Opening Illustration: Buying a Power Wheels Jeep.  As a dad, there have been certain gifts that I have been so excited to give to my kids. And these gifts were gifts that I enjoyed as I kid. I remember how much happiness they brought me and I want my kids to have the same experience. One of those gifts was a battery powered car called a Power Wheels. It was a blue Jeep. I bought back in the day of Craigslist (not sure if that still exists…) Each kid played with that Jeep. You can see the new sense of freedom of that takes place when they first take off. But that moment comes to a halt when what happens? The battery runs out. You can see the confusion on their faces. Why isn’t it working as it did before? Why is everything slowing down? What do I do next? As a kid, they don’t know what needs to happen to keep moving.  As an adult, I’ve realized that my life is full of those moments. Your life is full of those moments. You are hitting the gas pedal and nothing is happening. How you respond in those moments is very important. It’s so important that God chose to use the book of Hebrews to tell us what we need to do. Today, God tells us what it looks like to have a faith that makes it to the end. Here’s what we’ll see in our time in God’s Word today: Faith to the end requires a heart near to Jesus.  We are in our current Sermon Series: Hebrews: The Complete Work of Christ.  We are journeying through the book of Hebrews. We continue to see to major themes: Jesus is better. Stay close to Jesus. Let’s open up our Bibles with expectancy and hunger. Read Hebrews 3:7-19. Pray. 

Last week, we saw that Jesus is greater and better than Moses. The writer of Hebrews used the concept of a house. Just as a builder is greater than the house, Jesus is better than Moses, who He created. At the last part of verse 6, we see something pretty cool. We, as Christians, get pulled into this concept. Look back at verse 6: ^“But Christ, as the Son, is in charge of God’s entire house. And we are God’s house, if we keep our courage and remain confident in our hope in Christ.”  What does it say about us? “We are God’s house” In other words, we are God’s possession. We are God’s people. There is one key word in verse 6 that sets up the entire passage we are looking at today. What is that word? “If”. The remainder of chapter 3 explains that one word, “if”. If what? Look at verse 14: “For if we are faithful to the end, trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed, we will share in all that belongs to Christ.” This is the second warning in the book of Hebrews. Remember that there are 5 warnings total. We saw the first warning a few weeks ago, which was not to drift from God’s truth. Now, we see a second warning that hearts that are far from God will harden and lead to unbelief. With this in mind, the writer of Hebrews points back to a group of people that didn’t heed the warning of not letting their hearts grow away from God. So, here’s where we start with verse 7: Pay attention to the symptoms of unbelief.

1) Pay attention to the symptoms of unbelief. (vs. 7-11)  Starting in verse 7, the Hebrews author quotes part of Psalm 95. Psalm 95 is referring back to an important part of the Old Testament in Numbers 14. So, we have our Hebrews passage that is referring to another passage that is referring to another passage. I gave you all heads up that Hebrews is deep, but good! If we were to go back to Numbers 13 and 14, we’d find the scene where the people of God – the Israelites – were on the cusp of entering the land that God had promised to give them. Moses, the leader of the Israelites, sent out 12 spies into this land, Canaan. Those 12 spies saw a land that was so fruitful. It was flowing with milk and honey. They cut down a branch of grapes so large that two men had to carry it. It was beautiful land. But that land was inhabited by their enemies. Their enemies were strong and large and fortified. The 12 spies come back to give the report. Two the spies, Joshua and Caleb, said, “Let’s go take these guys out and take the land God has promised to us!” But the other 10 spies said, “Nope. Not going. We can’t beat these guys. We’ll all die.” All of the Israelites – all of them except Joshua and Caleb – panic. Look at what they say in Numbers 14:1-2: “Then the whole community began weeping aloud, and they cried all night. Their voices rose in a great chorus of protest against Moses and Aaron. “If only we had died in Egypt, or even here in the wilderness!” they complained.”  This is the same group of people that were led out of Egypt after all the plagues and saw the Red Sea parted for them and saw it collapse on the Egyptian army. They had been led by a pillar of smoke during the day and a pillar of fire by night. They saw the work of God directly before their eyes and what happened?! They let unbelief take over. And God told them to pack up their bags and head back out into the wilderness for 40 years.

What  happened to this group of people that walked across dry land in the middle of the Red Sea to not believing that God would defeat their enemies before them? We see the answer in verses 4-11: ⁷ That is why the Holy Spirit says, “Today when you hear his voice, ⁸ don’t harden your hearts as Israel did when they rebelled,     when they tested me in the wilderness. ⁹ There your ancestors tested and tried my patience, even though they saw my miracles for forty years. ¹⁰ So I was angry with them, and I said, ‘Their hearts always turn away from me. They refuse to do what I tell them.’ ¹¹ So in my anger I took an oath: ‘They will never enter my place of rest.’” What happened? Their hearts became hard towards God. Their hearts turned away from God. How did this happen? It wasn’t a switch they flipped. Sin drives our hearts towards unbelief. Something began to permeate in the lives of the Israelites that said, “Jesus is no longer my greatest treasure.” And that’s what unbelief is. Quote: “Unbelief means failing to rest in Jesus as your greatest treasure.” – John Piper.

