This the power of the cross. Far more power. In that cross than we've ever imagined. And the results of the cross. To see our names. Written in his wounds. Through His suffering, we are free. Free indeed, Christ said. Death is crushed to death. Just like the life we now live, we no longer live in the flesh, but we live by faith in the Son of God, we also shall not die if we are in Him. Death is nothing, I read somewhere recently, but a door hook beside the threshold as we step out of this life and into the next to hang our flesh on. Life is mine to live. One, one for us through his selfless love, through his life and his death. Your life, believer, has been purchased by God. redeemed with the invaluable blood of Jesus Christ. When John there in the scene in Revelation four sees the angels around the throne praising God that he's created everything and sustaining everything, then in Revelation five, they're looking around who's going to open this book and they turn and they see the lamb. The lamb who was slain. And then we see the new song that they began to sing no longer praising God for being creator and sustainer. But he is also redeemer. And they sing this new song praising Jesus. Because he was slain and he purchased for God with his blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. You. Christ was slain and he purchased you with his blood. Life is mine to live to get his right in that song. This life was one. It's a gift given to you. How in the world could you consider squandering it? Why would you consider it OK to have such a poor passive pursuit of Jesus. Really, is there any legitimate reason for following Christ at such a safe distance? At such a miserably slow pace for some of us. So slow, in fact, that the writer of Hebrews says our great danger isn't merely slowing down or stopping but turning back. You can imagine going up a steep hill, attempting to push a ball, a large ball up the hill. There's no stopping. It's not going to just stop anywhere along the way. You've got to keep on keeping it moving, keeping it rolling. The faster you roll it, the easier it'll get in a lot of ways. But stopping, it isn't just going to stop and rest for a while. It will immediately begin sliding back down the hill. Our lives as believers, as God's children are headed somewhere. Namely, towards chapter four, verse one, let us fear if while a promise remains of entering his rest, that's where we're headed to the final rest in God. We mentioned last week in opening that the pattern or the picture that we have of the people of God in the Old Testament is a wonderful help for us if we will take advantage of it and use it. The writer in Hebrews takes full advantage of the Old Testament and especially of the story of the people of God. And here he's drawing attention to it in chapter three, as we looked at last week and we'll look at again today. drawing our attention to God's people in the Old Testament, drawing our attention to their journey from bondage in Egypt through the wilderness and the desert toward Canaan, the land of promise. Why does he draw our attention to it? For this reason, because we want to avoid the same pitiful outcome that we see in those who are rescued from Egypt. I mentioned last week the incredible declension that we see from this miraculous rescue from bondage in Egypt to. A remnant of Joshua and Caleb entering the promised land because of faith. We want to avoid that kind of deflection in our lives. The writer of this letter, no doubt, longs for the initial readership to learn from the dreadful mistakes. And the people of God in the Old Testament. The Apostle Paul, in fact, records for us in First Corinthians, chapter 10, if you have your Bibles, you can open there. He records the same thing. I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and passed through the sea. He's talking about the great deliverance. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea and all ate the same spiritual food. They experienced the great provision of the Lord and they drank the same spiritual drink. They were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them. And the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them, God was not well pleased, but they were laid low in the wilderness. Now, these things happened as examples for us so that we would not crave evil things as they also craved. Don't be idolaters, as some of them were. As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and stood up to play. Nor let us act immorally, as some of them did. And 23,000 fell in one day. Nor let us try the Lord, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the serpents. Nor grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now, these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction upon whom the ends of the age have come, not only for the instruction and example for the believers in Corinth there that Paul is writing to, not only for the believers that the writer of the book of Hebrews is writing to, but for us as well. The people of God, their journey serves as a wonderful example for us, instruction for us. And the approach that we see here that the writer of Hebrews takes in this letter is twofold. He's setting out, hoping to accomplish. Something in us that is not following down the same path that we see that the Old Testament believers did, Old Testament people of God. And he has a twofold way that we've seen thus far through the book. One, he is laying before them the glorious splendor of Jesus. And two, he is providing grave warnings all along the way. The first warning that we looked at in chapter two, the first few verses there had primarily one single