[Text: Hebrews 3-4:14] “Going Back vs. Holding Fast”

In the sermon that is the book of Hebrews, the pastor has already reminded his friends that God Himself has spoken to them. And even though they are scared and suffering, He has entered into their suffering with them in the person of Jesus, the God-man. He suffered for them to rescue them from their sin and to bring them to glory. He is their brother, champion and high priest and he is faithful in all those things. Now, the pastor has an important question for his friends.

[Read Hebrews 3-4:14 and Pray – Father, your faithfulness reaches to the heavens. Your faithfulness, O LORD, extends to the skies above. And you have shown your faithfulness to us in your Son, Jesus. Help us, O God, by Your Spirit to hear and believe in him today, so that we, by faith in him, may be counted by you as faithful. Only then can we rest in your rest, Father. And your rest is what we need. We ask you to bless us not because we have been faithful, but because Jesus is faithful and we ask in His name. Amen.]

When Adam saw the woman God had given to him he said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh….” And looking at that first wedding, Moses wrote, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:23-24, emphasis mine.) The phrase “hold fast” is covenantal language. It speaks of a solid, enduring relationship; of commitment and lasting commitment.

When I married Jenny, I said,

“I, Samuel, take thee, Jennifer,

to be my wedded wife,

And I do promise and covenant;

Before God and these witnesses;

To be thy loving, faithful, and self-sacrificing husband;

In plenty and in want;

In joy and in sorrow;

In sickness and in health,

As long as we both shall live.”

Using today’s language, I was publicly promising that I would “hold fast” to her. That kind of binding together of two people is seen most clearly, perhaps, in marriage, but there are echoes of that kind of covenant relationship in deep friendships and even church membership. So what happens when someone shows they really have no concern for that covenant relationship? What do we call one who promised to “hold fast” to their spouse but goes back and lives as if the relationship never existed by neglecting family for a career or following after another lover? We call that being “unfaithful.” We call one who willfully breaks a friendship a “traitor.” In the church we say that person is “apostate;” one who has rebelled against the faith; one who (in the words of the apostle John) “went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us.” (1 John 2:19)

Those terms are very strong ones. And there are contexts in which their use is proper and sobering. But there are also contexts in which the terms “unfaithful” and “apostate” are not proper. While there is a sense in which a husband who has failed to sacrifice himself for the good of his wife has been “unfaithful,” that same husband may be counted by his wife as “faithful” when he comes to her and confesses his failure and his renewed desire to live in line with the promises he made to love her and be faithful and self-sacrificing toward her. And we members of the church, when we call each other to repentance for sin in our lives, count the sinner as “faithful” when he repents and continues to put his hope in Jesus. For that person, the term “apostate” is not right because he has actually held fast to his hope in Christ in the face of his failure.

The pastor in this section is not writing about the Christian who sins and repents; who gives in to temptation and runs back to Jesus, grieving over sin but hoping and resting in Jesus as the Savior of sinners. He’s not writing to the one who hopes in Christ and endeavors after new obedience to him. The pastor is writing to his friends to warn them of the danger of going back and living as if Jesus hadn’t come. He is writing to warn them of the danger of listening to the voices around them instead of hearing and believing in Jesus, the Son of God.

These were men and women who had publicly embraced Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, who was the promised Redeemer of the Old Testament. But when they said Jesus was the Son of God, they were disowned by the rest of the Jews. And when the Jews said, “You aren’t one of us,” it opened these Christians up to a world of persecution and suffering at the hands of Rome. So, for these suffering Christians, there was the temptation to escape suffering through the simple act of leaving behind the name “Christian” and going back to Judaism. Going back seemed safer when they felt so alone and afraid. But going back would have shown that their hearts were hard, unbelieving hearts. And such unbelief, the pastor knows, is the most dangerous thing in the world.

