPLE.” It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

Now that is what we are saved from; the judgement that is coming upon the world. But as the author here speaks, “how shall we escape this judgment if we neglect so great a salvation?” The word ancient Greek word translated neglect is amelesantes, also used in Matthew 22:5 (they made light of it). This refers to those who disregarded the invitation to the marriage supper. It means to have the opportunity but to ignore or disregard the opportunity.

Our salvation is great, because we are saved by a great Savior, we are saved at a great cost, and we are saved from a great penalty.  What a tragedy if we should neglect it.  I think that this speaks not only to the one who has heard the truth, but has not yet come to saving faith, but it also speaks to those who are saved, who have neglected their salvation in that they are not living as Christ died to enable them to live. They neglect their salvation because having been delivered from the corruption and condemnation of the world, they go back to be being enslaved to the weak and worthless elemental things of this world all over again.  They are caught up by distractions.  They are corrupted by lusts of this world, the lust for money, the lust for power, the lust for possessions.  And being corrupted in their minds, they become enslaved to their temporal passions, and neglect the things of God. 

Let me explain something about this great salvation.  There are three parts to our salvation. There is first of all justification.  Justification is imputed righteousness.  It is having our sins forgiven, and the penalty of our sins paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ who died as our substitute, in our place. That justification is by grace, that means it is by a gift of God, through our faith in what Jesus did for us, and faith in who He is.

The second stage of our salvation is called  sanctification. Sanctification is the process of being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. Of being remade in His image.  Of dying to self and sin and living for Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. Now this sanctification I think is where drifting most often takes place in the life of the believer.  A man can be justified by faith, yet the process of sanctification has been interrupted by being distracted, by being caught up in the rise and fall of the tides of the world, by being swept from your moorings by the winds and currents of worldly affairs. 

There is a third stage of our salvation which is glorification.  That comes when Christ returns and we are given a new body, when this sinful world is burned up and every thing is made new. But what I think Hebrews is warning us about is that it is this process of sanctification that is in peril because we are prone to drifting away from our purpose; to be holy, blameless, conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. And folks, do not be deceived, this sanctification is essential.  It is not an option.  Hebrews 12:14 says, “Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.”

Now the author emphasizes the urgency of this gospel which we have heard by reiterating the origins and confirmation of the gospel.  Note first that it was announced by the Lord, that is the Lord Jesus Christ.  Jesus speaking in HIs first recorded message read from Isaiah and said, “THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS UPON ME, BECAUSE HE ANOINTED ME TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR. HE HAS SENT ME TO PROCLAIM RELEASE TO THE CAPTIVES, AND RECOVERY OF SIGHT TO THE BLIND, TO SET FREE THOSE WHO ARE OPPRESSED,  TO PROCLAIM THE FAVORABLE YEAR OF THE LORD.”(Luke 4:18)  Now there are many other places where the Lord is recorded as speaking of the gospel of the Kingdom which He was preaching.  But that will suffice for now.  He announced the gospel of salvation.

Secondly, the author says it was confirmed to us by those who had heard Him.  That means that this author was probably not an apostle, because he is not placing himself in the position of having heard Jesus directly as His apostles had.  But he is saying that he had heard it confirmed through the apostles, those who had heard Him.  And that is the record we have in the gospels, the record of eyewitness testimonies.  Those who were with Him, wrote it down, that we might have the confirmation of eyewitnesses.

Thirdly, he says that God also testified to their truthfulness by signs and wonders with gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His will. 2Cor. 12:12 says “The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance, by signs and wonders and miracles.”  So the authentication of a true apostle was the signs and wonders and miracles which God used to show that they were His apostles.  

There is a lot of interest today in signs and wonders and miracles.  But I believe the scriptures teach us that these miracles performed by the apostles were given to authenticate their message.  Consequently, when the scriptures were completed, there was no longer a need for authenticating miracles.   And furthermore, when the apostles passed away, there was no longer a need to authenticate their message.  There are no new apostles today, and there is no new revelation today.  However, that doesn’t mean that God cannot do miracles today.   I believe He does, but according to His will, as it says there in the fourth verse.  But the idea of the gifts of miracles to be given to a person today I think is no longer valid, in that the scriptures have been completed and God has spoken completely in His word.  And a thorough study of the scriptures will reveal to you that they are self authenticating.  They do not need authenticating miracles, except the authenticating miracle of a changed life.  

You either are a living testimony to the miraculous power of the gospel to save, or you are a stumbling block to the testimony of the gospel.  Your life is the greatest sermon many people will ever hear.  Do not neglect this great salvation.  Live it and share it, that God may get the glory for the great things He has done.

