Hebrews 3:1
Well, welcome back everyone. I hope you got some sustenance and some rest and are ready to turn on your brains and get after it here in Hebrews chapter 3. It’s really good to be back to our study of Hebrews tonight and you can open your Bible, see Hebrews 3.
I’d like to start tonight by reading this section that we’re going to come into in Hebrews 3:1 to 6. But I want to back up to Hebrews 2:17 and then I’ll read through Hebrews 3:6. “Therefore, He,” that is Jesus, “He had to be made like His brothers in all things, so that He might become a merciful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.
“For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He’s able to come to the help of those who are tempted. Therefore, holy brothers, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession– Jesus, who was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was in all His house. For He has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, in so much as the builder of the house has more honor than the house.
“For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God. NOW MOSES WAS FAITHFUL IN ALL HIS HOUSE AS A SERVANT, for a testimony of those things which are to be spoken later. But Christ was faithful as a son over His house– whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope.”
As you can see, if you let your eyes kind of scan what’s ahead in the text, the pastor is not only calling his congregation to consider Jesus carefully, but in light of some in their midst, some in the congregation who are defecting from the fellowship and returning to their former synagogues to kind of make life easier for themselves, take the heat off.
He is, this pastor is preparing his people to hear and receive some sober warnings that are to come. You can see what comes immediately next in verse 7 and following. The pastor cites a long section from Psalm 95. He quotes the entire back half of that Psalm, which is nothing but warning.
He doesn’t quote at all from the front half, which the front half of Psalm 95, if you’ve read it and you’re familiar with it, it’s a celebratory joyous call to worship, bow down, give praise to God, sing praises to our God. He doesn’t recite any of that portion, but he just delivers the warning portion of Psalm 95.
And then what follows after citing that Psalm in Hebrews 3:12 to 4:13 is really a targeted exposition of that warning section from Psalm 95:8-11. So there’s a lot of warning to come, a lot of concern that he has on his heart as a pastor.
As I have been studying this passage and reflecting on the great truths that the pastor wants us to pay attention to, truths that he wants his own people to consider and to contemplate and to reflect deeply upon, I’m mindful of how similar we are to these original readers, to the original readers of this epistle, to the original recipients of this exhortation from their pastor.
I’m mindful of how our congregation and his congregation share some similarities and are alike in some ways. And it’s not in the sense, obviously, that we’re facing some kind of a Neronian-grade persecution in the culture, but it’s in the sense that we too, I think, need to be jolted from our stupor, pushed out of our lethargy, awakened from apathy, turned away from our entertainment and our distraction and our love of comfort and ease, and called to think far more carefully than we do.
We’re a people who are so often distracted into dullness. We’re inundated with such a glut of information, and not all of it bad. Much of what we have access to is really good stuff. Preaching, teaching, theology, doctrine and yet it seems to me that our churches are not as strong as the churches of yesteryear. We seem to settle into a mindset of boredom in a luxury of truth.
When I worked for Grace to You, the media organization that mass-distributed John MacArthur’s Bible teaching in the form of books, tracks, audio recordings, broadcasting on the radio, and then catching up with the times and using the viral distribution channels of the Internet, I was mindful then, and I’m even more mindful now, about how the blessing of access comes with unintended consequences.
There have always been plagiarists, people who plagiarize and take somebody else’s property, or intellectual property, or work, or whatever, and claim it as their own. But pastors plagiarizing sermons increased with the availability of faithful Bible teaching. It’s not only troubling, but it’s bitterly ironic, isn’t it?
Another unintended consequence that we heard far more routinely than I’d like to know and hear when I was working at Grace to You, but some people thought it was okay to abandon their local churches, who were pastored by men who were supposedly less gifted and less faithful than John MacArthur.
And so some of these listeners became arrogant, not humble, became impatient and overzealous, not understanding and meek. They were critical, and not in a good way, but they were not constructive at all. Radio listeners, Internet followers started criticizing their leaders, accusing them of going seeker sensitive, as guitars and drum kits were used in the church, and they thought that’s a sure sign that you’re going full Rick Warren, or something like that.