It’s dangerous because we know that sin is deceptive. We humans have the remarkable ability to justify the worst actions; to reward ourselves with sin because we’ve “been good” for so long; to excuse anger because we’ve been wronged (even though we pray against ourselves in that time saying, “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors”). But what happens when we believe the lie of sin for so long that we’re convinced it is the truth. What happens when unbelief just…keeps going. What happens when our consciences are so seared that we hear the word and sit in the pews and go to small group and pray the prayers but don’t really believe any of it?

The question of the pastor is simple and of the utmost importance. He is asking his friends, and today asks us, “In light of the faithfulness of Christ, will you be faithful?”[1] That question is at the heart of his entire sermon. But more than that, it is the question at the heart of this life we live. This is where our theology becomes imminently practical. This brings the question of what we believe out of the realm of ideas and into the world of parenting and family relationships and work and play and eating and drinking. But in order to answer the question, “Will you be faithful,” we need to make sure we hear what faithfulness actually is. To do so, we’re going to work our way through the text itself so that we can hear the call to faithfulness in its proper light. We’ll see that we are counted as faithful – even though we sin – when we simply hold fast to Jesus.

The pastor has already shown his friends in the previous chapter how Jesus has fully shared in their suffering and can help them endure in the face of it. But he needs to tell them that to go back to Judaism (or anything else) after Jesus has come is the most dangerous thing in the world. Something better has come and there is no going back. Jesus is the final and complete word of God, the Law and the Prophets of Judaism are incomplete without him. Indeed, Jesus is the fullness of the Law and Prophets! Even Moses – the greatest person in the history of their people – Moses himself – the one in whose law so many in their day trusted – is shown to be a servant in the house of Jesus the Son.

That’s why the pastor spends time in vv. 2-6 showing the supremacy of Christ over Moses. It’s because he doesn’t want his friends to think that there is any hope if they turn back to Judaism and pretend like Jesus hadn’t come. Sure, they might save their neck for a day, but there is no security or rest by going that way. Remember, these are Christians who have already embraced Jesus and accepted him as the Son of God. So, to help them understand the situation, he uses the analogy of a house and its builder; of a servant and a Son to show the foolishness of wanting to go back…and the glory of holding fast to Christ.

There is a house in rural, southwestern Pennsylvania called “Fallingwater” and it is a marvelous piece of architecture. It is a National Historic Landmark and listed among the top 30 places to visit before you die. But even if you can’t picture the house, it’s a fairly sure bet that you recognize the name of the man who built it. His name was Frank Lloyd Wright and his place in architectural history is secure. Even if that house disappeared and crumbled into the waterfall upon which it is built, the name “Fallingwater” would still be remembered and the honor would still belong to Frank Lloyd Wright who built it.

In the pastor’s analogy, God is the architect of the house and Jesus is the faithful Son who rules over the house. Moses – great as he was in the Story of Redemption, serving as the mediator between God and His people as a prophet, priest and even a king – Moses was simply the greatest servant in the house of God. I’ve spoken at length before on Moses’ role in the Story (see sermon on Numbers 12 from March 10, 2013), but in v. 5 the pastor says that Moses’ work was “to testify to the things that were to be spoken later.” In other words, Moses’ job was to testify that Jesus had to come. While Moses didn’t know the person of Jesus, he did trust that God would raise up a prophet like himself to speak the word of God to the people of God (Deuteronomy 18:18).

The pastor is urging his friends as if to say, “That prophet has come and he is the Son. You have to keep listening to him and believing in him. And if you do keep holding fast to Jesus, you will show yourselves to be Jesus’ own ‘holy brothers’ (3:1). If you hold fast to your confidence in him and boast in your hope of forgiveness and glory and resurrection in Christ, then you will show yourselves to be those who share in “a heavenly calling” with Jesus.” In 3:6 we see that it is through holding fast to Christ, that they (and we) can rest confidently that “we are his house;” we are the building built by God, we are the dwelling place of God himself.

