All Wonders in One Sight

Read: Hebrews 4:14 - 5:10

The poet Richard Crashaw once wrote these words in his poem “In the Holy Nativity of Our Lord”:

Welcome, all wonders in one sight!  Eternity shut in a span;
Summer in winter; day in night;  Heaven in earth, and God in man.
Great little one, whose all-embracing birth lifts earth to heaven, stoops heav'n to earth.

Jesus came to stoop heaven to earth and lift earth to heaven.  In other words, Jesus came to accomplish God’s redemptive plan to reconcile fallen humanity to Himself.  In other words, Jesus came to be the Mediator.

 The author of Hebrews describes the High Priest as being

• Called by God. 
• Selected from among men
• Representative of men and women
• One who offered sacrifices for sins
• One who could sympathize and deal gently with those who struggled with weakness

Now, one of the main points in the book of Hebrews is that Jesus is our High Priest.  Jesus (according to Hebrews 2:17), “had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.” 

• Jesus was called by God the Father.  We read in v. 5, “So Christ also did not take upon himself the glory of becoming a high priest. But God said to him, "You are my Son; today I have become your Father.”  Jesus was called to be the ultimate go-between, the Mediator between God and human beings.  He was not only a priest, but the Son of God. 
•  Jesus was selected from among human beings, in the sense that He was sent among us to be like us so as to represent us. 
•  Jesus represented men and women before God.  Not only did He do that on the cross, but we read in 5:7 that, “During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.”  Jesus interceded for His people while on earth and He continues to do so at the right hand of the Father in heaven.
•  Jesus was Emmanuel “God With Us” and so He can sympathize with our weakness and deal gently with us because He understands us.  We are told that He was tempted in every way, just as we are, yet was without sin. 
• Jesus was the perfect sacrifice.  Whereas an earthly High Priest had to offer sacrifices for himself, Jesus did not.  He himself was the perfect sacrifice.  See: Hebrews 7:26-28. 
• Jesus is “the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.”

And so, Jesus is our High Priest. He is our Mediator. “Therefore,” as we read at the beginning of our passage – v14, “since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are - yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Because Jesus is the source of eternal salvation; because He as our perfect Mediator, He reconciles us and re-connects us to God the Father; and because He stands at the Father’s right hand representing us, we can and must hold firmly to the faith we profess.  

To hold fast is to fix our thoughts on Jesus; to fix our eyes on Jesus.  It is hearing, believing and obeying His word.  It is being immovably grounded in the Gospel – knowing it, believing it, letting it permeate your life and affect your attitudes, actions and affections.

But, in our weakness, can we hold firmly to the faith we profess?   We can because, “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are - yet was without sin.”  Jesus knows our weaknesses.  He knows us.  He knows the temptations we face.  He knows our insecurities and fears.  And so He can sympathize and deal gently with us.  But more than that – Jesus has conquered; He has overcome.  He is the source of eternal salvation who has gone through the heavens and sits now at the Father’s right hand.  And so, we can approach the throne of God and find it to be a throne of grace.  And we can approach that throne of grace with confidence and receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need.

Priests provide access.  Because Jesus is our great High Priest, we have access to God the Father.  We can draw near to the throne of God, by way of Christ, and find not a God who is aloof or a God who relishes the thought of squashing us, but rather, a God of grace.  When we approach God through Christ, we find a loving Father who grants mercy and extends grace – a God who hears us and helps us in our weakness and in our need.

In Christ, we find the perfect Mediator, the perfect Savior, the perfect Friend.  He is, as Crashaw’s poem puts it, “All Wonders in One Sight. He is eternity who chose to be shut in a span (the size of an infant).  He is summer who entered our winter; Day that displaces our night. He is heaven who came to earth; God who dwelled with man. He is the One who stooped heaven to earth and raised earth (raised us) to heaven.

So hold firmly to Jesus.  Don’t let anything tear you away from Him.  Don’t allow anything to dilute or pollute the glorious hope and reality of the Gospel in your life.  Run to Jesus!  Cling to Him!  Hold fast to Him!  Approach the throne of grace with confidence, with assurance, because in Jesus you will receive mercy; you will find grace; you will be given strength in your weakness and attain help in every time of need.  He has stooped down to lift you up!