In conclusion then, I will reiterate the question; how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?  For those here today who may have never trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior, to live for Him, how else can you escape the condemnation of the world?  How else will you escape the judgment from God? Someone said the most dangerous word in the English language is tomorrow.  Don’t put off until tomorrow making a decision to surrender to the Lord. Tomorrow may never come. Don’t neglect to take up the offer of this great salvation.

And for those who have been justified by His grace, by the sacrifice and substitute of Jesus Christ for the penalty of your sins, how can you neglect such a great salvation? How can you neglect the purpose for your life, for which Christ died?  I pray that regardless of which camp you find yourself in today, that today you will not drift away, but draw close to Him, and come to Him, that you might fulfill your salvation.

I close with the benediction found in the last chapter of Hebrews, chapter 13:20-21. “Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord,  equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

A noted theologian said that Hebrews is one of the three New Testament commentaries on a single Old Testament verse: “The just shall live by his faith,” found in Hab. 2:4 The book of Romans talks about what it means to be considered as just; to be justified is one who has been declared righteous by faith in Jesus Christ. The just shall live by faith. The book of Ephesians expounds on the words “shall live,” and it tells us about life as a justified person — the new life in the Spirit. Finally, the book of Hebrews takes up the last two words, “by faith,” and it shows us how what constitutes saving faith.

The concept of faith is sorely misunderstood today by many people. Great faith is presumed to be conjuring up an intensity of believing in something; something you want to see happen. But it’s not the size of your faith or the intensity of faith that matters. Jesus said “If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed” in Matthew 17:20, you could move mountains. So it is not quantity that is essential to faith – it is the quality of your faith. It is what you faith is founded on that is important. What is the object of your faith? The strength of faith is directly related to the strength of what you believe in. What are you believing in? Or better yet, who are you believing in? What kind of a person is he?

When Hebrews talks about faith, the author wants us to see the object of faith, because our faith will be strong if we believe and understand that the object of our faith is strong. That is why this is the most Christ centered book in the New Testament. It focuses on Jesus Christ. If we see him as he is, we cannot help but be strong in faith. Ironically, in addition to be the most Christ centered book in the New Testament, it also quotes more from the Old Testament than any other book. Which shows us that Christ is the theme of all the scriptures.

Again and again in scripture we are instructed in phrases such as, “Looking unto Jesus,” “we would see Jesus,” “keep your eyes upon Jesus,” and so forth. All instructions to see Jesus, to look unto Jesus, to focus on Him. And yet how do we see Jesus? He is the word of God made flesh. And during His life time you could see Him in person. But after His death He ascended into heaven, as it says in vs.3 and now is seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high. So how do we see Him now? Can we see Him now? Or is He just a figment of our imagination? Does this mean that we should conjure up a mental image of Jesus and let that be the way we see him? Maybe we should find a picture or statue that some artist thinks represents Jesus, and we should hold that image in our minds, so that we might “see” Jesus.

On the contrary, if we are to see Jesus, in all of His glory, then we must see him in the word of God. Only in the word can we be certain that we see Jesus in truth. If we are here this morning to worship Jesus, then we should remember that He said, “God is spirit, and they that worship Him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” You cannot see a spirit, they are invisible. But we can see Jesus, because we see Him in HIs word, and His word is truth. The word of God is how we see the complete manifestation of Jesus Christ. And let me add that it is a more complete picture found in the word, than even was seen by the eyewitnesses of his incarnation. They saw a man in the flesh. In order to see Jesus for who He was, that is God, they had to hear His words. We have the full revelation of His words which they did not have. So we can see Jesus even more clearly than they did.

In fact, in his flesh, it is very likely that it took even more faith to see Jesus as God. The flesh would have gotten in the way. Isaiah 53 says that in His flesh he was not good looking. In His flesh he had no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him with favor. Isaiah even goes so far as to say that in His flesh, He was the kind of person who you would naturally want to turn away from. Such a person would be hard to imagine as being the Son of God. We would imagine that he would be handsome, rugged, built like a Greek god. In all the ancient artistic works of pagans, and even many Christian art works, the figures of deity are well formed, attractive, muscular. But Isaiah says that he was nothing like that. And so we find in the scriptures the most complete picture of Jesus.

The author of Hebrews wants to give to the Christian Jews a more complete picture of Jesus, in order to strengthen and inform their faith. In the first three verses, he has told us that God has spoken in these last days, most completely and finally in His Son. God has revealed himself in Jesus Christ. And as the word made flesh, he is superior to every other word that was spoken in times past by the prophets. Jesus is far superior to the prophets, in that he is not just bringing a message from God, but He is God, and He is the Word of God. He is not just a messenger, He is the message; the word made flesh, the word manifested.