Even though we suffer and doubt in this world, even though we may be tempted to believe the other voices that say there are other ways to save ourselves or other ways to make life the way it is supposed to be, to believe those voices over the word of Jesus is the way of unbelief. Jesus is “the apostle and high priest of our confession” (3:1). That is, we have said we believe Jesus to be God’s final word to us and we believe he stands between us and God providing a covering for our sin by his blood. His faithfulness as the Son of God is our hope and our confidence. In chapter 1, he faithfully spoke the word of God to us. In chapter 2 he is the God who put on flesh and faithfully suffered death to atone for our sin. And he is the “merciful and faithful high priest” who helps us.

It is precisely the faithfulness of Jesus as the Son of God that leads the pastor to ask his friends, “Will you be faithful?” That’s the essential question of vv. 3:7-4:14. And it is a vital question for a simple reason. Our “faithfulness” is at risk because of “deceitfulness of sin” he mentions in 3:13. So, he takes them back in the Story to Numbers 14, and quotes Psalm 95, which reflects on the day when Israel heard the word of God and hardened their hearts against Him.

It was the deceitfulness of sin that hardened the Israelites’ hearts during the Exodus. In 4:2, the pastor reminds his friends that those Israelites, too, had heard good news. Yahweh had delivered His people for slavery and shown his great love for them by leading them through the Red Sea to Mount Sinai. There He spoke to them through Moses, claiming them as His own people and giving Himself to them as their God by a covenant relationship so very similar to marriage. In fact, there are several places in the Old Testament where God speaks of Himself as a husband to Israel. From Sinai He led them to the edge of the Promised Land. Time and time again He’d showed His love in word and in deed. And they stood on the edge of the land, refusing to go in saying, in essence, to their husband, “I don’t believe you.” (More on this can be heard in my sermon on Numbers 14 from April 7, 2013)

To show his friends what it means to be faithful, the pastor shows them first what it looks like to be unfaithful. Yes, all disobedience is unfaithfulness to God, but the unfaithfulness that will leave you outside of the mercy of God is the unfaithfulness that ignores the God who speaks “today” through His Son; that hears the Word of God and never believes it; that hears of redemption and hope and life but wants to go back to old ways of living just like those Israelites wanted to go back from the edge of the Promised Land to their old life in Egypt.

The pastor says in 3:12, “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.” This “falling away” has troubled a lot of Christians, but it makes sense in light of the example from Numbers 14. All of Israel came out of Egypt. They were the covenant people. But what became clear was that in that day of rebellion, not all who were “of Israel” were the true people of God. Even though they lived in the covenant community, their unbelief showed that they had been covenant breakers, truly unfaithful all along. So, our pastor here, writing to a group of Christians in the New Covenant church he says, “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. For we share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.” He uses the same word – “hardened” – as he used when talking about the Israelites of Numbers 14. So, “falling away” is not what happens when we sin and repent and hold fast to Jesus by faith. “Falling away” is showing the same, unbelieving, hardened heart as those who – time after time to the end of their days – said to God, “I don’t believe you.”

In this we hear that his primary concern is not with the fact that we are sinners. He’s already told us in chapter 2 that Jesus is the champion who came to rescue sinners! Even the Israelites of the Exodus had such grace open to them had they only repented, but they didn’t. Their hardness of heart prevented them even from running to the God who said His name is “Yahweh, Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Exodus 34:6). And we experience forgiveness for sin when we embrace him by faith, turning away from sin and saying of Christ our brother, “I will put my trust in him.” So, we know that the pastor’s fear (as he says in 4:1) is that some of his friends have failed to reach that place of faith. If so, then they will be like the Israelites he speaks of in 3:16-19, who heard and rebelled, who provoked God by their consistent hardness of heart against God. They never entered the rest of God symbolized in the Promised Land because they never believed.

