It hit me as a good sermon to have for the new year in that it has some applications that we can apply to all the sermons for the rest of the year. It has applications in it that we can apply to relationships for the rest of the year. to give us an opportunity to think about the things that in 2023 that we may not have been faithful in doing, that we have an opportunity, as people do at the beginning of the year, to turn over a new leaf, to reset the truth in their hearts and to seek to follow the Lord in a new way. And so before we get into it, just to give you just a real basic outline of the verses we're looking at. So we're looking at verses 12 through 15. In verse 12, we're just looking at a command to be careful and to avoid the danger. In the next verse, there's going to be a connecting remedy that Paul gives us to help protect us from the danger. In verse 14, he's further connecting us to union with Christ and the perseverance of the saints. And then in verse 15, there's this rephrasing and repeating of the warning. And this warning we're looking at, he's circularly been talking about this. and other places in the book of Hebrews. So he's just re-emphasizing it. It's a different wordage. But that's just the basic to maybe have in our mind before we go into the text of how we're going to go through it. So I'm going to read it and then we'll pray and begin. Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God but encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called today, so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end, while it is said, today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as when they provoked me. Let's pray. Lord, we pray again that you would help us. Help us to look at your word. Help me to deliver it and help those listening to receive it. Or may your truth run through here this morning. May it not return void as you promised. May it trickle down into the valley and cause growth and sanctification and building up. Where is needed and so Lord we trust your word. the power of your Holy Spirit this morning as we go into your text. We pray these things in the name of your son. Amen. So the first thing we're going to look at is this first warning of take care, brethren. Take care, brethren. It's just meaning to look, to see, to be on guard against. to be diligent in pursuing this care, this warning. It's of utmost importance that you take care, that you be on guard. Take care, brethren. It's a serious threat to a church. It's got a lot of potential for disaster. Now, in science class, you think about potential, and I remember my professor, I think he had a tennis ball on a string, and he pulled it back and he's holding it. And that is potential energy. It's not kinetic, it's not started, but there's a potential for the energy to be released. And so this is a warning that there's a lot of potential harm that can come to a person's soul if they don't follow these commands. Take care, brethren. Look and see and be on guard against it. It's a very serious thing that we're looking at this morning. when you see words like this. He goes on to say, in any one of you, now this was interesting to me because I'm not a great English student, but this is an indefinite pronoun, I'm sorry, the indefinite pronoun anyone. So when you think of the word anyone, that's all together. So I'm gonna contrast between anyone with a space and anyone together. So when anyone is together, it's used as a single word, It refers to any person at all, not to any particular individual. Anyone with a space, as we're dealing with today, uses two words, is an adjective phrase that refers to any singular member of a group of people. So as we get into the next section of this verse, this letter is being spoken to a church. And its context is not just a universal anyone, but it's an anyone of you. It's an anyone of you, meaning in order for us to even begin to obey this verse, you have to be part of a local body. You have to be part of a local church. You have to be a member of a local church. Take care, brethren, that anyone of you, it's not, Christianity is not being lived on social media just blanketly across like a globalization. But it's there's a specific group of Christians here, a specific group of Christians that we're looking at in the text. And it's going to them specifically pulling out any one of you in this particular designated group. Now, just to kind of review that this church recognizes who is in the group through membership. And so just while we're on the verse, to mention again, to be a member of this church is something that you willingly enter into, that you want to be a member of it. And you go to our pastor and you meet with him and talk about your testimony and your baptism, and then he welcomes you into the membership of the church. But it's something that you willingly enter into, and then you become part of this one another that we're looking at this morning. So it's essential. It's how the church functions. Membership is important. We see right away that in order for us to start to create the context of this exhortation to be about encouraging one another and being on the lookout, we have to first answer the question, well, who are we talking about? and it is specific members of a local body. And so when you become a member, you make it known to the pastor, you make it known to the other members that you have been folded into this particular flock and that it is your desire that you would be shepherded. It is your desire that people would be carrying out for you and checking in on you and encouraging you and all those things that come with being part of a body of Christ. So. To continue on. And an evil and unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. So this phrase, an evil and unbelieving heart. Now, some of the things that, just to kind of look at some context for Hebrews, is we see in verse eight of this chapter, do not harden your hearts. Verse 12 of this chapter refers to an unbelieving heart. Verse 13, a hardened heart. Verse 15, harden your hearts. This whole section is repeated in chapter four, verse seven. Do not harden your hearts. Verse 319, they were not able to enter because of unbelief. So these phrases unbelief and harden and hardening are all used together by this author. So an unbelieving heart is gonna be in connection with a hard heart, is what we're getting at here. An evil and unbelieving heart. It's disobedient, it's an unbelieving, it's hard, it's hardening. that falls away from the living God. Now, to put some contrast in this section on the unbelieving heart versus the believing heart, we see in Hebrews 2.13, he's quoting David in the Psalms, and he says, I will put my trust in him. So David is laid out as one who has faith in God. He's putting his trust in God. In Hebrews 3.5, Moses was faithful. In Hebrews 3, 6, Christ is the more faithful Moses. He is faithful as a son. And in Hebrews 4, 3, we see that for we who have believed enter that rest. So there's this contrasting back and forth that we see an unbelieving heart and a believing heart, faith, unbelief, hardness and softness towards the Lord, trusting and resisting that is being laid out in these verses. Now, one thing that comes into my mind that would be something we have to talk about is Because we know of verses like Ezekiel that talk about a heart of stone being replaced by a heart of flesh, that it can get into the Christian mind that a hardness of heart is only something that is for unbelievers, that it's a fruit of the retrograde. For those who have not put their faith in Christ, they fit into the category of a hard heart. But it's not something that a Christian would struggle with. And so this text is showing, yes, it is something that a Christian can struggle with. And I'm gonna give you a few other verses to think about. One of them is Deuteronomy 15, seven through nine. And this is talking about the year of the sabbatical year when they forgive the debts in the law. If anyone owes you money on the year seven, you forgive it. And we're looking at verse, 7, Deuteronomy 15 verses 7 through 9. It says, If there is a poor man with you, one of your brothers, if any of your towns and in your land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart, nor close your hand, from your poor brother, but you shall freely open your hand to him and generously lend him sufficient for his need and whatever he lacks. Beware that there is no base thought in your heart, say, in the seventh year, the year of remission is near, and your eye is hostile toward your poor brother, and give him nothing. Then he may cry to the Lord against you, and it will be sin in you." So there's this This command to be generous to the one who's poor, the one who's in need, and to resist this disobedience to the Lord and being generous and kind and giving to another brother is being described as a hardness of heart. So here's this command. Be generous to your brother. And if I'm feeling that I'm going to resist the Lord and obeying that, that I'm not willing to yield to him, then it's being referred to as a hardness of heart. Another one is Mark 6, and you can read that section, but I'm just gonna look at verse 14 in Mark 6. It says, after where he appeared to the 11, so he's speaking to the disciples minus Judas, themselves as they were reclining at the table, and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart. because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen. So here again we see that this is used to describe a hardness of heart, that there was, the word came that Jesus had been risen from the tomb and those resisted it, they didn't believe the word, and Jesus rebukes them for having a hard heart. So it is true that you can be born again and be indwelt with the Spirit, be regenerated, have the heart of flesh that Ezekiel talks about, and still exhibit a hardness of heart as a Christian. Okay? That's what we're hoping to look at. So there can be a way that when you think of this verse, do not harden your heart, that it kind of gets put into a category, not that you can't use it this way, but that it's always used to go out to the unbeliever. It's like a gospel call. If you hear his voice, don't harden your heart. But what we're looking at today is that it goes out to all believers as well to not resist the Word of the Lord. Now at the end of this first section, so we have an evil and unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. This text is not saying that your outward sin is the thing that drives you away from God, but your inner heart. And we know this from the teachings of Jesus, that he was always taking the law and trying to look through the law and see that really what's behind law-keeping is really a matter of the heart. And that's just the same thing that we're looking at this morning. It outwardly can look a lot of different ways, but see, the law, eventually, if it's applied correctly, exposes if a person's heart is wrong. Now, you think about this. In this section here, This church, so he's saying any one of you, and we're going to get into a section later about encouraging one another, that each person here who may struggle with, do I really have any meaning? Does anything, my involvement here in this church, my membership in this church, what am I really doing for the kingdom? What am I really accomplishing for the kingdom? And this verse is saying that you are involved in actually the preservation of Christians making it all the way to the end. Is there a weightier thing that you could have in your life to say that the Lord has put you in a church with 30 or 40 other believers, and you are now an active means of grace in their life so that they will endure all the way to the end? that it would be counted as like, well, how did Jeffrey get all the way to the end? Well, it was because this brother and this brother and this sister or Miss Debbie, you could just go down the road that the consequences that we're being on guard, we're overlooking each other. We're helping people to avoid this hard heart. And the consequences of it not being carried over and people not obeying this, is that they would begin to drift and drift further away from God. And so it's quite a privilege to be just a member in a local church. And it's extremely valuable and weighty. And we should view it that way. We have to get out of our mind that, you know, just the lies of that you're important. You know, think about in the scriptures, it's the unseen members that are most important, that we always want to be the ones at the top, and that's the ones who are really making a difference. But the members of a body, keeping, preserving, being a means of grace so that no one falls away from the living God. To think that it's charged to you as a member to be engaging in relationships where you're actually seeking to see what's in that person's heart. That you're not just saying, well, I think they're okay. They said hello, and they said yes, ma'am, and they seem like they're doing okay. But our goal as a church is to be on the lookout for the unbelieving heart, the hard heart, That takes relationships, that takes communication, that takes talking to each other. It's not something that just happens flippantly. It doesn't happen without, this doesn't happen without a relationship. So it's quite a thing to be someone who's involved in this, to have this as part of our duty and our, it's a privilege to keep them away, keep them from falling away from the Lord. Now, verse 13 says, But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called today, so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Now, we're just talking about that this requires intimate relationships in the body, and these relationships take time. And so it goes to show that, you know, Paul talks about how he would write letters and then he would just say, oh, what I long to see you in person. I long to see your face. I long to be with you. And you see, there's such a connection there, that if this encouragement of one another day after day, seeing that, okay, I'm being charged to look over one another, that there could be an unbelieving heart amongst us. There could be someone who is beginning to doubt the goodness of God. There could be someone who has forgotten the mercies of God. whatever it is, there's a hardness there that is building up in that person's life. And that we get to be those that are going about encouraging and trying to shore up and strengthen this person's faith and to minister to them. And this can only happen with a real, genuine relationship. And real, genuine relationships happen in churches from people coming regularly and coming to the meals and coming on Wednesdays and coming to the prayer meeting. And there's so many opportunities each week to be with one another and to have conversations. And then if there's something there that inhibits particular being able to come to a certain meeting, I mean, we have phones and let's meet for lunch, let's get a coffee, let's have an engaging real relationship. so that I can actually try to be an encouragement to you, that I can actually try to see what's in your heart, and you can see what's in my heart. I may go to you that day thinking, I'm gonna encourage him, and I walk out going, goodness, I'm the one that got the encouragement. And these things just, Posting on social media, I'm not saying it's a good extra thing to do, but there is no command for us to be a voice to the whole world of Christianity. The command is for us to be encouraging and be a voice to this local body, any one of you. This one another here is our first obligation, our greatest obligation. We can't neglect it. at the expense of ministering to even people that we love and care about in other towns. Yes, it's great to check on a believer, you know, in another town and check on them, call them, but that can't be at the expense of this local body. Think about Ecclesiastes 4, it's a famous verse, 9 and 10. Two are better than one because they have a good return of their labor. For if one of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up." This neediness that we have as a church, this need to be encouraged by one another, the members that are in the body. And so before we move to the next text, it's. I think we all have to be asking ourself as we go through this and we're thinking about, you know. What are things we could do as a better church next year? Do you genuinely, sincerely? Have a love for this church? And if you do. Then are you on a regular basis seeking to actually demonstrate that love? We know that that we know that Jesus loves because he demonstrated it on the cross. So there's a corresponding demonstration that as a body we are to have. of having real relationships with each other, seeking to encourage each other, seeking to help see what's in that person's heart, and them seeking to see what's in my heart. And if I fall, they lift me up. And if they fall, I help lift them up. And then together, we make it all the way to the end. Together. That we would do away with this isolation view of Christianity. It's just not in the Bible. I mean, you know, we talk about that we're sheep and we're