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.