And so unable to put up with this so-called compromise any longer, they just had to leave. So they’d sit in homes on Sundays and go into the living rooms with each other and sit and listen to sermons downloaded from Grace to You, and they’d call that church. We couldn’t keep up trying to counsel people away from that kind of thinking.
Even more concerning and more subtly undermining for people, for local churches, and even for pastors, the familiarity of sound Bible teaching and the access to deep, faithful Bible exposition, I think for many listeners, truth stopped being special. In many cases, the saying came true, that familiarity breeds contempt.
No one would say they had contempt for truth, but it’s how they treated the truth that showed their contempt. People seem to think, and actually said things like this, I’ve heard it. I already know this. I’ve listened to John MacArthur preach this. I’ve studied online with Ligonier Ministries, R.C. Sproul, or fill in the blank on whatever teacher it is. What you’re saying isn’t anything new, and it’s not all that impressive.
You’re kind of mediocre. I want to be clear that the problem in all this is not wider access to truth, and so therefore the solution is not to lock the truth away in some vault so no one can get at it. The problem is with us, and the problem is a heart problem.
It’s a tendency of sin that we tend to grow dull of hearing and hard-hearted. Familiarity does breed contempt when we treat God’s special revelation with a lackadaisical attitude. It’s almost as if God passes judgment on the lackadaisical listener, on someone who doesn’t think deeply or listen to obey, listen to change.
It’s almost as if God passes judgment, and he makes them dull of hearing, shallow in understanding, and therefore weak. At the same time, we live in a time that people like this couldn’t be more proud of themselves, more confident, more self-deceived. This pastor wrote to his congregation warning them, “do not harden your hearts.”
Hebrews 3:12, “See to it, brothers, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God.” He’s warning his own people about their apostasy. Just as there were circumstantial and social reasons that provided the temptations for them to fall away, to turn away, to walk away, in their own time, in their own context, I’d say there’s the same danger for us.
Not the same circumstances, obviously. Different circumstances, different society, different cultural pressures, sure, but it’s the same susceptibility to becoming dull, becoming hard-hearted, refusing to listen, refusing to examine our hearts and examine our lives.
So in my study, as I was preparing for this section, I was arrested at verse 1. “Therefore, holy brothers, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider,” that word, “Consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession– Jesus.” This is where we need to stop tonight and consider this Jesus.
In our brief time this evening, I want us to consider several things. Consider who you are. Consider who he is. And consider your confession. Consider who you are, who he is, and consider your confession. What your confession really means. But before we do that, and before we kind of work through those points, I’m going to insert a point one.
So those are points two, three, and four. Point one, we need to address this as a first point. It’s number one, consider how you consider. Because before we continue into this whole section on warning, we are prone to tune that out. We’re prone to mute the things that ought to be put up at full volume to us. And so I don’t want that to happen to us.
I don’t want that to happen to any of you. I want you to consider the word, consider, in this verse. The verb is katanoeo. And the verb noeo, which means to understand, grasp with the mind. So noeo or noose is the word for mind. Noeo, the verb means to understand, to comprehend, to perceive with the heart.
So mind, affections, will, all apprehend truth, compelled by it, noeo. But then the pastor here who’s writing, he intensifies noeo with the preposition, kata. And it means then to take a close look at. It means to pay very close attention to, stop and think about, consider and consider very carefully.
The verb katanoeo has both visual and mental aspects, depending on the context. But even in a context, where the visual aspect is prominent, it still goes beyond just mere sensory perception to notice something with the eyes; what is perceived through the lenses of the eyes and interpreted by the brain, is meant then to serve the mind, so that we’re thoughtful.
There’s perception, there’s deep reflection, there’s contemplation and all that is meant to lead us to a depth of understanding truth, which is necessary for true spiritual perception, which results in changed thinking and then changed living. So I’ve got several verses I want us to turn to to illustrate how this verb is used.
So get ready to turn some pages, because I want you to follow along and take an interest, so that you can see this for yourselves. So first of all, let’s go back to Luke. Good old friend Luke. Luke chapter 12 and we’ll start in verse 22.
Luke 12:22 and following. “And he said to his disciples, for this reason I say to you, do not worry about your life, as to what you will eat, nor for your body as to what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.” Here’s the word. “Consider the ravens,” katanoeo, “the ravens for they neither sow nor reap, they have no storeroom nor barn, and yet God feeds them. How much more valuable you are than the birds.