point, and it was this pay much closer attention to the things that you've heard so that you don't drift. But the warning that we have here beginning in chapter three offers up offers us even more help. And yes, I mean, help. And we typically, especially in our culture, do not think of warnings as being beneficial. We tend to feel that warnings restrain us or restrict us in some way. They prevent us from doing certain things. And we, as a result, usually view them in a negative light. Some of this is human nature, and some of this is this culture we live in of a faux democracy, everyone, every man for himself type mentality. But this simply is not true. These warnings that are given here are for our help. They're almost always, in fact, for our good, with our best interest in mind. I mean, this is the case in the scriptures from the very beginning. Do not eat the fruit of this tree or you will die. Well, Satan turned that on Eve and she felt like something was being kept from her. Is that not the same way we feel when we see warnings in the scriptures? Why not? Why are we being hemmed in like this? From the beginning, warnings have been for our good. No doubt that warning would have been helpful had Adam and Eve heeded it. There's a gnat swarming around my head, so if I start swinging, it's just that. Here in Hebrews, the warnings that we have from the author of the book are no different. They are offered in order to keep us, literally, on the path to Christ in the midst of the journey, hemming us in from everything that seeks to destroy us from within and from without. Warnings are always for our good. And experience plays a huge part in that. Sometimes we're a little more prone to listen to a warning if we've experienced the reality of not heeding it. A sign that says warning high voltage will mean a lot more to someone who's been shocked with electricity before. A warning going down the street in the wrong way is going to have a different meaning to someone who's been in a head-on collision. C.S. Lewis in his screw tape letters writes this, the safest road to hell is the gradual one. Without sudden turnings, and with no signposts. Warnings are for our good. The warning passages here in Hebrews aren't given to impede our progress, but rather to encourage us along. In life, in this journey, it's really a great pattern that's laid out for us here. The writer says, here is Christ, pursue him. At all costs, go after him. Avoid turning to the right or to the left. Don't slow down. Don't look back. Press on in this race. This is the only healthy pattern for a believer, the only one. In a day when all kinds of patterns are being suggested, most of them are missing the first of this twofold method. Very few patterns that are being laid today have this as the first point. Here's Christ. Go hard after him. But all kinds of people are saying, do this. Don't do that. Look like this. Don't dress like that. Educate like this. Don't go to school like that. And you say, well, in all those situations, Christ is primary. That's a given. I say the results and the fruits of those people who are laying those patterns say completely otherwise, completely otherwise. If Christ is primary and he is the goal, the fruit of our lives will be Christ likeness. There's no way around it. It's guaranteed. Even in the first century here, some of the original recipients of this letter would have known Jesus and still the writer finds it important enough to say God has spoken to us in these last days in Jesus. No other way, that's it, he's spoken to us in his son and we have it recorded on the pages of the scripture, consider him, pay much closer attention to him, draw near to him. Now, when we looked at the initial warning in chapter two, we used a bit of a nautical illustration to consider that because the danger was drifting here, the danger is coming short or falling away. And so I want to use a different kind of illustration as we walk through the passage, one of just a journey. I've mentioned it several times already. How are you faring in your journey? Would you say that it's more similar or more different than the pattern that we see in the Old Testament saints? How well have you been instructed by the examples of the Old Testament people of God? Paul writes the church at Corinth and says it's for our instruction. How well have you been instructed? We. must guard ourselves from focusing too much and putting too much stock in the beginning of this journey. Now, it's important, obviously, it's important that we get in the faith before that we can ever go on in the faith. Obviously, you can't be in the midst of the journey at all if you've never begun. But undue attention to the insurance will hamper any real progress along the way. We see this in people all the time. If we are struggling with whether or not we we are in Christ and we are his, we will rarely make any progress in sanctification. And you can imagine this with an illustration. All of you aren't familiar with the Huckleberry Trail, but the trail, it's about six miles long, runs between Christiansburg and Blacksburg. Just imagine that I'm going to set out in a day to walk down the trail. Wouldn't take the whole day, I hope. Six miles. There are signs all along the way that tell you that you're on the Huckleberry Trail when you cross roads and things like that. If I pay no attention to that, and as I'm making my way from one end to the other, and I keep trying to think, okay, am I on the right trail? Did I turn? Did I make a wrong turn? So I have to go all the way back to the beginning to look again at the big sign that says Huckleberry Trail. Figure it all out again and then start out on the path. And then again, well, I think I must be going the wrong way. You've got to go back and look. You see how all of the undue attention to the beginning is going to distract and keep us from making any real progress in our Christian life. It's a danger for us to focus too much on the insurance and not focus on what the writer of Hebrews keeps quoting from the psalmist today, today. The end is important as well. Look at verses 12 through 14. 