needy. We needed shepherding. We need God's word. We need each other. It's not a Christianity is not something that we can live on our own apart from the body. Now, in verse 14, for we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end. So to be companions of Christ is to walk with Him our whole life. That's believing in Christ day in and day out, walking with Him our whole life, yielding to His Word our whole life, maintaining a firm confidence in the goodness of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ all the way to the end. Now, it uses this word, hold fast, which I think is we have to take to see that there's a real shaking that happens in our life. There's an unpredictableness of our life. We have no idea what's gonna happen tomorrow. We have no idea what struggles or temptations may enter in and shake in our faith and cause us to have a doubt or cause us for this unbelieving heart to creep in. And so it's something that we have to maintain, we have to hold fast to. And then it's interesting to think that we're to hold fast to this confidence, this hold fast to believing in God. And then at the same time, we're also being encouraged to be on the lookout for the unbelieving heart in others, to be about encouraging. And so it's like Elliot when she's in the swing. She wants me to swing her, but many times I find myself grabbing her. She's holding on to the chain. And I'm putting my hands over the top of her hands as she's holding on to the chain, too. Because I want them to stay there. And so the encouragement that we're to have in the body is to be about that I see a brother over there holding on with a firm hand. And what can I do to come over there and just try to be an encouragement to strengthen his hand that's already holding on to Christ and to make it stronger and more resilient to what it could be to hold fast that in case something happens in his life, he has some stability there from his church, not from Facebook, not from Twitter, not from a YouTube sermon, but from his local church. You think of a bull rider. The reason they have to hold on so tight is because you don't know where the bull is going to go. When you get on one of those little airport trans, you know how it's kind of the thing in Vogue that nobody wants to hold on because they feel like, you know. It's sissy or something to hold on. So you stand, all the men are just standing up, not holding on to anything. Because they know what's fixing to happen. See, there's nothing, you don't have to hold to anything if you just know the way it's going to go. But the bull rider's over there and he's like holding on for dear life because the bull could go left, it could go right, it could go up, try to throw him forward. And so we know that life is that way, that it's unpredictable, that we don't know what is going to happen tomorrow. Many are the plans of man, and so it requires a holding fast to be prepared, to be encouraging one another day after day to keep the faith. You know, Paul calls it that at the end of his life, he fought the good fight of faith. There's a fight in it. There's a resilience that we have to have. And here's the thing, you may say, wow, I don't feel like I'm much of a fighter. I don't know if I could really hang on to much adversity in my life. And the good news is that the lesson today is to say, it's okay to not feel like you can hold on because you have a church that is there to help you hold fast, to help you hold on to your faith. Now, verse 15. For while it is said, today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as when they provoked Me." So we're thinking about Israel. This is quoting Israel in the wilderness. We know that Israel grumbled, they complained, they tested God, they resisted God. But here's the thing that... incredible to me, is that you can take any section of the Bible, you can take Israel or any other, just move on through. And it really just comes down to when the Lord speaks, did the person obey what the Lord said? The Lord speaks, did you yield to it? Did you obey it? Did you submit to the Lord? When you read your Bible, it is a voice. When the preacher preaches, it is a voice going out to all the hearts that are in the room. When the truth is proclaimed, we are all in the same position over and over again. If we obey, if we submit to the Lord, then our heart is a heart of faith. It's a heart that is soft. It's a heart that is yielding. When we resist the Lord and His voice, it is a heart that is hard. It is a heart that is unbelieving. Now, you see the connection there is that yielding to the Word of God is directly connected to your believing in God. So those things are connected in the Scripture. I'm obeying the Lord, I'm believing in the Lord. See, David trusted the Lord, and Moses was faithful, and there was this belief and this faith that's connected to following the Lord and yielding to Him. I was thinking about Annabelle has a horse, well she had a horse, but she's a horse person. And if she is leading a horse around, that horse is gonna follow her in a connection with what that horse trusts Annabelle. There's a trust there. So she's leading that horse, that horse is gonna follow. But if she gets to a place like a creek and that horse isn't sure, then that horse is gonna pull back, and it's gonna stiffen his neck. And that is the same thing that happens with the Christian, that the Lord leads us, and sometimes we just go right along, but every now and then, there's a word, and we stiffen our neck on it. And we're not sure that we're going to do it. That is, the text is saying, do not harden your heart right there. When you feel that feeling to pull back against God's word, realize in your heart what you're doing. You have a hard