The Supremacy of Jesus (Hebrews 3)

The Supremacy of Jesus
Hebrews 3:12-19

INTRODUCTION:
This snow and the salt on the roads wrecks havoc on our cars, doesn’t it? The places over our back wheels is slowly rusting away. The next car we get, I hope, has that protection over the wheels so this doesn’t happen. Rust slowly “chips away” the paint on a car. Like sin, rust is a corrosive power. Over time, it can remove the paint from our vehicles, just like sin can remove saving faith from our lives.

The Hebrew writer is trying to encourage Christians to think seriously about Jesus and our relationship with Him and just stay faithful! Let’s feed our spirits on Hebrews 3. I do not plan to study every single verse in this letter; some chapters will be too long for us to consider. But I will look at all of chapter 3.

Hebrews 3:1 begins with the word “therefore.” That word always means the author is drawing a conclusion. To briefly summarize, in Hebrews 1, the writer tells us that Jesus is God’s Son and He is God the Son. In Hebrews 2, the writer tells us that Jesus is also human. It was as a human that Jesus suffered (2:10), but He sanctifies His spiritual family (2:11). He shares with His human family flesh and blood through which He renders powerless the one who has power over death, the devil (2:14). It is because of this that we have help from Jesus Christ when we are tempted (2:18).

So, it is because of these things that the writer draws his conclusion in chapter 3: “therefore…”

CONSIDER JESUS - 3:1-6:
First, I want you to observe that the writer refers to Christians as:

holy brethren - “holy” means we are separated from sin; “brethren” means we are Christ’s family (2:11-14)
partakers of the heavenly calling - “partakers” means we receive and enjoy blessings from God through Jesus and “heavenly calling” shows that these blessings are spiritual blessings, directed at getting us into heaven, into God’s presence. The author will use the expression “partakers of Christ” in 3:14 and “partakers of the Holy Spirit” in 6:4. “Calling” refers to hearing and responding to Christ’s call to trust and obey Him and become a member of His spiritual body, which the writer will refer to as His “house” in this text

Then we get to the main point, the action which the Hebrew writer wants Christians to take: “Consider Jesus.” “Think about Jesus.” “Meditate on Jesus.” “Observe Jesus.” The author is just pointing his rhetorical finger at Jesus. Who is He?

Well, He is the Apostle of our confession and the High Priest of our confession. An “apostle” is someone sent on a special mission. It is very similar to our English word “missionary.” Here, Jesus is the “apostle” sent from heaven, from the Father, with the Father’s message. So Jesus represents the Father to us; but He is also our “high priest.” The writer of Hebrews is going to use the expression “high priest” 17 times, and ultimately his point is going to be Jesus is our High Priest. In other words, not only does Jesus represent the Father to us, but He also represents us to the Father. Jesus is the only one who stands between us and the Father. The “confession” is the commitment that we have made in our lives to follow Jesus and to honor Him in our words and our actions. It is another word for the Christian lifestyle. It begins with what the apostle Paul referred to as the “good confession” (1 Tim. 6:12) when we were baptized into Christ, but it also involves everything we say and do throughout our whole life. Jesus is the Apostle and High Priest of our Christian life.

Next, the writer emphasizes to us that Christ is “faithful” (ver. 2). He was faithful just like Moses was faithful. But, Moses was a servant in the house while Jesus is the Son over the house. In verse 4, the writer gives us the cosmological argument for the existence of God: every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.” God is the ultimate source of every thing.

Well, Moses was faithful in his house, as a servant, for a testimony to the things which the Law of Moses would speak later (ver. 5). Remember, many of these Christians in his audience were being tempted to go back to Judaism and the Law of Moses. So the writer here points out that, yes, Moses was faithful. But he was only a servant in the house. Jesus is the Son over the house.

And notice that the writer says, “whose house we are” - Christians are the house of God! Now “house” can refer to a family in some contexts, but it can also refer to the temple of God in some contexts. Both of these are true of the church. We are Christ’s family and we are His spiritual temple.

Like an architect, a master builder, and a property manager, Jesus has designed and constructed his church and is now working to sustain and upgrade it. We are God’s temple; believers represent the dwelling places, or homes, of God. Therefore, we must honor God with our bodies (1 Corinthians 6:20).

The author of Hebrews ends this passage by reminding his audience that they must “hold fast” to their confidence and their hope in order to ultimately inherit their home in heaven. Christians must remain steadfast in their faith and persevere in the hope of Christ to enjoy the promise of the consummation of that heavenly calling.

You know, the teaching that once we are saved we are always saved, that is, we cannot be lost and fall from grace is not true. But sometimes I think we have swung to the opposite pole and allowed ourselves to believe that we cannot be confident of our spiritual standing before Christ. If we stay faithful to Jesus Christ and His teachings, if we “hold fast” our confidence in the saving power of Jesus Christ and His word, if we hold fast to the “boasting of our hope” firm until the end, then we will be saved.

This “boasting” or “pride” is the right kind of boasting; it is not boasting in ourselves. It is boasting in Christ and what He has done for us. “Hope” refers to expectation. I have used this illustration before… when I prayed for a wife at 12 years old, I hoped that God would give me a wife. When I met Rachel and I proposed and put that engagement ring on her finger, then I had expectation. Christians have expectation if we hold fast to our confidence and hope firm until the end.

DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEART - 3:7-11:
The next lesson we will study on Satan this year, which will be the last Sunday of the month, will be from 1 Chronicles 21 which shows us that the Devil wears pride. Here in this text, the Hebrew writer is warning Christians about pride in our own spiritual strength.

I mention in our first sermon on Hebrews that the author quotes from the OT about three dozen times and he makes about that many allusions to the OT. This text is from Psalm 95. The first thing we observe here is that the Hebrew writer says that the Holy Spirit is the one speaking. We do not know who the human author is, but the Holy Spirit is the one speaking. That tells me family, that when we choose not to study the OT, we are ignoring what the Holy Spirit has to teach us.

I also wish to point out that Psalm 95 begins and emphasizes worship. In verse 1, the author calls out: “O come, let us sing for joy to the Lord. Let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.” And later in verse 6, he calls out, “Come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.”

But then the psalmist makes reference to the history of the Israelites during the time they were traveling from Egypt and its slavery into the Promised Land. In Psalm 95:8, the psalmist refers to the location of “Meribah” and “Massah.” These two places are where the Israelites complained against Moses and against God because they were thirsty and they could not find anything to drink. This actually happened on a number of occasions: Exodus 17 and Numbers 20.

So here in Hebrews 3, the psalmist is quoting that text from Psalm 95 and he is applying its message to Christians. “Do not harden your hearts.” That is the behavior the writer wants us to take away from this quotation because he quotes this verse again in verse 15. Do not harden your hearts. In other words, keep a humble heart and a submissive mind to the teachings of God.

You see, based on the history of Israel (ver. 8-11), they provoked God to anger when they were in the wilderness and their faith was being tested. They tried God’s patience and grace the whole 40 years they wandered in the wilderness. So God was angry with the first generation and He promised them that they would not enter into the rest in the Promised Land as God had promised Abraham and as He had been leading them ever since they left Egypt.

So, with that first generation, God had promised that they would not enter that rest. So the Hebrew writer is now writing to the second, if not third, generation of Christians and telling them to learn from the mistakes of their ancestors! Don’t harden your hearts! Stay humble, stay submissive.

Aldous Huxley, the twentieth-century English novelist and essayist said, “That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach” (Aldous Huxley, “A Case of Voluntary Ignorance,” Esquire Classic, October 1, 1956).

We use a sponge to clean dishes or wash a car. When a sponge is dry, it becomes hard, callous, and much less useful—especially for washing a vehicle! When a sponge is damp, however, it becomes malleable, more useful, and reaches its full potential. The believer should be like a damp sponge when it comes to the gospel, soaking in and absorbing all of its truth and richness so that she can be a useful instrument for the kingdom. As soon as the believer begins to dry out, like a sponge, she can become hard and callous, which can deprive her of her full potential to love and serve in Jesus’s name.