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, hold fast until the end. Now, the end of the journey obviously is incredibly crucial. So much so that the writer says, hold fast, keep on, strive all the way until the very end. Until you hear, well done, my good and faithful servant. At the same time, it's important for us not to fall prey to being so consumed with the end that we pull up short. Using our illustration, pulling up short and having a seat, pardon, and having a seat on a park bench thinking how great it's going to be when I finally get there. You're never going to get there. Never will I make it to the end of the journey on the trail if I'm sitting on a park bench imagining how good it's going to be when I finish. At the same time, our approach should not be along this journey of life to just hunker down, grin and bear it and get through it, hoping that one day I'm going to get my cabin in the corner of glory land and that's when everything's going to be OK. That's not it. Remember the song. Life is yours. It's been won. You have absolutely all of Christ Jesus that you want right now. The problem, as I've said before, is you don't want very much of him. That's our problem. We want so little. We're satisfied with so little. Of him and his reality in our lives. Now, with that said, we we must not ignore the past. And we must not lose complete sight of the future. But we must seek to be consumed with the reality of Jesus Christ in the present. That is our only hope. So that whether you've just come through a valley or you're on the verge of coming up to a curve. The writer of Hebrews says this, fix your eyes on Jesus. Three points of instruction here in chapter three that I want to look at. Actually, I only want to look at two of them because we looked at one of them last week in verse one. Holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus. The second one is in verse 12, take care, brethren, that there not be any one of you with an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. And the third in the very next verse, Encourage one another day after day so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. The first warning that the writer gives to us in chapter two was drifting. The danger was sailing right past the harbor of Christ. Now, the danger being pointed out, as we saw in chapter four, verse one is coming up short or spelled out in verse 12, falling away, or in verse 13, our hearts being hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. How dreadful. Can you fathom it really to apparently begin the journey and some appear to begin so well and to seemingly be trekking along and then to come short of the finish? Is it even possible? It's not possible, actually, for true believers to come short, but it is quite possible, however. For mere professing believers to come short of final rest in God. How how could it happen? Well, evidently, one of the clear ways that it could happen is by failing to heed these three directives, by failing to consider Jesus, by failing to take care of our hearts and by failing to encourage one another day after day. Take care. The writer writes in verse 12, be diligent in guarding your heart, give great attention to preventing your heart from being hardened and ultimately falling away from the living God. Wow. I mean, are you serious? What's with all this emphasis on effort and work and striving? We're sovereignty people. We emphasize grace, not works. Right. But all too often, the emphasis on sovereignty looks more like an emphasis on a fatalistic lethargy, especially regarding our sanctification. Yes, God is at work in you, but he's also commanded you to work out your salvation. Yes, God keeps you in his love, but he has also commanded you to keep yourself in the love of God. When God, in his love, stretched out his strong right arm and drew us to himself, rescuing us from his wrath that was due us because of our sin. He removed our hearts of stone. Which are the core of our wickedness, the source from which all sin flows out of us. And upon his removal of that heart of stone, the prophet Ezekiel records for us that he gives us a heart of flesh. He gives us a new heart. And because out of the heart flow the issues of life, all things now become new. We are new creatures in him. It's like changing the fountainhead. that was originally spewing nothing but mud and muck and dirt and scum. It's being changed and it's full now of fresh water. Yes, it will take some time for it to flow through every little tributary of your life and every arena of your life. But it's real. Before this change happens, disobedience is natural for us. Rebellion is natural for us. Unbelief and pride are natural for us. Serving self comes naturally. But after, after this glorious work of God in the soul of man, obedience becomes natural. Loyalty to God becomes natural. Belief and humility are now natural. Serving God becomes natural. Natural as a result of God's working in us. Now, notice, I say natural, not effortless. We must work out our salvation. We must take care of our hearts. We must keep ourselves in his love. We must press on in the race. Take care. of your heart so that it does not