Rest

Read: Hebrews 4:1-13

“Rest” is not a December word.  There are lots of words associated with Christmas:  hope, joy, peace, love, but the word “rest” is not usually among them.  People are running here and there; our calendars are full of activities and events.  We’re shopping; we’re rushing to get jobs done before ‘the holidays’; we’re mailing things and hoping things arrive; we’re trying to get everything done and still have time to watch “It’s a Wonderful Life”.  And often by the time Christmas arrives, we’re out of breath. 

“Rest” is not a December word.  But it should be.  Advent is a season designed not for hectic activity, but for contemplation and the heart’s preparation.  Christmas is about finding rest in the One who came to save us from slavery to sin and our insecurity in the face of death.  Christmas invites us to find rest in Jesus.

But what is this rest that we speak of – that our passage from Hebrews speaks about?  It’s not just getting a break or taking a nap or getting a holistic spa treatment.  It’s the rest that God enjoys and offers to us.

Now we could then think of rest as being the Promised Land, since God said of that wilderness generation of Israel, “They shall never enter my rest.”  However, Joshua eventually led the people into the land and yet we are told in this passage that he was not able to give them rest.  Therefore, God’s rest must be more than just a physical place.  And since disobedience and unbelief kept the people from entering that rest and both are directed toward God, then God must be the rest.  Rest must be in Him – in a faithful, covenant relationship.  Entering God’s rest is not simply getting an address in Canaan, it is belonging wholeheartedly to the Lord.  As St. Augustine so famously stated, “Thou hast made us for Thyself and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.”  To enter God’s rest then is to belong to God through Jesus Christ.

And so the opportunity to enter God’s rest is still available. We read in v. 1, “since the promise of entering his rest still stands…” and v. 6, “It still remains that some will enter that rest…” and v. 9, “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God.”  Today you can enter that rest.  When you come to God in humility and repentance and through faith in Christ, you will receive God’s rest – you will be drawn into it!

Now the perfect and complete rest will be had in the future when Jesus returns in judgment and bringing full salvation – when He establishes the New Jerusalem and the New Heavens and New Earth.  That will be the ultimate rest.  The Sabbath rest began when God finished creation and it will find its fulfillment when Jesus returns and restores all things. 

So, is this rest only a future hope or is it a present reality?  It is both.  Like salvation, this rest is a future hope and a present reality; it is a now and not yet reality.  It is a future state that has broken into the present. 

So what is this present rest?  It is rest from self-justification before God and everyone else. 

We rest from ‘works’ in the sense of trying to earn our salvation or wrestling God into loving us and accepting us.  Christians are saved by grace through faith in Christ.  We do not work our way to God, He picks us up out of the pit and we follow as He leads us back home.  

And we also rest from trying to justify ourselves before others.  If our sense of security and significance were based on other people’s opinion and approval of us, then we would have to justify ourselves before them, but our security and significance is found in Jesus and so we don’t have to be slaves any longer to our insecurities.  We don’t have to prove our worth to others in a blaze of frenetic activity.  We’re not dependent upon approval ratings or the applause of others, but on the grace of God.

And so, our present rest is resting in who Jesus is and who we are in Him.  Jesus came to save us from our sin; to redeem us; to reconcile us to God the Father; to carry our burdens and sorrows; to become sin for us; to die in our place – taking our punishment upon Himself; to be raised from the dead so that we too may rise; to intercede for us at the Father’s side until that day when He will return as the Bridegroom and bring us, His Bride, to the place He has prepared.  Jesus has done it all!  His righteousness is ours.  We rest in what He has done!

Other religions involve insecurity because they, in essence, teach that it’s all up to us to earn our way to God.  Only in Jesus Christ can we rest secure in and assured of God’s love and forgiveness and acceptance.  That is why we call it Good News, because it is!

But this present rest is not passive or lazy.  It’s not ‘sit back in your recliner munching chips and watching football’ until Jesus returns.  We are called to live.  There is a race marked out for us that we must run with perseverance.  There is a faith to hold fast to.  There is a battle to be fought.  But we hold fast; we run the race; we fight the battle with confidence and freedom.  The rest we enjoy is not the suppression of all activity nor the avoidance of all struggle, it is rather freedom from fear and relief from insecurity.

As we strive, as we run, as we fight, we do so resting in Christ.  And so what does this active rest involve?  It involves believing and obeying God’s word.  We read in 4:1-3a, “Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith. Now we who have believed enter that rest.”

