What wonderful words. Let's pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for this most astonishing thing that you've done while we were still sinners. You sent your son to die for us. Thank you that we have now standing at your right hand a perfect and faithful high priest who's interceding for us day by day. And we thank you that the sacrifice that he made has cleansed us of our sin so that we can look forward to that day when we stand in Your presence and see You face to face. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, week four of Hebrews. How are you going with it all? It's a lot to take in, isn't it? A couple of weeks ago I actually printed out the whole of Hebrews intersections and laid it out on the table and was quite surprised to see how short it actually is. It's not like a great novel that you sit down and I'm reading through Lord of the Rings with my 7 year old at the moment and we've been at it for 6 months and we're about half way through. That's not Hebrews. You can read Hebrews in 15 minutes but man, there's so much in it. I think you can spend a year reading Lord of the Rings and you can pick the themes out in about an hour. Try doing that with Hebrews. There's so much there. Bob sent me an email asking me what I should have as a title for this talk. And I guess as we're looking at these, kind of the middle sections of Hebrews, when we look at that chiastic structure, I think what's really going on here is the writer of Hebrews is trying to address and bring up the issue of immaturity in the church. So that's what I've come up with. I think this is to do with addressing the problems of immaturity. Now, we have suggested that we have a bit of a worldview problem, which colours the way that we read the text, and it's not just in Hebrews, through much of the New Testament. We've got to be aware of these things. It's really hard to be aware of them. When we talk about worldview and those assumptions that we have, none of us know that we have them, because they're assumptions. And we just assume that everybody sees and understands the world the same way that we do. Much of our worldview as Christians is already coloured and formed by the Word of God, and it should be. But we need to be aware of where our worldview doesn't necessarily line up with the worldview of the writer of Hebrews. And one of the key things is that we have this individualistic worldview, whereas the writers of the New Testament have this collective worldview. So when it comes to the warning passages, what we've seen is that They can indeed be understood as warnings to the church as a whole rather than to individuals. One of the key ideas that we've looked at through Hebrews is this idea of perfection and maturity, words which we translate, words which translate the Greek teleo, which is a verb related to the adjective teleos, so it describes something that is becoming perfect or complete. or finished or fulfilled. There are so many words that we can use to translate it and this is one of those problems with translation. We just don't have a word in English which directly relates to this Greek word. This concept is a really common one throughout the New Testament and in fact it's a common one throughout the ancient world. All of the philosophers talk about what it is to be the perfect person and of course Their answer to that question varies vastly depending on what branch of philosophy they're in. But it seems that the Christian community has come up with its own way of describing this. Perfect in the sense of the ideal. Perfect in the sense of everything that God intended us to be. That's the idea. And it's important to note that when the New Testament uses this word perfect, It has this pattern to it, it begins with faith, there's a pathway through hope, and its fullest expression is in love. And that should be reasonably logical to us because we're created in the image of God who is love. And so the fullest expression of humanity is in love for Him and for one another. But it's important to note that perfection is not sanctification or sinlessness. They're obviously related ideas, but I think this is one of the issues we have. Every time we see this word perfect come up, our mind immediately thinks sanctification or sinlessness. That's why we have an issue when we read the writer of Hebrews saying that Jesus was made perfect and we scratch our heads and go, what does that mean? Wasn't he always perfect? Well, yes. But was he always all that he was? Now that's a controversial question, isn't it? It's not so much that it wasn't already there, it's that in love, and what we're going to see in part come out today, is that it was through what he suffered that love reached its fullest expression and achieved its purpose and fulfilled its goal. All of those kinds of ideas. I wish we had a word that could communicate the idea that we don't. So last week we looked at the first and the last warning passages. Paying attention to God's word is the key idea and not being led astray by false teachings. The starting point on the path to building mature churches is faith. That, again, should be a really obvious statement to us. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that it is. for a lot of people. Faith in a lot of our churches and the way that our church at the moment, I say our church in kind of a collective sense, the church certainly in the Western world is struggling to come to terms with the fact that in 1960, 90% of Australians were in church on a Sunday morning and now it's around 7%. What happened? And the answer very rarely seems to be faith. It seems to be, well, we haven't kept up with the culture. We haven't learnt to communicate in modern ways. It's kind of anything but faith. We haven't adopted the values of our culture. We're no longer relevant. It's just not about faith. But it is. It is absolutely about who Jesus is and what he's done. If we don't have that clear, then what are we doing at all? So the starting point to building mature churches is always faith. And what we saw at the end, very briefly, because as we will see come out clearly in these sections of Hebrews, the church of the Hebrews is not ready yet to really start talking about hope and love. They've got to be grounded first in the person and work of Jesus Christ. We can't move on to those things. We've got to start here. So this week, we're going to look at the next steps in this chiastic argument of Hebrews, the way that he's put this letter together, which encompasses the other warning passages. We don't need to look at them in any detail because we've already dealt with that. And these love, hope, faith and faith, hope, love structures, which really mark out, I guess, the end of his introduction. and then it will be used to conclude his central argument, where everything in that centre, from chapter 6, verse 13 through to 10, 21, is all about the basis of our faith. That structure is interesting when you look at it. When we get to the end of the third warning passage and we go, love, hope, faith, the regular pattern that we see through the New Testament is in the opposite direction. Faith, hope, love. So while in part what he's doing is using this structure to point us to faith, everything between these two markers is faith, at the same time there's almost a sense of, despair's not the right word, but sorrow, because it's almost as if you're walking down the steps. We're starting where we should be, but we're not there yet, so we've got to go down No, I've got the microphone here. You know, there's love and there's hope, but we've got to come back down here to faith because you're not ready to be up here yet. That's effectively what he's saying to the Hebrew church. Now, I sent you home to do some homework and one of the things that I pointed out was that from chapter 1 verse 1 through to chapter 4 verse 13, everything in there is about the Word of God. That's something that shouldn't surprise us either. The Word of God is the basis for our faith. And that's not some great inspirational theological statement. That's actually true of everyone. Do you have faith in Les? Your faith in Les will be dependent entirely on what he says and whether or not he does what he says. So our faith in God It depends entirely on God's Word. We hear God's Word and then we see whether or not He does what He says. So it begins with the Word of God and just a really quick outline of that first section. We started off with Jesus being superior to the angels and do you remember the point of that statement? The message that was delivered by angels was binding, how much more then will the word of God delivered through his son be binding? And there's that Jewish tradition that we talked about where the Ten Commandments, the law given to Moses on Mount Sinai was mediated by angels. So that's the point of that. And then we have this call to pay much closer attention, followed by a brief section on Jesus being greater than Moses. So in that section we have heard the word of God and in the next section there's really a question about how do we respond when we hear it. So this is picking up in that next part of the chiastic structure leading into the second warning passage. 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 40 years. Therefore I was provoked with that generation and said, they always go astray in their heart. They have not known my ways and I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. As we go through chapter three and four, you're going to see that this text is going to be referred to over and over and over again. Today if you hear His voice, today if you hear His voice, today if you hear His voice, you have heard the Word of God. How do you respond once you've heard it? And then we have the second warning, take care brothers lest there be, do you remember the singulars and plurals, lest there be in anyone among you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. And then we're given what really is the solution to the problem of the one with the evil, unbelieving heart. Exhort one another every day, as long as it's called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Encourage each other daily in the word of God. How do you equip a church to resist false teachers? Ground them in the word of God. Exhort one another, encourage each other. Exhort is a much stronger word than just encourage. Exhort one another. Come on guys, let's get into gear, let's focus on God's word and let's make sure that we're living in a way that honours him and is in keeping with that word. For we have come to share in Christ if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. I'm not going to go through this all the way. What I want to do is really give you a framework so that you can go away again and do your meditating, chew it over. And so what I want to do is just help you to see the thrust of the argument. Verse 15, today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion. So repetition, second time we've heard those words. For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for 40 years? Was