“And which of you by worrying can add a single cubit to his lifespan? Therefore, if you cannot do even a very little thing, why do you worry about other matters?” Verse 27, here’s the word again. “Consider the lilies,” katanoeo. See the lilies, but let what you see there go into your mind so that you reflect on, contemplate, and then apprehend truth that teaches you.
Here he helps us with this. “Consider the lilies, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin.” Like all you human beings do with trying to make clothing for yourselves. You work very hard to do what the lilies do without effort. “But I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory clothes himself like one of these.
“But if God so clothes the grass of the field which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, how much more will he clothe you, you of little faith? And do not seek what you will eat, what you will drink, and do not keep worrying. For all these things the nations of the world eagerly seek, but your father knows that you need these things.
“But seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you. Do not fear, little flock, for your father is well pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give it as charity. Make yourselves money belts, which do not wear out an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near nor moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
This pastor wrote to his congregation warning them, “do not harden your hearts.”.” Travis Allen
It’s probably not until Jesus came to teach us, did any of us consider the ravens? Consider the lilies of the field? To draw out such important life lessons, vital lessons from birds and flowers? What dull observers we are, right? In our sin, how weak we are in making observations that Jesus did naturally.
Just about basic facts of economy and stewardship. Basic facts about contentment, about peace of mind, about how you can settle into a life that pleases the Lord. All because we’re not good observers. We don’t think deeply. We don’t stop to consider how the common things in life point us to deep eternal truths about God that are revealed clearly to us in Scripture.
As modern people, we’ve got so many facts, and so much data, at our fingertips, on our phones, access to it. We can just swipe and read and indulge our intellects, our heart’s delight. And yet we tend to be some of the most dull, superficial, trivial people who’ve ever existed in humanity. And yet at the same time, never has a generation been more proud of itself.
Strange, strange thing, isn’t it? All that to illustrate katanoeo. What Jesus did. And you say, well that’s Jesus. No, Jesus is what humanity is supposed to be. He is the mark of what a true man, a true human is. The saying, to err is human, is not true. To err is not human.
Errant thinking came through the fall. We’re weak because of our sin. We don’t think rightly. We’re affected. It’s called the noetic effects of sin. Sin’s effect on the mind. We think so low, so superficially, because we’re addled by sin.
So when we see Jesus passing through and having the perfect illustration, the perfect observation, you know that one day, as he is, we will be. That’s our great hope. So when we see him walking around and doing those things, that’s what humanity is meant to be, to do.
Imagine all in your world providing an illustration of God and truth and joy and contentment, satisfaction. That’s what we’re looking forward to. Still, there’s a problem here and a problem now. And it’s that we do not katanoeo well.
Another text. And turn your Bibles to Acts chapter 7. Another use of this word, in Acts chapter 7. In this Acts 7:31-32, this is Stephen’s speech before the Sanhedrin. By the way, this speech, his good contemplation and consideration and reflection, it got him stoned, killed. Not all turns out well for good thinkers.
So just keep that in mind. I’m not trying to dissuade you, I want you to think, well. Stephen’s speech before the Sanhedrin, very bold, very clear. He cited Moses’ encounter at the end of his forty years in Midian. And Stephen uses the word katanoeo to refer to what Moses saw with his eyes and then perceived with his heart.
Find your way to Acts 7, verse 30. “After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the wilderness of Mount Sinai in the flame of a burning bush. And when Moses saw it, he was marveling at the sight. And as he approached,” and here’s the verb, to look more closely.
“There came the voice of the Lord. I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. And Moses trembled with fear and would not dare to look. But the Lord said to him, remove the sandals from your feet for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”
Interesting that at first Moses drew near and he was not drawing near merely to gawk at some spectacle about a fire burning in a bush. He’d seen that before. He came to consider this, to perceive what it meant. According to Exodus 3, verse 2, “Behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed. And so Moses said, ‘I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight. Why the bush is not burned up?’
“And when Yahweh saw that he turned aside to look.” That is to say, when Yahweh saw, he katanoeo, turned aside to not only look, but to perceive the meaning, truth, understanding. That’s when Yahweh revealed himself.