Then, in the section we are looking at today, still on this subject of messengers, he says that Jesus is greater than the angels. Angels are messengers of God. That is what the word aggelos (an-ga-los) means, a messenger. In vs14 speaking of angels it says “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation?” So now the author contrasts Jesus with the angels, and shows us through the scripture that Jesus is superior to the angels. In vs3 and 4 he says, “When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much better than the angels, as He has inherited a more excellent name than they.” And he is going to tell us in the next verse that more excellent name, which is the name Son. And we will look more fully at that in a moment.

Now in order to show the superiority of Christ, he gives seven Old Testament quotations. Note that he doesn’t give their reference. There were no references in the scriptures at that time. References came many years after the Bible was completed. References and superscriptions are not inspired, by the way. They were added by early transcribers of the scriptures to aid in studying. So when the author quotes from the Old Testament, he doesn’t give a reference, he just begins to quote, as if the recipients were well familiar with the texts.

And yet the underlying purpose of his writing is that the Hebrews had grown dull in their faith. They had grown lazy, and were in danger of slipping back into formulaic Judaism, of going through the motions, of relying on rituals, of becoming religious, but having lost their first love. And yet they knew the scriptures to the point that he scarcely has to give any sort of reference, knowing that they were well familiar with these texts. I wonder, by contrast, how many of us find the following verses even the least bit familiar. Have we also become formulaic, do we rely upon rituals and the practice of external religion, but inwardly perhaps we are drying up?

The answer to our hard hearts, to our lost love, to our lack of zeal for the things of God is that we need to see Jesus. We need to look at Him in all His glory, and we need to see all that He has done for us, to make us His own. Let’s then look at these seven quotations, and let’s pray we see Jesus more clearly, that we might be conformed to His image.

So the author begins by saying: “For to which of the angels did he ever say, “You are My Son, Today I have begotten You?” It’s a quotation from Psalm 2:7 which says, “I will declare the decree: The Lord has said to Me, ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You.’”

The contrast the author wants to show is between a Son and a servant. Angels are servants, but Christ is the Son. Christ is greater because of his relationship to God, the fact that he is the Son of God. Angels collectively were sometimes called in the scripture sons of God. But no angel individually was ever addressed as the Son of God. Now the Hebrews understood that this Psalm spoke of the future Messiah, in which the fullness of the kingdom of David would be found.

And by the way, here is the answer to the cults. Both Mormonism and Jehovah’s Witnesses teach that Jesus Christ was nothing more than an angel, the highest created angel. They identify him with Michael, the Archangel. But this passage in Hebrews destroys that theory, for Christ is a Son, and not an angel. To what angel did God ever say, “Thou art my Son.”

The second quotation comes from 2 Samuel 7:14,. “I will be his father,” says God, “and he shall be my son.” In 2 Samuel 7, after David aspired to build a house for the Lord, the Lord pronounced a blessing on David, and upon his house and kingdom, that is called the Davidic covenant. It consisted of promises that God would bless David’s heirs, and would establish his throne forever. Though Solomon would be a son to David, and God would bless his kingdom, it was understood that in the Messiah the promise would be fulfilled.

In this covenant, David is told that he’s to have an eternal throne, an eternal house, and an eternal kingdom. Now if he is to have an eternal throne, an eternal house, an eternal kingdom, then obviously it’s a descendant of David who’s going to sit on that throne. Now, what kind of a descendant must David have if he is to have an eternal throne, an eternal house, an eternal kingdom? The answer of course, is he is going to have a Son who is immortal, begotten of God, yet who will be of the tribe of Judah, of the line of David.

Now the question arises, in what sense is Jesus begotten? In what sense can God say, “today I have begotten you?” As Christians we believe that Jesus is eternal, that he existed in the beginning with God, as it says in John 1. “He was in the beginning with God.” He coexisted with God. So how was He born of God? Well, I believe he was begotten of God when the Holy Spirit came upon Mary and she became with child. The Word of God, the eternal Son, became flesh, was born of a virgin, and dwelt among us. The eternal Son laid aside His glory and took upon himself all the vicissitudes of humanity.

When the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would have a son, he revealed that Jesus would be fully God, born of a woman, and of the line of David. Gabriel said in Luke 1:32, “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end.” So, Christ is the Son of God, the name above every name.

The third quotation is found in Verse 6, “But when He again brings in the firstborn into the world, He says, ‘Let all the angels of God worship Him.’”

“When he again brings the firstborn into the world,”is a reference to the Second Advent. The second coming of Jesus Christ. The author has just spoken of the first advent of Christ, when He is born a Son. Now he speaks of the second advent, when the Son returns to earth for His church.