prove in the end to be evil and unbelieving so that it doesn't fall away so that you don't come short of entering his rest. I mean, these are small suggestions here from the writer. It's life or death. Proverbs 423, we have a familiar verse recorded for us. Watch over your heart with all diligence for from it flow the springs of life. Guard your heart. Keep your heart. Watch over it with diligence. Be absolutely vigilant in your efforts to guard your heart. Because everything about you flows from it. If we continue reading there, put away from you a deceitful mouth and put devious speech far from you. Let your eyes look directly ahead and let your gaze be fixed straight in front of you. Watch the path of your feet and all your ways will be established. Do not turn to the right or to the left. But turn your foot from evil. Regeneration, this work of God removing our own hearts and giving us a new one is a sovereign work of God. But with this deposit of the new heart in us comes responsibility. And the responsibility here in the text today is to take care of that heart that God has given us. Don't pull up short. Back up to verse 20 of Proverbs chapter 4. My son, give attention to my words. That sounds familiar today. If you hear his voice, incline your ear to my sayings. He continues. Do not let them depart from your sight. Keep them in the midst of your heart. They are life to those who find them and health to all their body. Guard your hearts with all diligence. So on this journey of the Christian life, consider Jesus first and foremost, consider Christ. And I have to tell you, to be really honest, it feels very awkward for me to have a point in the sermon called Consider Jesus and for me not to talk about it at all. But I dealt with that last week, and so I don't want to be incredibly redundant. I am not falling prey to what I've accused other people of doing, of skipping over that and getting immediately to the practical points of caring for our hearts and encouraging one another's. With that said, in the midst of this journey, the writer of Hebrew says, consider Jesus, take care of your heart. And thirdly, verse 13, encourage one another day after day. Look what encouraging one another does. It prevents a callous, hard heartedness. We are indeed saved as individuals. But we are not saved in isolation. We're a body and no part of the body can function on its own. None of it. In chapter 10 of Hebrews. Talking about. The new and living way with which we can go to God in Christ Jesus, beginning in verse 19 of chapter 10. We have recorded for us, therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he inaugurated for us through the veil that is his flesh. And since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for he who promises faithful and. And after all of this work that God has done in you and for you and let us consider how to stimulate or provoke one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near. Consider Jesus and consider provoking someone to love and good works. I mean, think with me about this. When was the last time you seriously considered provoking someone in an encouraging way, period? We don't even think of provocations in that way. Now, this encouragement, I must make clear, is not roaming around nitpicking specks in other people's eyes. It's building them up, bearing their burdens, toting their yokes, doing actually whatever is needed for them to remain steadfast on the journey. It may be a nudge from behind. It may be a tug from the front, a kind word, a little note, a gentle gesture. This word from God. concerning encouraging one another is not some mere suggestion for us just to come alongside and try to make everybody's life a little easier and more comfortable. It's a command that as the writer of Hebrews makes very clear is a life or death issue. Look at verse 13, encourage one another day after day, as long as it's still called today, so that here's what's going to happen if you encourage one another. None of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. So if you are not involved, encouraging one another, what's going to happen? You're going to become hard hearted. And your heart will be deceitful. Some of us know experientially where we would be if someone had not come alongside us at some point in our life and provoked us on, pushed us on in Christ. There's a progression that we see that takes place here. If you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, the first thing that happens In this progression, as we become hard of hearing. Then our hearts become hardened. Then we doubt and unbelief is present, and ultimately we fall away from the living God. And it's why the writer of Hebrews begins with this quotation from the Psalms today, if you hear his voice. I mean, this word if is incredible. If we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm to the end. If we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end. This is a warning offered in order to prevent us ultimately from falling away. The issue here with the warning passages in Hebrews aren't so much warning us against backsliding. The warning is against apostasy and leaving the faith altogether. Which begins almost always with backsliding, which is why we should guard against it. Consider Jesus, the writer says, take care of your heart, encourage one another. We might say it this way. Look unto Jesus. Take care of your heart, get the plank out of your own eye, hold up the arms of fellow believers, be the hands and feet of Christ to your brothers and sisters in him. We need each other far more than we realize. We're like coals in a fire. You can imagine a fire burning that's