Introduction

Good morning.  You can go ahead and open up to Hebrews chapter 3.  We are going to finish the third chapter of Hebrews this morning picking up where we left off last in verse 12.  Before we begin through, I want to give you a heads up on the next couple weeks.  Because it is Christmas week next week we will take a short break from Hebrews to be refreshed once again in the glorious news of the incarnation and the hope and joy that the birth of our Savior gives to us.  That will be next week. I am also working on a topical sermon on rest for the following week which I hope, Lord willing, will be completely opposite to every other message you will hear leading up to the new year.  By now you know that I try my best to be as explicitly counter cultural as possible when the culture is counter to the gospel.  There are going to be some resolutions, but they won’t be the ones you are perhaps used to hearing.  That will be the following week, December 29th and we will be back in Hebrews on January 5th.

Our God does have something for us this morning though so let’s introduce our focus for this morning and jump into it.  In many ways this is really a part 2 of what we started last week with the call to not harden our hearts or to be found with an unbelieving heart that leads us to fall away.  The remedy to these things is gospel empowered faith in Christ and dependence upon him.  So often when we are struggling with obedience to God we come up with all manner of things to fix our issues.  When the deceitfulness of sin takes root we often turn to religion, or religious practices as the corrective action against such things but that always does one of two things.  

It will create dejected, overwhelmed, worn out people who are just running on a hamster wheel and not getting anywhere.  Or it will create Pharisees, white-washed tombs.  People, who on the outside have the appearance of godliness but inside they are rotting away.   As we will see this morning, our text ties disobedience, or ungodliness to one thing. Unbelief.  By the grace of God may we see this morning that the remedy for our sin is not to do all the right things, but to believe in the right things.  More specifically, the right person, God incarnate, Jesus Christ.  It can often be said of us the same thing that our Lord said to the church at Ephesus in Revelation 2,  “4 But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.” He goes on to say that it was from that original and undefiled affection that burst forth all manner of good works.  That is to say that belief (faith and trust) breeds affection (love) and love spurs good works (obedience). 

So from that chain we must confess that if the obedience is off it is because the affection is off which is because the belief is off.  I might even go so far as to say that it is the gospel alone that has the power to transform our affections and conform us to his image.  Crazy, I know but God willing I hope I am able to do just that.  Please stand with me as we read our text this morning, Hebrews 3, verses 12-19

12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. 15 As it is said, 

  “Today, if you hear his voice, 

  do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” 

16 For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? 17 And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? 19 So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief. 

Exhortation

I wanted to begin again with verse 12 where we left off last week so that the warning is fresh on your mind.  Let me say from the beginning, that I am going to get to the good news, but we have to climb the mountain a bit to get there so just hang with me through the ups and downs and may God open our hearts to receive his message.  The author of Hebrews begins with a command to exhort one another daily.  The word exhort or exhortation in the Greek is “parakaleo”.  “Para” meaning to come along beside or to help.  Think of a paralegal, legal helper or a para church ministry which is a ministry to help or support the church.  “Kaleo” means to call out to.  The essence of the word is to encouragingly or pleadingly call out to someone to do something as a means of help.  Often we misinterpret the Greek word Kaleo here when it applies to exhortation as though it means primarily to call out and expose.  Like I am going to call that person out.  I will say that biblical exhortation is certainly more complex than simply encouragement against sin, for instance, but in context of our passage this morning, we are addressing exhortation as it relates to unbelief leading to sin.  

That being said, I need to make sure I emphasize more generally how exhortation is used in scripture and apply those principles to our text.  How the Greek word “Kaleo” (to call) is used in the New Testament is much more a call to something as opposed to a call from something.  Galatians 1: 6

6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.

That is certainly the beginning of what will be Paul’s very fervent calling out the church in Galatia in the midst of the Galatians deserting the gospel but the “kaleo” or call is a reminder of the call into the grace of Christ.  A little later in Galatians Paul says, 

15 But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, 16 was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles.

Again, the call was by grace, into grace to preach him among the Gentiles.  This is important because the command to exhort one another that is to come alongside and call out to or encourage one another is at least as much about calling one another into the grace of Christ as it is calling people out from their sins.  

