Hebrews 3:1, 7–15
“Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest.
So, as the Holy Spirit says:
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion,
during the time of testing in the wilderness,
where your ancestors tested and tried me,
though for forty years they saw what I did.
That is why I was angry with that generation;
I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray,
and they have not known my ways.’
So I declared on oath in my anger,
‘They shall never enter my rest.’”
“See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end. As has just been said:
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion.”
Perseverance
The dictionary definition of perseverance is “continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure or opposition.” Another dictionary states it as “steadfastness in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success.”
Hebrews 3 is directed to people who were thinking about quitting and going back to their old way of living. They were considering abandoning their commitment to Jesus.
For a Jewish Christian undergoing persecution for their faith in Jesus, it was tempting to go back to Moses. The writer is saying, “Yes, Moses was great, but Christ is better. Moses was called by God; Jesus was sent by God. Moses was a servant of God; Jesus is the Son of God.”
Moses represents a system of laws and feasts and rituals that are types and shadows of Jesus. Jesus is the sum of the substance of all that Moses represents. Everything you see and read about in the Old Testament points to Jesus.
In Chapter 1, Jesus is superior to the prophets. In Chapter 2, Jesus is superior to angels. Now in Chapter 3, Jesus is superior to Moses. The message to the original audience is “don’t run back to Moses”. They needed to stay the course—to persevere—to press on in their commitment to Jesus.
Likely none of us are tempted to pursue Judaism but when the going gets tough and you are tempted to quit, there are four things you need to do:
Remember who you are
Learn from history
Check your heart
Engage deeply in a Christian community
Remember who you are
However you view yourself, God views you as holy and as a member of the family. That word “holy” simply means “separated’ or “set apart.” You may look at your life and see your faults and imperfections. You see areas where you need to grow. You may not feel holy, but God has chosen you and set you apart for His purposes. Don’t forget that.
And then, Jesus calls you a brother or a sister. He died for you and, through his death and resurrection, has adopted you into His forever family.
You bear His name. You are His child. You share in the heavenly calling. You are heaven-bound.
What you are going through right now won’t last forever. There is coming an end to suffering and struggle. This world is not your ultimate destination. An eternity in heaven awaits you.
Learn from history
To these Jewish Christians, the writer takes them back to the well-known story from their history as the people of God. After their miraculous deliverance from 430 years of slavery in Egypt, the people of Israel go on a journey to the land God had promised to Abraham. A journey that should have taken a few months turns into a 40-year exodus.
There is a thread that runs through God’s redemptive purposes and it’s the idea that for us, our salvation is exodus number 2.
The first exodus is a type or a shadow. As Israel was delivered out of the bondage of slavery in Egypt by the blood of the Passover Lamb, so we have been delivered out of the bondage of slavery to sin by the blood of Jesus—the final Passover lamb. The Christian life is the journey to the place of God’s promise and God’s rest.
In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul directly references the exodus of Israel and tells the Corinthian church to make sure to avoid making the mistakes that Israel made. That’s what the writer is saying here in Hebrews 3. Learn from the mistakes of your forefathers. Look at what happened to them and be warned by their failures.
These were people who made a good start. They experienced God’s miraculous deliverance and provision but somewhere along the journey, their hearts turned against God and they were disqualified from entry into the promised land.
At some point, when someone says with their words and their actions that they want to go their way, when they refuse to trust God with their life, God lets them go. It happened in the first exodus. It’s a possibility in the second exodus. Learn from history.
Check your heart
The word “heart” comes up several times in Hebrews 3. It refers to our inner person—the real person you are. Your heart is the center and seat of your spiritual life. It’s the fountain of your thoughts and passions, your desires, and appetites. Pay attention to what’s going on there.
For the people of Israel, it wasn’t the challenges and the obstacles that kept them bound. It was their hearts. Where do grumbling and complaining and ingratitude come from? The heart.
When it says, ‘Don’t harden your hearts,” it’s because we make the choice. In verse 13, he attributes the hardening of the heart to “sin’s deceitfulness.”
There is always dishonesty or deceitfulness about sin. Sin will always mislead you into thinking that it will deliver more than it can. It will always downplay the consequences and conceal the hook that will surely entrap you and victimize you.
From the very beginning in the Garden when the serpent came to Eve, he lies to her about the consequences of violating God’s command not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He convinced her that God was withholding something good that would benefit her.
Watch your heart. When it becomes convinced that God can’t be trusted and that sin has no consequences, there is a danger that you are not seeing. “See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.” Hebrews 3:12
Engage deeply in a Christian community
“But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.” Hebrews 3:13
There is a powerful and effective tool that God has given us to help us keep from falling away and that is one another. It’s not the only means, but it’s a very important means. One thing that happens too often when we find ourselves slipping or we’re overwhelmed or fearful is that we pull away from others. When you’re struggling, one of the powerful tools God has designed is the community of faith—the people of God.
Notice the directive here, “Encourage one another DAILY.” That literally means “every day.” Don’t let a day go by where you miss dispensing encouragement.
Think of how hard and harsh our world has become. I’m still sometimes surprised by how caustic and harsh people are on social media. Tearing others down comes so naturally to us.
The loving, sustained encouragement you bring to another brother or sister is a means that God uses to keep them focused on Jesus. I think of Paul’s words in Eph 4:29: “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”
In 1 Cor 12–14, Paul takes three chapters to write about the supernatural gifts of the spirit and the “how” and the “why.” The gifts you and I have been given are for building up. Our lives as followers of Jesus are built up through community. Paul’s teaching on the body of Christ speaks to the reality that we belong to one another. I need you and you need me. We don’t go it alone.
If you are going it alone in a private faith, it’s a spiritual disaster waiting to happen. You won’t flourish in the absence of other believers who speak the truth and pray for you and who pick you up when you fall and call you to a higher place when you’re slipping. One of the greatest deceptions is that you don’t need others.
“But encourage one another daily.”
The warnings and the call to persevere in Hebrews 3 are serious. The example of Israel is a stark reminder that the Christian life is a marathon, not a sprint, and Jesus has gone before us to show us not only that it can be completed, but that He is cheering us on and providing strength through the ongoing gift of my fellow Christians around me.
— Notes from Pastor Marvin Wojda’s sermon on April 24, 2021
CLICK HERE to watch the Hebrews 3 sermon on YouTube.