The Israelites in the wilderness heard God’s word – the author even states they heard the Gospel, but though they heard the Gospel, it was of no value to them because they did not combine it with faith.  On the contrary, the author of Hebrews states that we who have believed enter that rest.  Rest then is received when God’s word is combined with faith – with obediently active belief.

Receiving God’s word requires active living because it is (as we read in v.12) living and active.  We are to take it seriously because it takes us seriously.  “Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”  Many try to avoid God’s word or water it down or relegate it to a historical artifact or even an unhistorical religious piece because it intimidates them – it challenges and confronts them and they don’t like it.  God uses His word to penetrate us – to not only reveal Himself to us but to show us ourselves.  As we read in v. 13, “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”

But if we avoid or dismiss God’s word, we miss out on Gospel truth and Gospel power.  If the American Atheists are right and the Gospel is a myth, then we have no rest.  Our hearts remain restless because there is no God who has come to us and in whom we can find rest. If they are right then Jesus never said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Rest is found; rest is received when we combine God’s word (His promises, His truth, His way) with faith.

That’s the only way we can explain Mary’s response to the astounding and most likely terrifying announcement of Gabriel.  Mary gives us a picture of this rest when she says, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”  How could she say that?  How could she handle that news and the radical in-breaking of God into her life like that?  Because she combined God’s word with faith.  She heard the overwhelming announcement of Gabriel and believed him when he said that “nothing is impossible with God.”

Do you want to enter God’s rest?  Do you want that future hope and reality?  Then “Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.”  Hear God’s word and believe it. Take in God’s promises by faith. Respond to the Good News of Jesus Christ with obediently active belief.  Give yourself over to the One who says to you: “Come to me” - Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

There are a lot of words associated with Christmas.  Make “rest” one of them.  Hear God’s word today.  Believe it.  Obey it.  Trust in His word and enter that relationship that gives you rest.

O ye, beneath life's crushing load whose forms are bending low,

Who toil along the climbing way with painful steps and slow,

Look now! For glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing;

O rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing.

Open Your Heart

Read: Hebrews 3:7-19

 “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.”  Have you heard God’s voice?  Has the message of God’s love and grace snuck past your inhibitions and defenses?  If so, don’t harden your heart; don’t clamp up and push the message back out. Open your heart to the love of God – the love revealed to us in Jesus. 

In the passage I read, the author of Hebrews quotes Psalm 95, a psalm that looks back to the time Israel spent in the wilderness following the Exodus from Egypt – a formative, but not particularly good time.

You see, three days after the Israelites had crossed the Red Sea and sang their song of praise and deliverance, they grumbled against Moses about not having anything to drink.  A short while later, we read that “the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, "If only we had died by the LORD's hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”  Then, at a place called Rephidim, they quarreled about water again and “put the LORD to the test” by saying, “Is the LORD among us or not?”  That place was called Massah (testing) and Meribah (quarreling).  It’s mentioned in Psalm 95, but Hebrews refers to it more broadly as “the rebellion, during the time of testing in the desert, where your fathers tested and tried me and for forty years saw what I did.”

The grumbling and rebellion continued with the incident of the golden calf and finally came to a head as the LORD brought them to the Promised Land and they refused to enter in because they feared the inhabitants and would not trust the LORD and so instead plotted to kill Moses and Aaron and return to Egypt.  After that, the LORD declared that none of that generation would enter the Promised Land but would wander in the desert for forty years.  Only the next generation would enter in.  This hard-hearted generation would not enter God’s rest.

And so the author of Hebrews hearkens back to this sad history and tells his readers (including us) don’t be like them – don’t harden your heart!  He writes, “See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.”

He uses strong language to urge us away from having a sinful or evil, wicked heart and an unbelieving or faithless heart - a heart that turns away from the living God.  We are urged to turn away from such a heart - to refuse to give in to the heart-hardening influences of this world:  the cynicism that deadens us to wonder; the “realism” that is simply a front for weak faith; the boredom that is fostered (ironically) by all of our stuff; the blindness from all our flashing images; the deafness from all our noise; the numbness formed by the constant bombardment of sex and violence and absurdity and banality; the apathy that comes from entertaining ourselves to death. We are to turn away, not from the living God, but from all the other junk, the heart-hardening influences of this fallen world.  And we are to open our hearts to the wonder, beauty and glory of the living God.

