6.4.39 8.25.2024 Softened Hearts Hebrews 3.7-19
Certain of our Great Salvation: Hebrews • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Entice: It can be tempting to “go negative.” Once you begin it can be hard to stop. The Hebrew author invites us this morning into an articulate, engaging and potentially painful intertextual conversation. Using our Psalm 95—In the Greek version the author used it is Psalm 94—he reminds us that rebellion begins in hearts hardened against God’s disclosure of Himself.
7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice,
8 do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness,
9 where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years.
10 Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.’
11 As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’ ”
12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.
13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
14 For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.
15 As it is said, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”
16 For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses?
17 And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?
18 And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient?
19 So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.
Engage: How do we warn those who are wandering?
We encourage them.
How do we warn those who are complaining?
We correct and focus them.
How do we restrain those in rebellion?
We remind them of past consequences of those who, having come to know God’s favor, rejected that favor because they lost sight of His goodness.
Expand: This is a rich text. It is the longest exposition of an OT text in the entire book of Hebrews. The Hebrew author builds his exhortation upon the words of scripture. He engages and involves us not only in our own encouragement but in the exhortation of others. He reframes words written in and for the past making them not only relevant but dynamic in his present day, and now ours. He provides not only the content of today’s message but also the form.
Excite: We can be encouraged and encourage others by allowing God’s Word to soften our hearts. When our hearts are soft and receptive to God that allows us to not only find the strength we need to remain faithful but also to share that encouragement with others.
Explore:
A soft heart is open to God and those around us.
A soft heart is open to God and those around us.
Expand: This raw, animated text leaves us, not with fearful warnings but positive admonitions.
The first admonition, maybe the central one of this text is an admonition to
Body of Sermon:
1 Cultivate a soft heart.
1 Cultivate a soft heart.
7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice,
8 do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness,
9 where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years.
10 Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.’
11 As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’ ”
12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.
Hard hearts or soft hearts are a result of choices we make and how attentive we are to God.
He tells us to
1.1 Be attentive
1.1 Be attentive
1.2 Be receptive
1.2 Be receptive
1.3 Be careful
1.3 Be careful
Next, we are admonished to
2 Exhort one Another.
2 Exhort one Another.
Hebrews 3:13 (ESV)
13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
He exhorts us to be exhorters.
2.1 Regularly
2.1 Regularly
Every day
and
to prevent the hardening deceitfulness of sin we should encourage
2.2 Purposefully
2.2 Purposefully
He then admonishes us to
3 Be Confident.
3 Be Confident.
Hebrews 3:14–15 (ESV)
14 For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.
15 As it is said, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”
3.1 Reflectively.
3.1 Reflectively.
our original confidence
3.2 In the present.
3.2 In the present.
Finally, we are admonished to
4 Be faithful.
4 Be faithful.
16 For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses?
17 And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?
18 And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient?
19 So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.
In what I’ve just read the author provides the negative or opposite of faithlessness. our task is not to merely understand but to calibrate our behavior by scripture. We need to exemplify the opposite and positive attribute to the negative example, so be
4.1 Compliant instead of rebellious.
4.1 Compliant instead of rebellious.
live with
4.2 Satisfaction instead of provocation.
4.2 Satisfaction instead of provocation.
We must Practice
4.3 Righteousness instead of sin.
4.3 Righteousness instead of sin.
And we should Respond to God with
4.4 Obedience instead of disobedience.
4.4 Obedience instead of disobedience.
Finally we should respond with
4.5 Belief instead of unbelief.
4.5 Belief instead of unbelief.
Shut Down
I think it is unhealthy to become fixated on failure. The Hebrew author has provided a brutal description of unbelief. Social, intellectual, behavioral, and attitudinal.
We might be tempted to throw in the towel. If the Exodus generation could witness the wonders of deliverance and still wind up in the whining in the wilderness, what hope is there for us who rely on the Scriptures, the Spirit, and one another? Well in his mind all you and I need are each other, the Bible, and the Spirit.
He has interpreted and applied his own Scripture in such a way that the conversation is transformed, and a message of God’s disappointment and anger points
the way for us to please Him by our responsive faith.
A softened heart of deliberate, inclusive, obedient faith is what He wants. Jesus modeled a way for becoming what God intends. The whole of the OT provides both positive and negative reminders of the faithful life. We read and listen that the Scriptures might focus the work of making our hard, fickle hearts soft and usable to
Him who called us.