We are really good at one and not so good at another.  Far too often the church has spent an inordinate amount of time calling out sins and not doing it in a proper biblical way that the whole concept of exhortation is marred.  We use the bible or certain doctrines as a club to run around and beat people with and spend all available time calling out this and calling out that.  “I am not calling out though, I am exhorting.” This is the present state of Evangelical social media and too many churches.  This is coupled with the fact that the quickest way to lose friends is to harshly apply this principle of exhortation and practice it because no one likes to have idols poked or sin addressed.  Even proper application can often cause issues.  As a result, many turn away from it completely and just live and let live while others dig in their heels and commit to passionately exhorting the sin out of everyone even if it means emptying the church of every soul in need of real exhortation.  

This must not be for us, church.  We must be balanced and obedient to this clear command in scripture to, “exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” So the command is not so much to call out the person as much as it is to call out the sin.  Paul say in Romans 7, 

 For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

Those who have been saved by grace through faith have been called out of that body of sin and death and into a new life in Christ. So to exhort someone is to come alongside them and say this is not who you are anymore.  As we said last week, there is an urgency to this, something that must be done today, and everyday, because sin is deceitful, and because it still lingers in us we are so prone to be deceived by it.  But this must not be! Because that is not who you are anymore, dear Christian.  

You have been called in to something far greater than that which the deceitfulness of sin has to offer.  So put off the old self not because I or anyone else is guilting you into it or shaming you and your sin but because putting off sin means we get the blessed opportunity to put on Christ.  Yes, we have been called from sin but more importantly we have been called into righteousness and holiness, of the same kind as the righteous one and the holy one.  I must not let you become hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, not because I enjoy calling out sin but because I know there is something so much better for you, for us all.  We have come to share in Christ.  To share in his blessings, to share in his holiness, to share in his eternal life, to share in his blessed mercy, “Oh tell me how I may continue to share in all of that.” 

Hold our original confidence firm to the end.  The same faith through the same gospel that united you to Christ is the same faith through the same gospel that will keep you in him.  If you have fallen into sin it’s not because some pastor in a pulpit or your friend didn’t beat you over the head hard enough with the bible it’s because your original confidence has slipped.  You have forgotten even for a day how incredible the love of God is for you in Christ Jesus that he would look upon a miserable wretch and say, “Of all those in the world, that one is mine.” That he has not left you in your sin but saved you from it.  The deceitfulness of sin would be so diminished if by the grace of God would could be reminded everyday, as many days as are called today, that

 God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

So let me come alongside you this morning and say won’t you hear the good news of the gospel.  Won’t you hear his voice calling you to new life in him and not just any life but abundant life.  A life that is not running away from everything but running towards the goodness and grace of our God and savior.  Don’t let sin take hold in you, because our gospel hope promises us something so much better.  

That message and that exhortation is something that doesn’t just come from the pulpit.  The call is for each of us to exhort one another daily.  To strongly urge one another to break free from sin and walk in the glorious light of the gospel.  

The Terror of Unbelief

I must now give the same warning that our text gives and that is that unbelief leading to sin will ruin your life.  Again, a reference is given to Israel and the tragic reality that they did not enter the rest that God had prepared for them.  Take a close look, in our text the reason why they did not enter the rest.  Was it because they were disobedient? No, that wasn’t the root cause.  Their disobedience was only a symptom of a greater problem and that was unbelief.  So many thousands of peoples lives who should have entered into the promised land, should have entered into the blessed rest in paradise that was offered to them but instead they all fell in the wilderness apart from the blessing.  

I could principalize this and say that the problem here was the disobedience of the Israelites and if you would only obey God you will not meet an equal end but that would be missing the point that the author of Hebrews is making.  It was primarily unbelief.  Whether or not some of them repented in the wilderness from their unbelief and trusted again in the promises of God is something we will never know but what we do know is that unbelief ruined their life.  

They found themselves in the vicious cycle that so many of us find ourselves in.  We don’t believe and rest in the Gospel of Christ, nor stand on his promises.  We doubt his provision and we fail to trust in his sovereign and guiding hand so we disobey, we sin.  We take matters into our own hands, and then we grumble.  When our sin increases, we doubt more and believe less and press harder in our own strength and according to our own will and the spiral continues until we are wandering in the wilderness.  When we get to that point we often wonder, “how did I ever get here?” The answer is always the same, you didn’t believe.  