Therefore, as we learn in v. 13, we are to encourage each other daily.  The word used for ‘encourage’ is wonderful.  It is parakleite, and in it you can hear one of my favorite words ‘paraklete’ – the title given both to Jesus and the Holy Spirit, meaning ‘one who comes alongside to help’.  The word ‘encourage’ here means to ‘call to one’s side’.  It is not a distant encouragement like “Hey – have a good one!”  The picture is, rather, calling the other person to come alongside of you – to bring them near in order to offer aid or support or encouragement.

·         So, our encouragement is personal.  It involves close proximity, spoken words, tangible actions – getting involved in each other’s lives. And therefore, it requires a certain vulnerability.  It requires us to open ourselves up to each other – being willing to pray for each other and be prayed for; being willing to serve others and to allow them to serve you.

·         It is also daily.  We read “encourage each other daily”.  Not when you feel like it. Not once a week after church.  It calls for community and fellowship – being involved in one another’s lives personally and regularly. 

·         And our encouragement is urgent.  We read, “encourage each other daily as long as it is called Today.”  “Today” is this present period of history before Christ returns.  We don’t know how long that will be and so we must encourage each other while time remains.

And how do we encourage each other?  We encourage each other not to be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.  We keep each other accountable so that we do not fall victim to the heart-hardening influence of this fallen world.  And we encourage each other (v. 14) to hold firmly to the end the confidence we had at first.  This is what we heard last week:  We are to hold fast to the confidence and hope we have in Christ.  The Israelites in the wilderness could not enter God’s rest – His promised land of blessing - because of their unbelief (their stubborn, faithless rejection of God).  On the contrary, we are to hold fast to the faith we have.  We are to open our hearts to the Lord.

For that is the only way to receive God’s grace.  That’s the only way we will “get” Christmas – meaning understanding its power, perceiving its potency, knowing its reality.  Only in humility, with childlike faith and open hearts can we receive what God has given in Christ.

Today, don’t harden your hearts. Open them to the Lord.  Hear His word. Believe the word. Obey the word.  And share the word.  Like the Shepherds who heard the angels, believed their message, obeyed their instructions and went to find Jesus and then when they had seen him, spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.  Today, open your heart to hear the word and be amazed and astounded by it - to believe it, to obey it, to share it so that all who hear will likewise be amazed, be filled with wonder, and be changed.

On Jesus

Hebrews 3:1-6

Our actions and the intensity of them are affected and inspired by something beyond ourselves.  And so, the author of Hebrews wants to inspire us to action by having us look at Jesus – to see who He is and who we are in Him.  As we face suffering, opposition, problems, difficulties, false teaching, cultural pressure, being lured to drift away; as we face sin, temptation and fear, we are encouraged to fix our thoughts on Jesus so that, as members of his household, we will hold fast to the confidence and hope we have in Him.

First, we are to fix our thoughts on Jesus.

The word translated “fix your thoughts” means to study, examine, learn.  And so, we are encouraged to ‘study Jesus’; we are to ‘learn Jesus’.  Another translation uses the word “consider”.  I don’t know if that’s strong enough, but it does make an important connection to something the writer will state later in Hebrews 12:3.  After telling believers to throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and to run with perseverance and to fix our eyes on Jesus, he says, “Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”  In everything we face in life, we are to consider Jesus - to fix our eyes and our thoughts on Him.

Why?  Because He is the apostle and high priest of our confession.   What is our “confession”?  It is the core of what we believe in the Gospel, and not just what we personally believe, but what we believers believe together.  The word used is homologia from homo meaning “same” and logos meaning “word” = “same word”.  Our confession is what we have been told and what we believe together about Christ.  Now “apostle” sounds like a strange title for Jesus. (He had His own apostles, so He couldn’t be one, right?)  Well, the word simply means “one who is sent.”  And Jesus was sent by the Father into the world to redeem it.  And He was sent to be our High Priest, our Mediator – the connection between God and us.

And we fix our eyes and our thoughts on Jesus because He is faithful.  We read in 3:2-3, “He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God's house. Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. Moses was faithful as a servant in all God's house, testifying to what would be said in the future. But Christ is faithful as a son over God's house.”    

