Part 5, Maintain the Course of Faith!
Hebrews 3:1-11, NKJV.
This letter to the Hebrews was very important to the Christians in the 1st century. The early Hebrew Christians were heavily persecuted by their own people. They were aliens in their own land. The unbelieving Jews thought that Christians would replace them as God’s people, and they would not allow that to happen. So, they persecuted the believing Hebrews for becoming Christians.
That said, the Hebrew Christians needed big encouragement. They needed to be filled again with the joy of their salvation. They needed assurance that God has not abandoned them. The world might have treated them as outcast, the cancer of their society, but the author assured them that God has been with His own treasured people. Like most of us, in the face of troubles, difficulties and trials, we need constant reminder that God is with us. He will continue to provide what we need in order to persevere in faith.
Hence, in Christ…
1. God gave us a better priest.
“1Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus, 2 who was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was faithful in all His house.” Hebrews 3:1-2, NKJV.
· Jesus is the perfect high priest because he made himself as our prefect sin offering acceptable to God.
· Jesus became man so he can relate with our sufferings.
· As high priest, Jesus is our mediator and representative to God.
2. God provided us with a better household.
“3 For this One has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as He who built the house has more honor than the house. 4 For every house is built by someone, but He who built all things is God. 5 And Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which would be spoken afterward, 6 but Christ as a Son over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end.” Hebrews 3:3-6, NKJV.
· God’s household has stood the test of time as it is even eternal.
· Jesus is the head of God’s household/family, while Moses merely served in the assembly of God’s people.
· Jesus is now heading God’s new household which is made up of both Jews and Gentiles.
· Jesus united the Jews and Gentiles by faith, making two people into one unit/family.
· God’s household is united by His love which is the essence of the Law of God given to Moses.
3. God provided rest for us.
“7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you will hear His voice, 8 Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, In the day of trial in the wilderness, 9 Where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, And saw My works forty years. 10 Therefore I was angry with that generation, And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart, And they have not known My ways.’ 11 So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’” Heb. 3:7-11, NKJV.
· This passage was addressed to the Hebrews amongst them who were informed about Jesus but not in the faith yet.
· They were encouraged to heed God’s warning against unbelief.
· Their head knowledge must be pushed down to the heart and believe that Jesus is the way to salvation.
Rest means…
· Rest from earning salvation.
· Rest from controlling our lives.
· Rest from disobedience.
· Rest is heaven, the destination of the redeemed.