Show me a life that is marred by sin and I will show you a person who doesn’t believe the gospel, doesn’t trust in Christ. On the flip side, show me someone who is faithfully walking with Christ and you will find one who above all things has staked their life on the gospel of Christ.  One who will not be moved from reality that Christ gave himself up for them.  Do you believe that today? That before the foundation of the world Christ knew you.  Not knew of you but knew you. Down to every hair on your head he knew you and knows you.  If you are in Christ, he went to the cross and suffered that brutal death because he loves you.  He now sits at the right hand of the father and prays for you.  The one who spoke the world into existence, with that same voice lifts up your name to father and says keep him.  

Oh, that we would believe that this morning surely the deceitfulness of sin would lose a measure of strength against us.  That we would know that our Lord is so attentive to every detail of our lives that he has meticulously planned all things for our good and our salvation.  Won’t you believe that today.  Won’t you believe it and then from that belief not let sin have a say in you as much as you are able, by power of the spirit, because a lost wanderer in the wilderness is not who you are anymore.  You are a rescued child of God. You are a Christ’s and he is yours.  

Enduring Confidence

So what then is the full purpose of or application of exhortation?  Looking at these things systematically I am confident we can say that exhortation is an agricultural endeavor.  Let me explain.  We know from the parable of the sower or the soils in Matthew 13 that there are 4 different kinds of soil.  There is no soil (the path) and when the word falls upon this it is immediately snatched up.  There is the rocky soil where the word springs up quickly but because there is no root it does not endure.  There is the soil full of thorns and when the seed springs up it is choked out by the cares of the world.  There is the good soil where the seed flourishes on account of right hearing and understanding.  

The problem is that in our revivalistic evangelicalism we think that if we want to see more fruit we need to sow more seed but the problem is often not the sower but the soil.  We assume that the role of the gospel in evangelistic only but if it is the gospel that saves us, why would we assume that something else keeps us and grows us.  The gospel is the seed that is sown but it is also the tiller and the fertilizer and the shade cloth and anything else you need to promote growth.  The gospel kicks away the rocks and the gospel keeps away the thorns.  

Exhortation then is this work of soil cultivation and the tool we use is the gospel and its call to believe in and trust in Christ who has saved you apart from works, purely according to his grace.  I know this switches metaphors a bit but there are few better examples of this than in John Bunyan’s, Pilgrim’s Progress.  Apart from the near constant exhortation and gospel reminders that Christian and faithful and Christian and Hopeful give one another when they are tempted to fall into sin there is one particular instance when they find themselves at Doubting Castle.  

The castle is appropriately named because it was their doubt and subsequent veering off course that led them to the castle.  You could say that their unbelief had caused them to fall prey to the deceitfulness of sin.  Trapped in the dark dungeon of this castle, near death and in utter despair, Christian realized that he was holding a key the whole time that offered them freedom from Doubting Castle.  Do you remember the name of the key? 

It was the key called Promise.  Christian breaks out in a passionate exclamation, “what a fool I have been to lie in a stinking dungeon like this, when I could just as well walk free!” So often our unbelief, which leads to wandering, traps us in these dungeons of despair but we have on each of us something to free us from those rotting places and that is the key called promise.  It is the gospel and all the hope and promise it provides that frees us from our doubts and keeps us from the deceitfulness of sin.  The gospel is not a one time thing or a one time message.  It is the power of God unto salvation and constant reminder of the great promises offered to us in Christ.  

Conclusion

So let me exhort you with the power of the gospel to believe in Christ who loved you and gave himself for you.  Believe that he has promised to keep you and lead you home to live in paradise forever.  Let me exhort you, in light of the gospel, to pursue holiness and walk in obedience with everything that is in you.  Such a pursuit is impossible if you just focus on your own obedience or your own holiness but when you trust in the incredible power of what Christ has already done for you, you can and will persevere.  When you believe in him you can have life and life more abundantly.  Believe and receive this morning the words from John that we have already read. 

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

May our God work in you faith to believe in him today and everyday, and in that belief may you walk in obedience according to your new life.  Amen.  

Bibliography

Phillips, Richard D. 2006. Hebrews. Edited by Richard D. Phillips, Philip Graham Ryken, and Daniel M. Doriani. Reformed Expository Commentary. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing.