Consider Jesus: message 2

Hebrews 3 ESV

Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God’s house. For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope. Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.’ As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’ ” Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 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. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. As it is said, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? 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 unable to enter because of unbelief.

When we were living in Oregon my friend and I went hiking in the Cascades for 5 days. We were attempting to hike 50 miles in five days. A good amount but not insurmountable. We were 2 days in when we took a trail we thought we be a little easier than the one we were on. The trail wasn’t on the map but we knew the direction we were heading. About 3 hours later we realized the trail didn’t go in the direction we were hoping. We were lost. We doubled back for an hour and didn’t find the trail. We came back to where we originally realized we were lost and panic began to settle in. In a rare moment of irrationality for my friend he decided to just head in the direction of our car and started walking off trail. Just tromping through the woods. That is one of the most dangerous things you can do in the woods when you are lost, just act and head further into the woods off trail.

We needed some time to consider our options. To look at the best next step for our situation. Instead of just heading off into the woods we needed to figure out what was best for us in that moment.

In our passage in Hebrews 3 the author is going to tell us right away to consider Jesus.

Considering Jesus is our greatest confidence for life and ministry

to consider means to apprehend or take hold of. to actually see and hold onto. It is abiding

One of the problems I think we are facing in our current culture is the same as that of my friend tromping off into the woods. He didn’t have a map, a gps, a phone with a signal, or me for that matter. He just started walking. And while I am coming from my context in America and more closely NE, there are some post-modern and secular parraells to be made.

We are living in a culture now where the encouragement is to find your spiritual path. To walk your own journey. To you do you. It is extremely individualized to the point that the only expert you are relying on is you. You are simultaneously trying to make forward progression while relying on your own wisdom to know what to do next. That is honestly the actions of someone in constant panic. It is anxiety going for a walk.

We are relying on our selves to make much of the world in our post modern culture and in doing so we are increasing levels of anxiety in our world.

I have done some research on the mental health conditions of Uruguay and was surprised to find it’s suicide rate was double that of the rest of the Americas. I found that information on the WHO website and then did some digging around in Reddit for awhile and found a number of subreddits about why people think the suicide rate is so high. Here are some of the responses.

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People are hurting everywhere, no matter where you are in teh world. But things, by the data alone, seem to be a little more particular.

Because our group is small enough, I would love some feedback on this. Are these some areas that you feel? Maybe not even in suicide. That is extreme but in some of the despondancy or anxiety felt.

the passage has established that Jesus has already given better identities and has built a better house. Throughout the book we will be continually convinced that Christ is not just a better option but is the only option that grants life.

I think there are three issues facing the church today that leads into this idea of an unbelieving heart leading us to fall away from the living God.

I think all of these areas lead toward trudging into the forest to find new paths. And while this doesn’t cover every moment and situation I do see this happening most everywhere.

We will be revisiting these in the next few days because the church is not immune.

Let’s look at what happens when we consider Christ. When instead of trudging off into the forest we stop to consider other options.

Consider Jesus who is building a better identity

The church is called holy right from the start.

Hebrews 3:1–2 ESV

Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God’s house.

The way the church is addressed already shows us what God thinks of us. We are told right away that we are holy and that we share in a heavenly calling. God has done the work to make us holy. His work has made us holy and that informs our identity, who we are, and we are told we have a heavenly calling, what we do.

Before we see just how good Christ is building His church, He has, just through His position, has made us holy and provides our calling.

But those are not created or generated. They are given. These are positional in Christ. We don’t make them, He does. And they are not a guarantee because they are true now. We don’t need guarantees when the work is already done.

This is our starting point.

Christ forming and shaping and bringing our identity into being, the one who calls us out, is where the church finds our identity.

Sometimes the best thing that can happen in our lives is losing a lesser definition of ourselves and the church.

Christ has a much greater identity for us, calling us holy and His. But we so easily miss it because we are settling for lesser definitions

Consider Jesus who is building a better house

Hebrews 3:3–6 ESV

For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.

The author is convincing us of the majesty of Christ. Christ then is to convince us of holding fast to our hope. The author points us to Christ and calls us to respond accordingly.