it not those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? How many of this enormous crowd of people made it into the promised land? So who was it that sinned? Everybody else. Now remember when we were looking at the warning passages how the primary concern is about the one with an evil unbelieving heart. Beware lest there be any man or woman among you But we also looked at that concept of intentional and unintentional sin. And something that I think surprises a lot of people because we think so individualistically is that that part where it talked, was it in Numbers? I can't remember, go back to the notes last week and see, where there's this warning about if anybody, whether it's one of you or a foreigner living in your midst who sins unintentionally, then a sacrifice has to be made on behalf of the entire congregation, because you all sinned. That's extraordinary. That's even a little bit offensive to us, I think. How could I come under judgement because of the sin of another? Well, when we think collectively rather than individualistically, we have responsibility to one another. So who was it that sinned in Egypt? I'm not sure that every individual amongst the Israelites turned their back on God, but only two of them made it into the Promised Land. Those that were opposed to the idolatry of the golden calf stood by and watched it as it happened. So they were all involved. Faith is a key word through this text, as you'd expect. We're concerned about the one with the evil unbelieving heart in chapter 12, and now in verse 19 we're told that the whole nation of Israel was not able to enter into the promised land because of unbelief. When we get down into the beginning of chapter 4, we see the faith language come up again. Therefore, while the promise of entering in His rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should come to have failed to reach it. For good news came to us just as to them, but the message that they heard did not benefit them because they were not united by faith with those who listened. For we who have believed, and that's the same word in Greek, those of us who have faith enter that rest. As He has said, I swore in my wrath I shall not They shall not enter my rest." Although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. There's a couple of things that are really key here and important for us to pick up. In chapter 4 verse 2 it says, for good news came to us just as to them. The word translated there as good news is the word that we normally translate as gospel. It's the same word. They heard the gospel. Which gospel? Was it the same gospel that we preached today? What was the good news that they heard? This is a really important question. What is the gospel? Do you know? What's the gospel? I think today, and I think this is what we often teach our kids in Sunday school, is that John 3.16 is the gospel. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life." You'd be offended if I told you that wasn't the Gospel. You know, in 2 Timothy, Paul gives us his one sentence summary of the Gospel. You know what his one sentence summary of the Gospel is? Jesus Christ raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel. Gospel is an interesting word. We like to think that we can break it down into its component parts. It's a compound word, good and news, so therefore it means good news. Language doesn't really work like that. The word awful, If you break it down to its component parts, does it give you the meaning of the word? Full of awe? No, no, language doesn't always work like that. It seems that by the time of Alexander the Great, the word Gospel, this word, has taken on something of a special meaning. Do you know that Alexander the Great employed gospelers, evangelists. He sent his evangelists ahead of his army into the towns and cities that he was about to attack to tell them the good news that Alexander the Great was coming to destroy your city, take all of you as slaves, just kill your armies. Repent and believe the good news. That was the message of the gospelers, the evangelists. The word gospel seems to have taken on a technical meaning, which is the proclamation of the coming of a king. Isaiah, whatever it is, you know, how beautiful are the feet of him who brings good news. When they translated that into the Greek, the LXX, they used this same word, gospel. And what is the good news? How beautiful are the feet of him who brings good news. And the good news is, the good news is our God reigns. Well that's good news. If you love the King, it's not good news if you want to be the King. The Gospel is the message of God's sovereignty and power and His dominion and His reign and I guess what we call the Christian Gospel is the news that Jesus Christ is Lord. That all authority on heaven and earth has been given to Him. So the Gospel that was preached to them, we're talking about the Israelites in the story of the Exodus, what was the news that was preached to them? Yahweh is God and He's your Deliverer and He will lead you into His Kingdom. So they heard the gospel. We heard the same gospel. Yahweh is God and he will deliver you into the promised land. So good news came to them. It came to us just as it did to them. They failed to enter the promised land. Why? Because of unbelief. They heard the word and they didn't believe. Now go back in your thinking in Hebrews. that image of the superiority of Christ to the angels. If the message delivered by angels was binding, how much more will this message be? God swore in his wrath they shall not enter my rest. Although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. What is this rest that he's talking about? In chapter 4 verse 4, we've got to try and get our heads into the mind of the author of Hebrews, for he has somewhere spoken on the seventh day in this way, and God rested on the seventh day from all his works. And again, this passage, he said, they shall not enter my rest. Can you follow the logic of what he's saying? Since therefore it remains for some to enter into it, and those who formerly received the good news fail to enter because of disobedience, again he appoints a certain day, which he calls today, saying through David, I think it's Psalm 96, I really should have written that down somewhere. One of the Psalms, but you know I'm quoting scripture like the writer of Hebrews does, so we're on a conglomerate somewhere it says, today if you hear his voice do not harden your hearts. When David writes in the Psalms this word of God, they shall not enter my rest, he's saying it obviously means that there's another day of rest. So what is this rest for Israel? It was obviously the promised land. But notice that down in verse 8, if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. There's this briefest moment in the history of Israel when they have rest from all of their enemies, when David is king. That's significant for us. David is God's Messiah. ancestor of Jesus through human lineage. Foretaste isn't quite the right word, but you know what I mean. He pre-fears the coming of Christ. There's this briefest moment when David is king and they have rest from all of their enemies, and it lasts that long. Joshua couldn't give them rest, so God speaks of another rest which is to come. We're going to see a bit later on a bit more about this idea of rest. But is this rest entirely a future thing or is it a present thing? There is rest from our works even now. And I think the way that the writer of Hebrews talks about God resting from his works, obviously there he's talking about the works of creation. We're going to talk at the end today a little bit about works. But we know really strongly and clearly in both Romans and Galatians, we know that nobody will be saved by works of the law. And as we get into the central section of Hebrews, which is all about the temple sacrifice and the ritual and all of that, I think this is what he's saying, that we enter into God's rest in a sense now, because we can rest from all of those works knowing that all of the work has been done for us by Christ. And if we have faith, then we enter into that rest. But the idea of rest sort of speaks beyond that as well. There's a day coming. There's a day coming when, well, you know, Revelation chapter 21 and 22. when every tear is wiped from our faces, where there's no more death or crying or mourning because the old order of things has passed away. And boy, do you ache for that rest. So we strive to enter that rest and I love that because it's just such an ironic little way of talking about it. Work really hard to get into the rest. Strive to enter the rest. And then the last part of this really finishes off this whole section which is about the Word of God. The Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joint and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from His sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account. That, in part, is the work of the Word of God in the first hymn that we sang. I love that line in the third verse, "'Tis mercy all immense and free, for, O my God, it found out me." Yeah, that's what happens, isn't it? The Word of God comes and we're found out. It exposes for who we are. And it leaves us with no option but to rely entirely on the mercy and grace of God. As we move on into the next section, the theme changes and this really is going to set up for us the central theme of the book of Hebrews and that's about Jesus the Great High Priest. So part one in establishing faith was the Word of God. Part two will be the priesthood of Christ. The person and work of Christ. Our faith can only ever be as strong as the one in whom we put our faith. Is this one worthy of our faith? That's a question that we should be asking. That's a question that we should be teaching our children to ask. That's the question that we should be helping them to find the answer to in God's Word. You know, a lot of people, when they talk about what sin is, they describe sin as the wrong things that we do and the good things that we don't do. Do you know that when Martin Luther talked about sin, he said that all sin is unbelief? All of our sinful actions, whether it's the good things that we don't do or the bad things that we do do, stem from the fact that we don't trust God. If you trust God, you'll do what he says. That's fairly straightforward logic. The way that... I'm not sure why I went off on that tangent. There must have been a reason for it. When we talk about... No, I don't know. My head's gone. Sorry. When it comes to faith, we just need to know who Jesus is. and what he's achieved for us. So we have this strange little section where we hear about Melchizedek. Melchizedek's a really strange figure in the Bible, isn't he? He's only mentioned twice outside of Hebrews. And the writer of Hebrews seems to base a whole theology on this figure of Melchizedek, which is quite fascinating. You know the story of Melchizedek in Genesis when Abraham comes into a city called Salem, the city of peace, and brings to him a tithe. The whole story is quite intriguing. The king of Salem, Melchizedek, comes out to meet him. He's both king and priest to God, and he meets him with gifts of bread and wine. The imagery is just fascinating. But since we have a great high priest, chapter 4 verse 14, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Maybe this is where I was going with my little tangent on what sin is. Jesus never wavered in his faith. He never stopped trusting his father. That's what Peter says in 1 Peter, isn't it? That he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. So he willingly gave himself into the hands of wicked people to be crucified and put to death, knowing that his father will always do what he says. He was tempted in every way. Do you know that there's a biblical pattern of temptation? What does it mean when it says Jesus was tempted in every way, just as we are? Some people have tried to stretch this out in all sorts of ways. Jesus must have been tempted in lust, just as I am. Jesus must have been tempted with materialism, just as I am. And I'm not sure that's what it's on about. Do you know the story of Jesus' temptation? This is driven by the Spirit, interestingly, out into the wilderness where He was tempted for 40 days and 40 nights. And then it says at the end of the 40 days he was hungry. It's got to be a massive understatement, I would have thought. I'd be a little bit more than just hungry. But the first temptation is, if you're the Son of God, turn this stone into bread. And what's Jesus' response? Man doesn't live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. And notice that he answers the temptation with the Word of God. Where does that word of God come from? It comes from Deuteronomy, and it's referring back to the story of the Exodus. That's the lesson that they learnt in the wilderness. Don't put God to the test. That'll be the next one. Man doesn't live by bread alone, but every word that comes from the mouth of God. That's the lesson of the manna. What was the second temptation? Jesus took him up onto the peak of the temple and said, throw yourself down, because the scriptures say that his angels will bear you up so that you won't strike your foot on the ground. And Jesus' response is, do not put the Lord your God to the test. So he responds to temptation with the Word of God. And where does that Word of God come from? It comes from the story of the Exodus again, the story of when They first walk out into the wilderness and after two days they're getting thirsty and so there's that whole issue about water and God says to Moses, do not put the Lord your God to the test. The final temptation takes him up onto a high peak and shows him all of the kingdoms of the earth and says, if you bow down and worship me, I'll give them all to you. That's what he came for, isn't it? He came for a kingdom. Well, here's the easy way. You know the way of the Father, it's going to be a hard way. Here's the easy way. Bow down and worship me and I'll give it all to you. And Jesus' response is... Oh, we were being tested this morning. So he answers the temptation with the word of God, and where does the answer come from? It comes from the story of the Exodus again. Three temptations. The first temptation is this. Act independently. Supply your own need. The second temptation, put God to the test. The third temptation, bow down and worship Him and He will give you the desire of your heart. You see the same pattern of temptation work out in the story of the Exodus. You know, they walk out into the wilderness, and where are we going to get a drink from? Well, we know this place where there's water. It's called bitterness, so we know we can't drink it, but we won't bother to ask God. We'll just rely on our own knowledge. It doesn't work out for them, so they get angry and upset. Why have you brought us out into the wilderness? To die? Put God to the test. And eventually, what do they do? What's the desire of their heart? Well, it's the land that's flowing with milk and honey. And while Moses is up on the mountain receiving the law from God, what are they doing? Building for themselves a golden calf. And what's the golden calf going to do for them? They say, let us build a calf that will go ahead of us. So what's the golden calf going to do? It's going to take them to the promised land. So bow down and worship me and I'll give you the desire of your heart. You get exactly the same pattern in the story in Genesis chapters 2 and 3. Act independently. You can be like God, knowing good and evil. You need wisdom. They did need wisdom. Well, source it from within yourself. Put God's word to the test. Did God really say? And eventually, bow down and worship me and I'll give you the desire of your heart. I see this play out particularly in young people in our churches. What is it that they want? Well, when you're 18 or 19, mostly what you want is a girlfriend or a boyfriend, someone to get married to. And so the temptation is, instead of praying and waiting for God to act in your life, sort it out for yourself. If it doesn't work out, get angry with God, put God to the test. Didn't you say, ask anything in my name and I'll do it? then bow down and worship me and I'll give you the desire of your heart. The most common reason that young people turn their back on God, for young people that have grown up in the church, is they meet somebody that's not a Christian. And they've got to make this decision, do I compromise or not? So tempted in every way just as we are, this is a pattern of temptation. I have nearly run out of time already. Jesus was tempted in every