But for those who have come to Christ by faith, 4:2-3 says, for those who have heard and believed in Jesus, we enter into that rest which God means for us to enjoy forever. It’s a rest from fear. It’s a rest from the soul-tiring work of living as a sinner in this world. It’s the rest that comes when your confidence isn’t in yourself but in a faithful Savior who says he will take care of you both now and in the age to come. It’s a rest that we enjoy now and will enjoy fully in the age to come.

This is what is offered to us by Jesus when he says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls…” (Matthew 11:28-30). That’s the importance of hearing and believing “today,” and holding fast by faith to our confidence and hope in Jesus.

If we do not hold fast to Christ by faith, but instead listen to the voices around us that call us away from him – the voices of greed or the desire to escape suffering by going back to life apart from Christ – if we fail to listen then we will find ourselves with no excuse when the day comes to give an account of ourselves to God. For the word of God (4:12 says) lays us naked and exposed before the eye of God. We cannot hide our unbelief from him. He knows what going through the motions of religion looks like and it does not please him. He knows that not all who say they believe trust in him - even those living in the community of His church may really be trusting in themselves.

But when sober “fear” (4:1) makes us examine our hearts, it actually leads us back to faith (4:2). When we confess that there are times when we put our trust in ourselves instead of Christ and when we repent of everything done out of unbelief, turning back to Christ and holding fast to him as our only hope and source of confidence, then we are actually living by faith. In that life of repentance and faith we can rest assured that we have entered God’s rest. Through repentance and faith in Christ we, too are counted as faithful.

Because when the day comes and we stand before God we must give account to Him. That will be a fearful day for those who have not believed in His Word, who ignored the faithfulness of Jesus the Son and have not held fast to him by faith.

But for those who have held fast to him by repentance and faith, then the account we give will be found to be acceptable to God. We will be accepted because, 4:14 tells us, “we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God….” From beginning to the end, our hope is only Jesus. It is by trusting in him that we are counted as “holy brothers.” We share in “a heavenly calling” because of him. Our part is to simply hold fast to him and endure in what we’ve said we believe. Jesus is the Son of God – our brother, our champion, our high priest who shed his blood for our forgiveness and restoration to the Father.

There is a movement within the church that says if you aren’t doing something radical for Christ, then you aren’t really living like a faithful Christian ought. If you aren’t moving into the poorest parts of town; if you aren’t “missional;” if you aren’t challenging other Christians to do the same, then you aren’t really a follower of Christ. There is a sense in which we are called outside of comfort, being willing to sacrifice all things when called by God. But there is a real sense in which our only calling is the call to hold fast to Jesus by faith. And that calling is lived out not only by those who are “radical” (as we consider it) but by those holding fast to Jesus in the mundane, ordinary things of this life – in conversations in the carpool, in plumbing and painting, in loving your kids and wife. Yes, we need to hold fast to Christ when feeding the poor and loving the widow and orphan, but we also need to hold fast to Jesus when we dance and eat and drink.

And what does holding fast to Jesus usually look like in those situations? It means listening to him and responding to the deep love with which he has loved us. It means repenting and confessing our failures and our “successes” and then running back and holding tightly to Jesus. That is our calling until he returns. And when he does, we will love and celebrate the faithful Son who has built us up together into his own house. It was Jesus himself who said,

“’I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown. The one who conquers [which is the word in Revelation for “holding fast by faith to Jesus”], I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’” (Revelation 3:11-13)

[Pray – Father, we glory in our faithful high priest, Your Son, Jesus. And in him we rejoice that though we have been faithless, even unbelieving at times, by the work of your Spirit you call us back to yourself. Lead us on, Father, in repentance of our sin, helping us in temptation and moments of unbelief. Help us today to be on guard against the deceitfulness of sin and protect our weak hearts against becoming hardened against you. And may we today and every day from now through eternity hold fast to our faithful Christ Jesus and rest in him! In his name we pray in confidence with great hope. Amen.]

[Benediction]

“Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.”  (Hebrews 13:20-21)

[1] William Lane, Hebrews: A Call to Commitment, 56.