In this marvel of a burning bush, God revealed to Moses his eternal nature, his aseity, his self-sufficiency, that a fire didn’t need fuel to burn. That’s what God is. He doesn’t need anything to sustain himself, just as that fire needed no bush to burn.
He revealed his spirituality. He revealed his character there as holy and as the passage in Exodus continues, God reveals to Moses his heart of compassion, that he intends at this point in history to come and save his people, to visit them in their distress, in bondage to the Egyptians.
Later in the text, God reveals himself to Moses by name as Yahweh, as the great I AM. All of this greater revelation came after Moses turned aside to consider, to think deeply about. Can I just encourage you? You may think, I don’t have the strongest intellect.
I’m not great at that. Do you know what God does with those who try to consider and try to go deeper? He rewards you. He opens up more to you than you even thought you could know or see.
That’s what he does to Moses. In fact, in what Stephen cited here, it says that Moses trembled with fear and would not dare to look. That is, he stopped katanoeoing, if I could put it that way.
He stopped, he thought, uh-oh, I’m in trouble. And God says, now let me visit you with greater depth of understanding, greater knowledge, greater truth. And he revealed his character to him. Such reward for the concern to go beyond the surface, to go deeper, to learn more, to consider, to understand, so that we might worship.
Now, there’s a negative use of this verb as well. Go to James Chapter 1. James Chapter 1, we find a very familiar text that warns us all about reading and hearing and listening to sermons and following teaching ministries and filling our heads with knowledge. There’s a warning. James 1, verse 22, “But become doers of the Word and not merely hearers who delude themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer.”
If anyone is a listener to sermons and a downloader of sermons, and an I like to listen to all these sermons and I’ve got hundreds of John MacArthur sermons that I’ve listened to, but not a doer? Uh-oh. “He’s like a man who looks at his natural face in the mirror, and once he’s looked at himself and gone away, he immediately forgot what kind of person he was.”
So he’s, Katanoeo, in the mirror, to say, oh, let me study, let me perceive what’s going on, but he turns away from the mirror and he leaves his hair all messed up. His long gaze in the mirror didn’t benefit him.
There must be a consideration, but it’s got to be a consideration that’s driven by the fear of the Lord. A fear of the Lord and a heart to do what’s written, because if not, it’s either, use it or lose it. Be careful, folks, about listening to sermons in a casual and unthinking manner or reading without consideration.
Letting your eyes pass over words on a page and then closing the book and call it good. Do not treat God’s Word, do not treat his gift of preaching so carelessly, lightly, blithely. Another text shows us a negative use of the verb is found in both Matthew 7, verse 3 and Luke 6:41.
Turn to Luke 6:41. They’re parallel texts. They cover the same grounds, but in Luke 6:41, we see Jesus saying this, Sermon on the Mount, “Why do you look at the speck that’s in your brother’s eye, that you do not notice the log that is in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, brother, let me take out the speck that’s in your eye, when you yourselves do not see the log that’s in your own eye? You hypocrite.
“First take out the log out of your own eye, and then you’ll see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.” We’ve all read this before, but here Jesus is pointing out how visual inspection can be used in a sinful way. Acutely sensitive to the sins and the faults of other people, but quite dull and blind about one’s own faults.
Jesus says, this characterizes hypocrites, religious hypocrites, who see the sins and faults in everybody else, but they see themselves as blameless. Because in looking through their eyeballs, in looking through their eyes, in looking at others, their eyes are filled with all the perceived offenses coming at them, but they fail to notice, katanoeo. They fail to notice the logs that are sticking out of their eye sockets.
So, let’s turn the gun sight on ourselves. Are we immune from the hypocrisy of the blind judge? Do we nurse the offenses against us and fail to see how we offend others? Because we don’t consider our own behavior? Because we don’t consider our own consideration? Because we don’t consider our thinking? Because we don’t consider our actions, our words, how we come across? Are we entirely unlike the man looking into the mirror and then failing to comb his hair?