heart in that moment. A trusting horse would follow Annabelle all the way across the creek. And just as long as Annabel's in front, he has nothing to worry about. He's just following behind her. Complete and absolute trust in the Lord makes us a, we're just a yielding spirit. We're not like the stubborn heifer that we see in Israel. But obeying the Lord, following his command. So you could even say right now in this sermon, Let's say that there was something you heard and you're wrestling with it, it's right now the word is going out to say, do not harden your heart. It's a thought that you could carry with you into every sermon the rest of the year. That when I go in and sit down in front of, in that pew today, and God's word is opened up, that God helped me not to harden my heart today. Lord, help me that when I hear it, whatever it means I have to do, repent of, change in my life, that I would be a yielding spirit today, again, day after day after day. That I wouldn't just feel like, well, I think I got Christianity figured out. I mean, we are, it is arrogant, it is arrogant to think that you should not have this thought in your mind each Sunday, that you are capable of a hard heart. It is arrogant to think that you don't desperately need this church to encourage you and this church to know you intimately. And this church to know that when your heart is good or bad and be able to try to give you a scripture to hold on to. To just kind of not think that's important. I'm just. I mean, that is arrogant to the max. And when I say arrogant, I mean this. We are needy. That is that is the Christian life. It was the other day Jeffrey was talking about being strengthened in the Lord, and it just felt like I needed every day to be strengthened. So when I start to live my Christian life as though I don't need the scriptures, I don't need to be humbled under the word, and I don't need the church, and I don't need other Christians knowing me so well that they can... Have you gotten any messages or sent any messages to people in this church before and just saying, hey, are you doing okay? Something's off there. There's a real Christian relationship happening where somebody sent something and they're trying to look out for your heart. They're trying to care for it. They're trying to say, are you discouraged? Is there a verse? Do I need to pray for you? Do we need to talk about something? And that's essential to the Christian life. It's essential. We have to have it. So here's a few things, a couple applications, just to put fresh on your mind again. So take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God, but encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called today, so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance, firm until the end, while it is said, today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as when they provoked me." So a few final thoughts just to say again, take with you that these verses are exhorting us towards church membership, to be a part of a local body, to be part of a one another, to be part of an anyone here, this group of people. These verses are exhorting us to maintain relationships, that it would be something that we're actually striving and putting energy and time towards, that it's necessary that we have relationships with each other. And I wouldn't say that you necessarily have to have relationships with every single person in here. I think it would be great. But there needs to be some relationships happening in the church. You need to be a part of some group of people, women and men, that are talking and encouraging, so that you can obey this text. To say again, as helpful as YouTube sermons are, and there's things on Twitter and online, and there's G3 conferences, and all these things can be good, but they are not a substitute for the local body. They're not a substitute for your value in helping other believers, and them helping you, and that nourishment, and that strengthening, and that encouragement, that you can say, man, I got so encouraged by this YouTube video, and that's great. But your primary means of encouragement, receiving and giving, should be amongst this group here, this one another here. And to say again that any time that you feel that there has been a word, if it's true, if someone comes with their Bible open and they say, this is what the scriptures say, and you're looking at it and it's true, and you feel that you just can't get there, the first step in being able to overcome that is just to recognize what it is, that I'm having, I have a hard heart right now towards the Lord, that I have become that horse that just won't follow the Lord that far. I followed him for many years, but he got me to this one spot I just can't go any further. And that you have to think that way and realize it before I can repent of it. I can't just move about as though it's normal to say that, yeah, this verse, amen, this verse, amen, but I just not can't go to that verse. We have to identify that it's a hard heart. So, will you be on guard? Will you be on guard against unbelief in yourself and in others this year? Will you seek to truly have encouraging fellowship with the members in this body this year? Will you say in your heart that whatever happened in 23, good or bad, that Christ is the good shepherd and you will not harden your heart against him in the coming year? That he is good. He is faithful. that whatever the thought has crept in, that wicked and unbelieving hardness that has crept in, that has caused you to not view God as good, that you would cast it out and go into 24, fully trusting the Lord, fully yielding to Him, fully committed to Him. So may the Lord help us, amen. Jeffrey, you gonna come up and do that?