been burning a while and there's lots of hot coals. Just take the tongs and take one out and set it there on the hearth. It begins immediately to cool. Immediately. Within a matter of moments, it isn't even glowing anymore. The heat is dissipating rapidly. And it begins to go out. But now take the same coal. Throw it back in the fire. It isn't long at all before it's glowing again and the flames are dancing around between all of the coals. We are created in Christ to function as a body. as the bride of God's own Son. As a result, the rite of Hebrews says, day after day, as long as it is called today, last I checked it was, encourage one another. Not tomorrow. Consider Jesus today. Take care of your heart today. With all diligence today. Encourage one another today. And day after day, don't you think that tomorrow must be one of the devil's favorite words? When you say tomorrow, today, backsliding begins today. And every single day of our lives has the potential to be the beginning of falling away. That's why the psalmist says today, if you hear his voice, press on, press in, strive with great diligence to enter the narrow gate and to stay on the narrow path. Verse 15 through 19, today, if you hear his voice, he repeats it again, he's going to repeat it in chapter four when we get there next week. Do not harden your hearts as when they provoked me. For who provoked him when they had heard, indeed, did not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was he angry for 40 years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see. That they were not able to enter because of unbelief, they provoked God in the midst of their journey. provoked him to anger and their bodies littered the wilderness because of their unbelief. The writer of Hebrews is simply saying to us, don't be like them. And that's what Paul's writing to the church at Corinth. Don't be like them. It's what the psalmist was saying. Don't be like them. Today, if you hear his voice, listen. And heed the things that he says, considering Jesus, taking care of your heart and encouraging one another. That's the simple great warning that's here. You see, it's not a spectacular start in the Christian race that matters most, but a glorious finish, and the only way to obtain a glorious finish. Is to listen to him today to hear him and believe him and obey him and love him. Today, at a friend that summarized the book of Hebrews with one sentence, a faith that fails in the finish was faulty from the first. I apologize for the alliteration, but it's the only reason I remember it from 15 years ago, a faith that fails in the finish was faulty from the first. Now, you say, isn't that too harsh? No, it's not harsh. Yes, it's serious. Yes, it's a grave warning. What about the words of Jesus? Let's consider some of the words of Jesus as we close. Jesus told a story one day about a sower going out to sow and he was sowing seed and some of the seed fell by the road and the birds came along and ate it and some fell in the rocky soil and it sprang up quickly because there was no depth there and the sun scorched it and they withered because there was no roots. Other seed fell in among the thorns and the weeds. And when it came up, it was choked out by the thorns and the weeds and some fell on good ground and it yielded a crop. Because we're sheep and not very intelligent, Jesus goes on and explains to his disciples in the original context and to us what he's talking about with this parable. The seed is the word of God, the message of the kingdom of Christ. And initially this seed that fell by the road that the birds came and ate was seed that got in but was stolen away. It never got down into us. The seed that fell by rocky soil that came up quickly but was scorched by the heat because there were no roots, it's seed that got in and down into us but it never really sprang up. And the other seed that fell on thorns and weeds that were choked out. It got in and it got down and it came up, but it never really got out because it was choked by the worries of the world. But this good soil that fell on fertile hearts, the word of the gospel got in and it got down into our hearts and it got up out of our lives and then went out of our lives and fruit became evident. And Jesus, at the end of that parable, says these words, he who has ears, let him hear. It's amazing the importance of us listening to the word of God. He speaks in no other way to us other than what's revealed on the scriptures. The psalmist said it today. If you hear his voice, Jesus said it, let him who has ears, let him, he who has ears, let him hear the writer of Hebrews quotes today. If you hear his voice today, consider Jesus, take care of your heart and encourage one another day after day, as long as it's still called today. Let's pray. Our God, we thank You that You have not saved us and left us to ourselves, but You've given us Your Spirit, the Spirit of Christ Jesus, to live in us and among us, to be our guide, to instruct us along the way. God, we thank You for Your Word that is a light for our path. God, how we pray that You would grant us grace to know You in order that we might follow you more passionately. God, we thank you for the clear word from the writer of Hebrews to consider Jesus. To take care of our own hearts and to encourage brothers and sisters around us. God, how we long for you to make this a reality among us. God, how we need you to work in us and through us We thank You that You have indeed rescued a people for Yourself. That You've given us new hearts that love You and long to please You. God, we pray that You would make it more true today. For Christ's sake we pray. Amen.