Are we hearers and not doers of the word? Or on the positive side, are we compelled to do as Moses did? Are we like Moses who turned aside to look more carefully and consider carefully what he saw so that he could perceive, so he could learn, so he could worship? Do we contemplate the world around us as Jesus taught us to do so that we learn to be good observers and to practice wisdom with settled hearts? Or are we just stacking up all the sermons in our podcast thing and just knocking them down? Kind of mindlessly, while we roam around and do other tasks that take our mind really off of what we’re doing in the first place.
I want us to consider our considering. I want us to think carefully about how we think, because if we don’t do that, we could just be like so many religious, superficial, shallow people, or even worse, hypocrites, self-deceived, where our hearts will grow harder with time. We become duller in our hearing over time.
I don’t want to come before the Lord and hear “why do you call me Lord, Lord, when you don’t do what I say.” And I want to pass on that warning to you, because I, I care about you. Now that we’ve considered our considering, hopefully your attention has been arrested too and you’re along for the rest of the ride.
So let’s hit a second point. Number two, consider who you are. Consider who you are. As the pastor addresses the members of his congregation, he uses the vocative expression three times. He says they are holy, they are brothers, and then partakers of heavenly calling.
Holy, brothers, partakers: this is what we are if we are making the same confession that those Christians did. So since the word brothers comes first, and then followed by the adjective holy, followed by partakers of a heavenly calling, that’s how we’re going to consider these descriptions of ourselves.
First, brothers, understand that this is the pastor calling the congregants brothers, right? So congregant, pastor, all brothers. Christians in Christ are brothers. He’s not ashamed to call them brethren. I will proclaim your name among my brothers. I’m going to sing your praise in the great assembly with the brethren. So Christ and Christians are brothers.
That means God is father, that means we’re all of the same family and that means being of the same family with the older brother, Christ, who sets the pattern for the entire family because he is the image of the invisible God.
That means we have a family resemblance. We share resemblance. We have the same love, mutual affection, deep, deep loyalty to that family over and above every earthly family as well.
Okay, there’s more to come on all this next time, but I just want to get some quick thoughts. Using the context, what are some implications of this truth that you’re called a brother to Jesus? Some of the implications is just that our deepest loyalty is to our older brother, heavenly brother, Jesus, who accomplished everything for us.
When we consider who we are, what does a pastor mean by referring to you as holy? As holy, holy means set apart by God. Holy means special, privileged. Holy means being sanctified. Yes, set apart, fully sanctified, completely justified, declared righteous, but we are also being sanctified, and there is a hope of being glorified.
It’s almost as if God passes judgment on the lackadaisical listener, on someone who doesn’t think deeply or listen to obey, listen to change.” Travis Allen
That term holy, when he describes us as holy, who we are, we’re set apart, separate from sin. Holy is Jesus and Jesus is being formed in us now and will be fully received; the full formation will come in our glorification then. So there is something happening to us that’s preparing us for glory then. This is how he’s identifying the Christians.
Using the context, what are some implications of the adjective, of holy, applied to you and how you live? I’ll just say this, in 2 Corinthians 7:1, and “therefore having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of the flesh and the spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”
The third term, partakers. It’s an adjective, partakers used as a noun. Metakos is the adjective, and it’s the experience of having a part in something or sharing or participating in something. The word describes the partners in Peter’s fishing business in Luke 5:7. There were men there who were in the other boat who were his partners, and they not only shared in the labor with him and the responsibility, but also shared and benefited in the profit of the business. So metochos actually is a favorite term in Hebrews of this pastor.
He describes as Christ’s companions in Hebrews 1:9 as metochos. He describes us as partakers of a heavenly calling here in this verse, Hebrews 3:1. He describes us as companions of Christ in Hebrews 3:14, only if we’re holding fast to the beginning of our assurance to the very end.
So there’s a connection between our profession at the beginning and our possession at the very end. There has to be a line connecting the two. We have to hold fast, and that is who the companions of Christ are, those who are metochoi, metochos partners.
We’re partakers, therefore, Hebrews 12:8 says, of the father’s loving discipline. “And we have discipline because we’re true children in the family.” All these things, brothers, holy, partakers, this is our upward call of God in Christ. So we’re partakers in that call if we consider carefully who it is who issued this call to us from heaven.
What obligations that his call places upon us, upon our lives. We’re not our own. We’re not here to live for ourselves. We belong to God, and we live for Christ. So before we move out of this point, I just want you to stop and think about this. Consider this.