One of the ways we can avoid the kind of hardening and callousness that the author of Hebrews describes is by keeping the Lord’s Day holy, dedicating certain times, like Wednesday night for an hour, dedicating it to God for the purpose of renewal and restoration in Christ. Honoring worship in our lives forces us to trust in the providential care of God, which strengthens our faith. The Israelites of old didn’t fully trust in God to provide for them, and they certainly didn’t appreciate the provisions that God did provide. We must trust in God as our sustainer and provider and be grateful for the things God gives us. Sincere trust and gratitude are the doorways to the blessing, rest, and peace that God wants for us.

TAKE CARE AND ENCOURAGE ONE ANOTHER - 3:12-19:
Speaking of worship, the Hebrew writer shows that he is not talking to Lone Rangers… “Encourage one another” (ver. 13). Of course, the famous text in Hebrews 10:25 tells us not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together. Why? Because there is strength in numbers. God created us to worship, yes, but He also created us to worship together.

“Beware” / “take care,” he writes, that we as Christians will not allow an “evil, unbelieving heart” to develop within our breasts. The result would be that we fall away from the living God. A heart that does not trust God and His word is a heart that will fall away. We live the way our hearts direct us. You live the way your heart directs you and I live the way my heart directs me. That’s why it it so important that we make sure our hearts are submissive to the Word of God, the teachings of the Holy Spirit.

So in verse 13, the Hebrew writer tells us that we are, effectively, our “brother’s keeper.” We need to “encourage one another.” This verb “encourage” is used 111 times in the NT! The Hebrew writer will use it four times: 3:13; 10:25; 13:19, 22. The pronoun “one another” is used 106 times in the NT. Clearly, God wants us as Christians to know one another, encourage one another, and worship with one another. Christianity is not a stay-at-home, practice on your own, religion.

The writer is making things relevant for the Christians in verse 13, based on Psalm 95… “As long as it is still called ‘today,’ encourage one another! So that no one will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Don’t let your heart get hardened, because sin is deceitful! My first sermon on Satan, back in January, dealt with the fact that Satan wears subtlety. He is deceitful. That means that he dresses up in whatever is appealing to me and he tries to move my mind or my heart away from the teachings of Christ.

In that sermon, I pointed to Jeremiah 17:9 where the Holy Spirit says that the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. That’s why we need the Bible and that’s why we need each other, to help us see the flaws in our hearts and in our thinking.

Because, in verse 14, he says we are “partakers of Christ,” notice - “if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm unit the end.” We have to remain faithful until the end, until Christ comes again, or death takes us into the spiritual world. If we do stay faithful, we will partake of the blessings of Christ throughout all eternity.

In verse 15, he quotes for emphasis once again Psalm 95:7-8, with the main point being “do not harden your heart.”

Now please pay attention to the last section of this chapter…

Israel provoked God to anger when they heard His commandment to trust Him.
Who heard? Everyone who came out of Egypt, being led by Moses.
With whom was He angry? With everyone who sinned against Him because they did not trust Him. So their bodies died in the wilderness - hundreds of thousands of Israelites died in the wilderness.
Therefore, God “swore” that those who were - disobedient - would not enter His rest.
To answer the question briefly in verse 19 - why could not not enter? Because of unbelief.

As far as the Bible is concerned, there is not a shade of difference between faith and obedience. Protestants have severed the connection, unfortunately. But in God’s word, in God’s mind, there is not a breadth of a hair between faith and obedience. Why did Israel not obey? Because they did not believe. If you believe, you will obey. That’s God’s pattern, under the Law of Moses, and under the Law of Christ.

On January 21, 2023, the University of Michigan relay team was competing in the Simmons-Harvey Invitation in Ann Arbor. Runner Sophie Isom fell during the first leg of the 4x400 race. After Isom got back to her feet, the other three members of her team were able to make up 30 seconds of lost time and Michigan won and beat that team down south (OSU) by 8 seconds. When we struggle to find our balance in life, we need our church family to help pick us up and carry us to victory.

Take home message: Consider Jesus and do not harden your heart to His message. Take care and let’s encourage each other to stay faithful!