Sermon Tone Analysis
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Introduction
Well good morning once again.
It’s good to be with you today.
Go ahead and turn in your Bible to the book of Hebrews, chapter 3. We are going to be diving into verses 7-19 this morning.
As you do that I want to call your attention to a couple of additional announcements.
On June 26 we are going to have the opportunity to welcome my friend Josh Monda to worship service.
He will be preaching that morning.
I’m still planning to be with you that day but have asked Monda to come in so that I can focus on preparing to speak at youth camp in July.
As far as camp, it is called Impact University and it is July 10-16.
There are three of us from Hope going to serve.
Dayna and Simon are going to serve as family leaders and I will be the camp speaker.
Please be praying for us as we prepare and go to minister to teenagers.
Now we turn our attention to Hebrews.
This letter to the Hebrew Christians most likely started out as a sermon.
These first recipients of this message were facing opposition to their faith.
The conflict heating up and they were under fire spiritually.
The stakes were incredibly high.
I imagine the author of Hebrews like Mel Gibson’s character in the movie, “The Patriot.”
If you’ve not seen this film, at the end of it there’s a big battle and it looks like the American revolutionary army is going to be defeated by the red coats.
They soldiers are beginning to retreat but Gibson grabs the flag from a retreating flag bearer and he runs toward the front as guys are retreating past him and he yells, “hold the line!”
His buddy who is a leader sees it and is inspired and yells, “push forward, men!”
And they advance.
I hate to spoil the movie for you but it’s like twenty years old and it’s about a battle two hundred years ago so, you missed your chance.
But this is how I see the writer of Hebrews.
He’s the flag bearer who is waving the banner and urging us to press forward.
But this author’s banner is Christ.
He’s warning of danger, points out what is at stake, and urges us to press on, to persevere.
This letter is like a wartime communication.
So when we come to verse 7 of chapter 3 and we see the second of the warnings in Hebrews, we need to take it seriously as a missive sent to those in the battle of their lives.
Follow along as I read and let’s see what the Lord would say to us today in His Word.
This is the Word of the Lord.
Let’s pray and ask God to help us understand and apply it to our lives.
PRAY
Lord willing, today I want to cover four ways to watch out for unbelief in our lives and to combat it.
Those ways are, listen to God’s voice, guard your heart, exhort one another, and hold onto Jesus.
Let’s begin with listening to God’s voice.
I. Listen to God’s voice.
Verse seven gives us another one of those transition words that point us back to what we just read and its relationship to what the author is about to say.
Because Jesus is so much greater than Moses, don’t fall back into those old covenant ways that are not sufficient to save but rally around the banner of Christ.
Rally around the only message that can truly save, around the one who sanctifies us, makes us holy… rally around Christ Jesus, who is the faithful Son of God.
There is a quote here from Psalm 95:7-11.
The author uses these verses to exhort the readers and us to not act in faithless ways like the Israelites did.
He’s transitioning from using the good examples of Jesus and Moses in the previous section to using the poor example of the Israelites and their revellion against God.
Today - a sense of urgency about this.
We only have today.
Don’t wait.
Don’t put it off for a day that may never come.
Do it today.
Decide now.
Trust Jesus now.
if you hear His voice - a very important phrase
If you hear His voice, it is only through an act of mercy and salvation.
Albert Mohler writes, “ God speaks in order to save his people.
The original author teaches his audience that God has graciously spoken so that they might be saved.
Now they must obey God’s voice and faithfully follow it into eternity.”
But how does God speak?
How do we hear His voice?
What are we talking about here?
The author of Hebrews spoke to this in Hebrews 1:1-2 at the very beginning of the book.
How God speaks.
God speaks through His Word primarily.
Phillips writes,
“The Holy Spirit has given God’s Word through the Scriptures and now speaks to us by applying that Word to our hearts.”
I’m astounded at the Christians that I know who want to know what God wants them to do but have no regard for spending time digging into His Word.
Are you listening to hear Him in the way He speaks?
He speaks personally to us through the Word of God, the Bible.
One prominent pastor and theologian said it this way, “God talks to me no other way, but don’t get this wrong, he talks to me very personally.
I open my Bible in the morning to meet my friend, my Savior, my Creator, my Sustainer.
I meet him and he talks to me. . . .
I’m not denying providence, not denying circumstances, not denying people, I’m just saying that the only authoritative communion I have with God with any certainty comes through the words of this book.”
Verse 7 - The Holy Spirit speaks, meaning that He still speaks through HIs Word.
It’s living and active.
Hearing from God in the Bible is a supernatural experience.
Nancy Guthrie in an insightful article writes, “God has spoken and is, in fact, still speaking to us through the Scriptures.
We don’t need any more special revelation.
What we need is illumination, and this is exactly what Jesus has promised the Holy Spirit will give to us as his word abides in us.
The Holy Spirit of God works through the Word of God to counsel and comfort and convict (John 16:7-15).
Through the Scriptures we hear God teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training us in righteousness (2 Tim.
3:16-17).
The Word of God transforms us by renewing our minds so that we think more like him and less like the world.
Instead of needing God to dictate to us what to do, we become increasingly able to “discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2).”
When you pray and converse with God, and you think he is speaking to you, are you deep enough in the Word that you can discern what it is He is saying to you?
Not every idea you have is a God idea.
Some of you may not be able to hear Him because you don’t know what His voice sounds like.
You’ve never met him.
You are not a Christian.
Some of you may not want to hear his voice.
Maybe you don’t care to hear from God in His Word.
This should scare you.
If you don’t want to hear from God ands have no desire for the things of Christ you are probably lost in your sin.
The author here moves from the positive examples of Moses and Jesus to the negative example of the Israelites.
The author exhorts his audience and us to not harden our hearts as in the rebellion
-by their disobedience, they fell in the wilderness.
They failed to enter the promised land because they hardened their hearts.
The story of the rebellion takes place in the book of Exodus.
God had used the plagues and had Moses lead the people out of Egypt.
God had freed them from their slavery and they now had the audacity to distrust that He would provide for them.
They complained and grumbled against Him and even went so far as to suggest that they would be better off back in Egypt.
This is the height of ingratitude and unbelief.
It’s hard to grasp it fully.
But if we start to think about it, we take on a very similar attitude at times when we have something less intense than possible starvation in the wilderness to deal with.
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