Christ is greater than Moses.

That compared to even the greatest example of redemption in the Bible, Jesus is greater. Jesus is faithful to build what He started.

Moses began a great work but did not finish. He did not cross into the promised land. So in a sense, when the writer speaks of Moses he is going back to the unfinished business. The tension of having to wait for another, In this case Joshua, to step in and walk the israelites to the promised land.

Outside of Christ we are forever waiting for something better.

until we know Christ our head is always on a swivel.

For generations there is a sprint to meaning and identity. And that sprint is a way where we develop a way to concoct our own identity.

And what we are finding, at least what I am finding is that

This kind of life is exhausting because it is relentless. It is up to the person to create all meaning and to define all things. That tires anyone out.

So we have cultures of people who have nothing in the tank, who continually spurn out their own identities until those identities no longer work for them then they have to create something new. IT is a relentless pursuit.

And the Good news of the Gospel is that we can invite people to rest. To stop. That God is building something far greater.

Matthew 7:24–27 ESV

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

Jesus said there were two realities. A house on the sand and a house on the rock. The only way to structurally tell them apart is from the rains that will definitively happen.

Consider Jesus as our confidence for life and ministry

Hebrews 3:12–15 ESV

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 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. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. As it is said, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”

The final picture given is that of the Israelites. Who made the journey, who wandered in the desert but never entered into the promised land. Who are being used in this passage as a cautionary tale. A tragic cautionary tale at that. Imagine spending all the time and doing all that work to at the end not being able to see the result of everything that you have given your life for. They saw the plagues. They were provided for at every turn. They saw the pillar of fire and the pillar of cloud. They saw Moses face glow.

English Standard Version (Deuteronomy 1:26-33

26 “Yet you would not go up, but rebelled against the command of the LORD your God. 27 And you murmured in your tents and said, ‘Because the LORD hated us he has brought us out of the land of Egypt, to give us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us. 28 Where are we going up? Our brothers have made our hearts melt, saying, “The people are greater and taller than we. The cities are great and fortified up to heaven. And besides, we have seen the sons of the Anakim there.” ’ 29 Then I said to you, ‘Do not be in dread or afraid of them. 30 The LORD your God who goes before you will himself fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes, 31 and in the wilderness, where you have seen how the LORD your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way that you went until you came to this place.’ 32 Yet in spite of this word you did not believe the LORD your God, 33 who went before you in the way to seek you out a place to pitch your tents, in fire by night and in the cloud by day, to show you by what way you should go.

And yet their story ended in unbelief and murmuring and strife. Because the Scripture states that their hearts melted for fear of what they had to overcome.

It wasn’t because of failure

it was because they would not enter

their fear drove and guided them. Their confidence came from what they could see in front of them.

The passage says that we have come to share in Christ.

That word means to partake of.

We partake of Christ

The Israelites shared not in Christ but shared their fear

They were a people who were partakers not in the actions of God but in the fear shared between each other

Everything else around them was bigger than the God who had led them.

We will always stop short of the promised land when fear or anger or murmuring leads us

We will miss the God who has led us this far

But there remains for us an invitation to remember and respond to the God who is bigger than anything we are facing.

The God that had led them is bigger than anything else around them.

Every school day I put my youngest son on the bus. The bus stops right in front of our house so on cold mornings we wait inside and he runs out right as the bus approaches. Because he is 8 and short he can only see the moment that the bus pulls up in front of our house. Everything else beyond him is covered. I because I am taller can see through a couple of houses on the other side of the street and see the bus coming about a quarter mile down the street before it gets there. So if I am watching I will tell him that the bus is coming and he should head out to the stop. The problem is he never believes me. He never leaves the house until he sees the bus. And then it is running and rushing to make sure he gets on ok.

- God is standing right behind us letting us know where next what next. He isn’t far He isn’t distant. He is communicating. But we still don’t move until we see it or experience it ouselves. We leave our confidence to what we can know. But faith is placing our confidence in the God who can see up higher and farther than we can.

We are being led and moved and directed by something. There are voices and emotions that are communicating our next move. But it is God that is calling us to hear from and respond to Him.