Note that He is called “the firstborn.” In Psalm 89:27 God says, ““I also shall make him My firstborn, The highest of the kings of the earth.” Christ is called the firstborn because he exists before all creation and because creation is his heritage. Then in our text he says, “when He again brings the firstborn into the world…” The term for world is the inhabited world. Not cosmos, but oikoumene, the inhabited world. In other worlds, into this world of which we are a part.

Now, consider the term “worship.” “Let the angels of God worship Him.” This text comes from Psalm 97:7. Since he’s already been said previously here in this passage to have been appointed heir to all things, it would be natural then to speak of Him being introduced to His inheritance. And part of his inheritance is the worship of the angels of God; that is his legal heirship. All the angelic host is to render him divine worship. We only worship that which is superior to us. The worship of the angels at Bethlehem is testimony to the deity of the baby in the manger. John Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim’s Progress said, “If Jesus Christ be not God, then heaven will be filled with idolators.” In Revelation and Daniel, as books that give us a view into the heavenly realms, we see ten thousand times ten thousands of angels engaged in worshipping the Son. So he is seen to be greater than angels by the demonstration of their worship.

The fourth quotation is taken from Psalm 104;4 which relates to the ministry of angels in the kingdom of God. Angels are spirits, according to vs14. Yet though their ministry is on a supernatural plane, and conducted in the spiritual realm, yet it is inferior to that of the Son of God. “Who makes the winds His messengers, and flames of fire His ministers.” Metaphorically the angels are said to exhibit characteristics of fire and wind, things which have immense power. But nevertheless they are created things which God controls and uses for His purposes.

Contrast that ministry to the next quotation, the fifth, which is taken from Psalm 45:6 which speaks of the Messiah. “Thy throne O God, is forever and ever.” And then vs7, “Therefore, (O)God, thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.” In a greater sense than could ever be attributed to the successors of David’s throne, this Messiah is addressed not only as God’s Son, but also as God. He is both God’s Son and God.

Now this is not the only place where this designation is given to the Son. Besides John 1:1 which I quoted to you earlier, I would remind you of Isaiah 9:6; “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of [His] government or of peace, On the throne of David and over his kingdom, To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness From then on and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish this.”

The throne of the Messiah God, the Psalmist says, is forever and ever. His Kingdom will never come to an end. His kingdom is characterized by righteousness. Therefore God has anointed Jesus with an office far above His companions. His throne is exceedingly great and eternal. HIs throne is above all things, all powers, and all principalities.

The sixth quotation is taken from Psalm 102:25-27. As the Psalmist reflects upon his own mortality, and the brevity of his life and his reign, he extols the eternal nature of the kingdom of the Son. He says the Son of God laid the foundations of the earth, and all the heavens are the work of HIs hands. Though the heavens and the earth grow old like a garment and one day will be made new, yet the Maker remains. His days will never come to an end. His kingdom endures forever.

The seventh quotation, which concludes the argument, comes from Psalm 110. The author says, “But to which of the angels has He ever said, ‘Sit at My right hand, until I make thine enemies a footstool for thy feet.” Already we have seen reference to Christ sitting at the right hand of The Majesty on high, in vs3. Now he expands upon that theme, asking which angel was ever given that position? The answer obviously is none of them.

Jesus Himself claimed at His trial that from then on they would see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Father. The Council condemned Him to death for blasphemy after hearing that. But it has stood since that time as a principle doctrine of Christianity, that Christ ascended to the right hand of the Father where He ever lives to make intercession for us.

The most exalted angels are those whose privilege is to stand in service to God around His throne. But none of them has ever been told to sit on the throne next to Him. The angels, in vs14 are described as ministering spirits, sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation. They stand ready to speed to help those whom God has claimed as His own.

This salvation was purchased for us at such a tremendous price. The very Son of God became flesh and took on humanity. The Creator would lay aside His glory and put on the vesture of humility, to offer His life as a substitute for the sins of His creation. What a fearful thing it must be to reject such an incredible sacrifice by such a magnificent Savior. These Old Testament scriptures speak to the supremacy and sovereignty of Jesus Christ. Even the mightiest arch angels must bow to Him. And yet He has given mankind the choice to believe in Him or reject Him. The question today is will you bow to Him? Will you submit to Him in faith and obedience as your Lord and your God? That is the means by which we inherit salvation. The just shall live by faith in the Son of God.

As the second chapter asks us in vs3, “How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? I pray no one walks out of here today without bowing to Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, and trusting in Him for the gift of His righteousness. The just shall live by faith. Simple faith in who Jesus is, and what He came to do, results in His righteousness being transferred to us, and our sins put on Him, that we might be justified, and have life in His name. Worship the Son. Psalm 2:12 gives both a blessing and a curse, as a divine response to either your faith in Him or your rejection. “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish [from] the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed [are] all they that put their trust in him.”