Think and consider, not only for yourselves, for your own lives, for your own thinking, for your own identity, for how it is that what you profess about yourself and the reality about yourself, do they line up? Are you working to see those line up? Think also about other members of grace church. Perhaps you or some of your fellow church members may not be considering as carefully as you ought to.
You’ve just got to realize, folks, that time is short. “So today if you hear his voice, do not harden.” Don’t grow dull of hearing. But awaken. Awaken to consider carefully. Okay, so we’ve considered our considering. We’ve considered who we are.
Third point, consider who he is and that’s really where the verb is used, is “consider this Apostle and High Priest of our confession–Jesus.” And we’re going to expand on this next time, so don’t worry about the brevity on this point and the next one.
But considering the context, considering what the pastor has already told us about this Jesus in chapter 1, chapter 2, what is this pastor drawing attention to by referring to Jesus as the Apostle of our confession? Generally we think of the apostles as the Twelve or the apostle Paul.
Here it’s Jesus, big A, capital letter Apostle of our confession. What’s he drawing attention to? Let’s take high priests and all the priests who were teaching priests in the Old Testament, were to be teaching priests and then the apostles in the New Testament; what are these priests?
What is a chief priest or a high priest in the Old Testament? What are the apostles in the New? The authority. They have the foundation of authority. So Apostle of our confession, he is the authority. He is the supreme authority. His word goes, because he’s a sent one and he’s sent with the imprimatur of God himself. So Apostle, God sent him. Jesus is God’s representative, his emissary, his envoy.
Apostle means he comes with a message and he comes with a message that is authoritative. So if Jesus is God’s Apostle, his emissary, his authoritative envoy, his appointed delegate, what does that mean for us? What are the implications? If we read from Jesus, do we just read from Jesus, close our Bibles and then go and not give him another thought the rest of the day? No.
He’s sent to us that we might behold him and study him and listen very carefully to him and learn from him. And we have to realize too that what he says is binding. When you read his words, beloved, just understand, you’re now bound to that.
And when I say that, I’m not threatening you. I’m like telling you you’re free with being bound in Christ. He said, “‘come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden, I’ll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I’m gentle and humble in heart. For my yoke is easy, my burden is light.’” You will be yoked to him, but it’s an easy yoke.
And you will be burdened with the burdens that he gives you to bear, but it’s a light burden. You’re not just detached and spinning off in the universe like some free, liberated Frenchman, if you understand history. You’re not floating out there cut off from everything, floating in the ether.
No, we’re not autonomous captains of our own fate, masters of our fate, captains of our soul. That’s not the idea. That’s actually bondage. To be bound to his commandments, to be bound to his word, his word being binding, he being the Apostle, we’re accountable to it. We must not, we dare not shirk him. And instead our attitude ought to be, run to him, open our hearts to him, learn from him.
Real quick, what’s he drawing attention to by referring to Jesus as the high priest of our confession? As high priest, he is the propitiation. That means he is the full, the complete satisfaction for our sins. That he is our high priest means we have nothing more to trouble us, to cause us to doubt, to make us to be anxious or worry. That means we’re not under divine wrath. Everything is set for us. The fact that he is the high priest means we’re forgiven and cleansed.
His role as high priest has a continuing and ongoing ministry of mercy to us, even when we are troubled, even when we are anxious and have sinned. So, if Jesus is our high priest, what are the implications and what does this ministry of his high priestly ministry, what does it demand of us? It means we have an obligation, we have a blessed duty to fix our eyes on him, to stay focused on him, to remain loyal to him.
He gave himself, actually, to make us holy, so we must give ourselves to the same project of sanctification and pursue holiness. If he gave himself to make us holy, does it follow that we ought to join? We’re going to have more to say about all this next time, so don’t bemoan the brevity for tonight. It’s just we got one point that rested with this idea of consider.
Final point, consider your confession. Consider your confession. Jesus is the Apostle of our confession. Jesus is the high priest of our confession. Of our confession refers to what we confess, the confession that we make. The word confession here is homologia. So homologio is the verb, and it means, if you break down the parts and kind of means this, it means to speak in agreement with something.