Jesus is greater than Moses because He is our builder. Jesus is not only the agent of creation, but the agent of re-creation as well.  We are built up and established in Him.   And Jesus is also greater because whereas Moses was a servant, Jesus is the Son of God.  Jesus is our Head – not simply a servant of the household, but the head of the household.

We fix our thoughts on Jesus, so that, as members of his household…  We are members of God’s house.  We see this (v1) in the phrase “holy brothers” (or fellow believers) who share in a heavenly calling.  Since we are children of God with Christ as our Head, we are spiritual siblings (brothers and sisters).  We share the same Head and the same heavenly calling.

And so we are God’s House.  Now “house” can refer to a dwelling; to the Temple; to a household (as for me and my house) or expanded as a people (house of Israel).  And it’s interesting that these meanings are merged together in the Bible.  In the NT we find the Church to be the people of God who are the temple of the Holy Spirit.  Moses was a faithful servant of God’s House, but Jesus is Lord over God’s people.  We are built in Him.  This is what Jesus suggests in the Parable of Wise and Foolish Builders.  “Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash."

And so, rooted and established on the Rock of Christ, we fix our thoughts on Jesus, so that, as members of his household, we will hold fast to the confidence and hope we have in Him (v. 6 - And we are his house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast.)

What are we to hold on to?  Our courage (NIV) or confidence (ESV), our solid assurance and our hope.  And our hope is not just a pious wish, it is a certain reality.  So certain, in fact, that we can boast in it.  What is our hope?  That we are loved and accepted by God; that life has meaning and purpose; that death is not the end and that in Christ we are set free from sin and guilt and the slavery of the fear of death. Our hope is that we belong, body and soul, in life and in death, to our faithful Savior Jesus Christ who has fully paid for all our sins with his precious blood, and has set us free from the tyranny of the devil. He watches over us in such a way that not a hair can fall from our heads without the will of our Father in heaven: in fact, all things must work together for our salvation; and that we are assured by the Holy Spirit of eternal life and made wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for the Lord.

Sometimes life can feel like a roller coaster, what are you holding onto?  The confidence and hope we have in Christ or something else? In the midst of the mundane, the daily commute and daily grind (that can grind us down) what are you holding onto?  The confidence and hope we have in Christ or something else? When you’re trying to scale the walls of life or when you’re hanging off the edge, what are you holding onto? When you feel like your drowning and when you really are, what are holding onto?  The confidence and hope we have in Christ or something else? What is your house – your household – your marriage, your children – what is your house holding onto?  The confidence and hope we have in Christ or something else?

Our actions and the intensity of them are affected and inspired by something beyond ourselves.  That is why we must fix our thoughts on Jesus so that, as members of his household, we will hold fast to the confidence and hope we have in Him.

Are you looking to Jesus?  Are you like Peter, in the midst of the wind and waves, in the midst of the storms that rage in our lives – are you looking to Jesus?  Or are you, like Peter, getting distracted by the wind and afraid of the waves?  Are your eyes turning to look at the problems that surround or are they fixed on Jesus?  Are your eyes turned inward, looking in vain for some hidden strength that lies dormant inside yourself or are you looking to Jesus, whose strength is not hidden and which is not lying dormant, but is available to you?  Fix your thoughts on Jesus.  Learn Him.  Trust Him so that as members of His household, you can hold on, hold fast to the confidence and hope we have in Him!

Is what you are holding onto trustworthy? 

§  Is your money or your investments or the market trustworthy?  We’ve recently learned the hard way that the answer is no.

§  Is your job/career enough to base your life on?  What happens when you lose it?

§  Are your status symbols or your possessions?  Why do we always need more?  And what happens when we lose them?

§  Is your personal health?  You don’t know what’s going to happen.

§  Are other people?  What happens when you find yourself alone?

§  Is fate trustworthy – the assumption that you, like a cat, will always end up landing on your feet?  Even a cat only has nine lives.

§  Can your spouse and your family be everything for you?  Experience teaches us that they can’t.

Only God is completely trustworthy.  And only the God who has sent a Savior – who has sent the Son to come to His brothers and sisters to bridge the gap and bring us back to the Father.  Only that God – the God revealed through Jesus Christ - can be completely trusted with our lives, because He made us and knows us and loves us in spite of ourselves. 

So fix your thoughts on Jesus so that, as members of his household, you will hold fast to the confidence and hope we have in Him.