way, just as we are, and yet was without sin. He never wavered in His faith. He never stopped trusting God's Word and living by it. And because of that, we have now a perfect High Priest. Because He's been tempted as we are, He can sympathise with us in our weaknesses. And He's perfect in that, and this is what we'll get into next week, everything that He does in His priesthood is perfect and finished. the once-for-all sacrifice that never needs to be made again. Calling the Christian community to perfection, Hebrews 5.11-6.3, this is a really key passage where he's addressing this issue. About this we have much to say and it's hard to explain since you've become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the work of righteousness since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil." Can you see that the writer of Hebrews is pointing us all the way back to Genesis, chapters 2 and 3? It's about the knowledge of good and evil. It's about knowing what's right and wrong. And in Genesis 2 and 3 there are clearly two places, although it's not explicit, there are clearly two places that they can gain that knowledge from. They can get it from the tree and source it within themselves. Or they can listen to the Word of God and learn from Him. This imagery of immaturity and drinking milk is very similar to 1 Corinthians 3. And I've just got this question, how ought, that's not even a sentence, how ought to be teachers. Oh, you ought to be teachers. Sorry, I can't read my own typing. That's terrible. You ought to be teachers. How do we teach in the church? I was having a quick chat with Les just before we started and he was a physics teacher. He actually taught my wife. Have you ever had a physics teacher? Maybe I'll go with math teacher. Have you ever had a math teacher that stood at the front of the classroom and demonstrated on the board that they could do every kind of mathematical formula so that from then on, if you ever had a math problem, you knew that you could go to them and they could solve the problem for you? What a useless math teacher that would be. What's the goal of teaching? You want everyone to be competent. You know, in the 40 years of teaching physics, maybe one of his students went on to do a PhD in physics and became a university lecturer. Maybe... Maybe 5% used the mathematics and the science that they learned and went on and did a career with it. I'm going to go back to the maths teacher because it's a bit easier. If you're teaching maths, for the rest of the students, what is your goal for them? You would hope that at the very least, if they don't use their maths professionally, they would know how to do their tax return. They would be able to work out a budget. They would be able to calculate how much paint to buy when they're doing renovations. And perhaps more importantly, they would be able to help their own children with their maths. Is that how we teach in the church? You know, we've got this problem, this issue that's being addressed of immaturity, and there are people in the church without faith who are leading the whole congregations astray, how do we equip our churches? Is it enough to have somebody stand at the front of the church each Sunday morning and just preach to spoon-feed you information? Where is the training going on? Where are we equipping people to read the scriptures for themselves, to become competent so that they can spot the false teaching and not only recognise it but refute it? to teach and train their own children to read the Bible with their next door neighbours or a work colleague or whatever the case may be. Where is this kind of training going on? We all ought to be teachers. What I'm going to do to finish off is, again, so that you can go away and read and chew over, skip over to this page where we have some more detail. What we see through these two sections, so from chapter 3 verse 12 through to 6.12, and then from chapter 10.22 down to 12.15, is that there's some more detail to this chiastic structure. Back in chapter 2 verse 10, we had this little phrase, Jesus is the, in bringing many sons to glory, Jesus became the founder of their salvation and was made perfect through suffering. You get a very similar phrase in chapter 12 verse 2 where Jesus is the founder and the perfecter of our faith. If Jesus is the founder of our faith made perfect through suffering, how will the founder and perfecter of our faith bring us to maturity or perfection? The answer is there's going to have to be some suffering. And what you have immediately after that statement in chapter 12.1 about the founder and perfecter of our faith is the talk about God the Father who disciplines his sons. So bringing many sons to glory. What we have through the verses that we've been looking at is the negative example of the faithless ones who fail to enter the rest. In chapter 11, we have the positive example of the faithful ones who look forward to the city of God, entering into God's rest. Following the faithless, we have Jesus, who is made mature or perfect through what he suffered And just before we have chapter 11 and the example of the faithful, we have talk about the suffering of the Christian community. So you can see step by step by step, we're working our way up towards the center. A few things to go away and think about. I've just written them there. I'm only going to talk very briefly about the last one. We need to work out the connection between faith and suffering. You know, the single biggest objection to Christianity, if you engage with your non-Christian friends, will be, if God is good, why is there suffering in the world? Hebrews has a lot to teach us about that. And it's not just Hebrews. You can go to Romans 5. I've got that little passage there. There's a reason the world suffers. The reason is sin. And as horrific as it all is, God will use it to bring us to glory. Teaching and wisdom. Who talks about wisdom anymore? Who teaches their children wisdom? Helping them to navigate all of the trials and pitfalls of life. We need to pick up on that. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And perfect love casts out all fear. I think if you put those two together it suggests that perfect love is the completion of wisdom. But I want to just finish very briefly talking about love and good works. Do you get a little bit anxious when people talk about works? Because when I put my little chiastic structure together, I left something out because it made me a little bit nervous. pointing us to the centre of the section, these steps. Love, hope, faith. And then on the other side, coming back up again, faith, hope, love. Except I left out works. Because if you look at the text, it actually has works, love, hope, faith. And coming up the other side, faith, hope, love, works. We need to be absolutely clear in our heads that nobody is saved by their works. Galatians 2.15, we ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners, yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. So we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. Can't get much clearer, can you? It's important to note that in the New Testament there are actually two kinds of works. In Romans and Galatians it's very clearly works of the law, and in much of the rest of the New Testament where it talks about works, it's talking about works of love. So the writer of Hebrews says, let us consider how to stir one another up to love and good works. There's lots of talk about works in the New Testament. Philippians 2.8, for by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing. Sorry, this is Ephesians. Ephesians 2.8, 9 and 10 explicitly shows us the two kinds of works. By grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. Got it clear? For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. You won't be justified by your good works any more than you'll be justified by your works of the law. But we're constantly exhorted and encouraged to do good works. Jesus says in Matthew 5, verse 16, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. Matthew 7, verses 15 to 20. Jesus says, Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles, so every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. You will recognise them by their fruits." Now, you've got to read that in the light of everything else the New Testament says about works. You are not saved by your works. You are not justified by your works, but you will recognise them by their fruits. What kind of fruit does an apple tree grow? Apples. Is it an apple tree because it bears apples? Or does it bear apples because it's an apple tree? It's the second one, isn't it? It doesn't become an apple tree the moment the first apple appears. It's already an apple tree. There are two kinds of trees. You're going to think I'm really bad at botany here. There are two kinds of trees that don't grow apples. The first kind is every kind of tree that's not an apple tree. And what's the other kind of tree that doesn't bear apples? An immature apple tree. Or a sick apple tree. But an imperfect apple tree, imperfect, incomplete, is not doing all that it should be. The writer of Hebrews encourages us to stir one another up to love and good deeds. Why? Not because it will justify you, not because it will make you right with God, not because it will earn His favour, but because we want to bring glory to God by living out what it means to be His image. There's a little story at the end of Luke's Gospel where a little old lady walks up and puts two small copper coins into the offering box. And Jesus sees her and says to his disciples, truly I tell you, this poor woman has put in more than all of them, for they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on. How could she do that? The answer's fairly simple. She had faith in God. When you see a church that has no good works, they're not taking care of the poor, they're not responding to the needs of those around them, it's not a sign that they're not really saved. It just maybe means that their confidence is not in God. We can fall into that ourselves. We struggle to be generous. if we're worried about how we're gonna pay the bills next week. We need to learn to be mature in our faith, like this woman in this little story, and that will set us free to love. So, let's quickly pray. Father, thank you for your word. And as we read through Hebrews and we see these issues of immaturity amongst your people, speak to us about where we're at ourselves. because it's so easy in a nation as wealthy as ours without even knowing that we're doing it to put our confidence in our bank accounts and our superannuation and the food that we have in our refrigerators. We've stopped praying, give us today our daily bread because we already know where it's coming from. Teach us and equip us and train us through your word and through whatever other means is necessary, whether it's by suffering or anything else, to help us to become mature so that we can love as freely and fully and graciously as you have loved us by sending your Son. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.