So, it means to say, that’s the logeo part of the word, and it means, to say the same, same as the homo part of that word, so it means, to say the same as. Our homologia, in its objective sense, is our public statement of allegiance, expressing a binding assent. It expresses a consent, a fealty, a fidelity to Christ, total commitment, total loyalty.
Here we are living in this world as we do in such a faithless, disloyal age, when people so blithely make promises, give their word, only to subsequently break their word. People seem to do this with so little thought. They seem to do it so rather routinely. The pastor wants his congregation to consider the great, sublime, holy object of our confession, who is Jesus.
He wants them to think about what they’ve confessed publicly. They’ve declared themselves Christians, by their testimony in the waters of baptism, by covenanting with and gathering with his church, this church in Rome. He wants them to hold fast to their confession.
He’s going to make the same point again in Hebrews 4:14. “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us take hold of our confession.” That is, let us hold fast to it. And beloved, I just want to say, in a faithless, disloyal age, where people give their word and break their word as a matter of like daily practice, that comes into the church as well, where people make covenants and say they will live and do and bind themselves to you.
And then they walk out the door, thumbing their nose and saying, you have no authority over me. This congregation can’t tell me what to do. You’re not the boss of me. That happens so often. And I’m just not talking about our church. I’m talking about every faithful pastor, every faithful church I talk to, experiences the same exact thing.
And it’s a product of our shallow, trivial time and that’s why it’s so important that we stop here in Hebrews 3 verse 1 and consider our considering and consider who we are and who Christ is and consider our confession. Do we believe it? Do we hold fast to it? Will we hold fast to it? Are we loyal to Christ? And if we’re loyal to Christ, are we going to be loyal to all his people? Are we going to love them as Christ loved them? I mean, he gave his life for them.
No one’s asking you to bleed for somebody else. Oh, wait a minute. Is he? Again, he says, he uses the same word for confession in Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews 10:19, “Therefore brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places 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 from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”
Here it is again. “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stimulate 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.”
You just hear the pastoral heart for his people, a people that’s being tempted, tried, tested. They’re being drawn away to go back to the synagogue, to avoid the scrutiny, to avoid the trouble and the writer’s saying, don’t do that. Stay with it. Consider your confession.
What about us? Will we follow the pastor’s admonition? Will we follow his exhortation? Will we shake ourselves free of an apathetic, superficial, distracted age that we live in? Will we give ourselves to consider more carefully and think more deeply?
Beloved, we have to consider ourselves and who we are in light of the calling that we have from God above. Let’s consider who this Jesus is, who we say we’ve received as God’s chosen one, his most holy apostle, the one who has served us, the one who continues to serve us as our great high priest. Let’s consider him too.
In light of all this, let’s pursue holy lives, going deep, deep, deep into the truth and considering very carefully what we receive from the pulpit week after week, so we remain faithful to the public confession we’ve made and can’t we hold fast to it firm to the end? Let me pray.
Our Father, we love you so much and we are so grateful for this apostle, this most holy apostle whom you’ve sent. And we thank you for Jesus, the great high priest, who’s a mediator for us, between you and us, to represent you to us. He came revealing to us the invisible God, invisible flesh, he came, the incarnate one.
You being invisible, unseen, he made you visible so that in seeing him we could see you, father. We thank you for sending him. We thank you for the authority that he brings. We thank you for the word that he teaches us. And we thank you for his perfect finished work on the cross, that atoning work, the accomplishment of our redemption, and now the application of that redemption to us by the Spirit.
We thank you so much that he is our great high priest, that he sits at your right hand and he acts as our high priest there to demonstrate, yes, I am the propitiation for all of their sins. And I am a merciful high priest who sympathizes with them and their weakness, father, for I too shared in their humiliation in their flesh and blood. And I plead for them. We thank you, father, for the comfort that you’ve given us in Christ.
And we just pray that you would help us to be deeper thinking Christians, to consider more carefully, so that we make it to the very end by your grace. We love you, father, and thank you for what we’ve learned. And we ask that you would help us to put it into practice in our lives, and also that we would own it so deeply that we would be evangelists of this good and righteous way, that we would encourage others and teach others and bring others along, that they too would walk with us, with you. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.