So, the warning in Hebrews is to not make the same mistake we saw the Israelites make in their hearts in the journey from where God was taking them to where He wanted them to go. God wants to take you from where we are now to where He wants you to be. Where God wants you to be, spiritually, is way better than where you are now. When unbelief becomes a problem is when we start to think we know better than Jesus. Unbelief becomes a problem when we start tot think we know where we are supposed to be rather than where Jesus wants us to be.  It usually starts off with either doubt or fear[1]  We start to question where God is taking us or we become scared of where God is taking. Then doubt or fear turns into pride. We start to think that we know better. Illustration: I turned off the GPS recently on a trip and got lost. I got prideful that I didn’t need my GPS lady telling me where to go. And the final symptom of unbelief is isolation. This is the place where cut yourself off from the community of believers and cut yourself off from God. You stop praying, reading the Bible, worshiping. Sin loses its conviction. Quote: “In confession the break-through to community takes place. Sin demands to have a man by himself. It withdraws him from the community. The more isolated a person is, the more destructive will be the power of sin over him, and the more deeply he becomes involved in it, the more disastrous is his isolation. Sin wants to remain unknown. It shuns the light. In the darkness of the unexpressed it poisons the whole being of a person. This can happen even in the midst of a pious community.” -- Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It’s in this place that tenderness of your heart begins to callous. That’s the warning. That’s the danger. But there’s good news! We see the cure of unbelief. And it’s this: Unbelief is powerless to the heart that is near to Jesus. 

[1] Influenced by https://summitchurch.com/GetFile.ashx?Guid=ccec94e2-b54e-4693-9274-d8b76f00614e

2) Unbelief is powerless to the heart that is near to Jesus. (vs. 12-13) Let’s look at verses 12 and 13: ¹² Be careful then, dear brothers and sisters. Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God. ¹³ You must warn each other every day, while it is still “today,” so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God.  I want to be clear on something. This passage is not, in any way, teaching that if you have salvation – that is, a relationship with Jesus – that you can lose your salvation. What we see in this passage are really two scenarios.

1) There are those who have been in proximity to Jesus without ever believing in and professing Jesus.  This is very predominate in the southeast US. There are those who have been in church, participated in church, even experienced the work of Jesus, but never fully believed. You may have even been baptized and took the Lord’s Supper. But there is a scary reality that there are those who near God, but never loved Him. I’ll say it this way: Lacking interest in God should terrify you. If you find the lures of the world more attractive than God, that should give you a major pause. If that’s you, come talk to me. (GOSPEL PRESENTATION). Your soul and eternity isn’t something to play around with.

2) There are those who believe in God, but along the way, started to treasure something in this world more than Jesus. Which is what we already saw.

In either case, what’s the solution? In verse 12, we need to take personal responsibility for our hearts. We need to be honest with ourselves about what we are holding onto. We need to look at how we view Jesus. Do you see Jesus as someone who plans out your trip to heaven? Or do you see Jesus as the One who is molding you, and shaping you, and guiding you. Unbelief creeps in when Jesus becomes nothing more than your heavenly vacation planner. Jesus isn’t your vacation planner. Jesus isn’t your travel agent. Jesus isn’t your cruise ship director. Jesus is your Shepherd leading you to still waters and green pastures. Jesus is your Shepherd leading you through the dark valleys. Jesus is your Shepherd leading you to rest in the house of the Lord. You must let your heart be drawn deeper into the intimacy of Jesus. When your heart is near Jesus, unbelief doesn’t stand a chance.

We see another solution in verse 13: ¹³ You must warn each other every day, while it is still “today,” so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God. You can’t walk the Christian life alone! When we see the spiritual war around us, it will drive us to community. Be in community is a must for any heart that wants to stay near Jesus. You have to be in fellowship with other believers. It’s other believers that can help you see what you are missing. Illustration: Collins airplane seat belt comes apart right before we take off. My family and I were on a plane a few weeks ago. (I hate flying in a tin can in 30k feet in the sky). We were on the tarmac, cleared for take off. My daughter next to me says, “Dad, is my seatbelt supposed to come out like this?” And she holds up her whole seatbelt. It had completely disconnected from the seat! I had a little panic moment…I started ripping out the seat cushion and I discovered the seatbelts have a release on them. I was able to lock it back in. My daughter looked to me to say, “Hey, this is normal? If not, what do I do?” It was the community around her that made sure she stayed connected. Let others help you keep your heart near to Jesus. Here’s what God has given us so far in this passage: The symptoms of unbelief. The cure for unbelief. We end what belief looks like: Belief stands the test of time.

3) Belief stands the test of time. (vs. 14-19) We come back to verse 14 and we see that same word we saw in verse 6: “If”. ¹⁴ For if we are faithful to the end, trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed, we will share in all that belongs to Christ. We need to be careful not to read this verse as conditional. In other words, we need to make sure we don’t read this verse as “be faithful to the end in order that you share in what belongs to Christ.” The way this verse is structured is that the condition is in the future. The condition of “if we are faithful” is in the future. But the effect of the condition is in the present. The belonging to Christ is in the present. What verse 6 and verse 14 are saying is that our present condition in Christ – that we belong to Him – is shown by our faithfulness to the end. Your belief is demonstrated through your endurance. Your belief is demonstrated through your continuance. Belief is not being perfect. Belief is not sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows. Belief is the one who is spiritually battered and bruised and torn, but still says, “It’s Jesus. It’s all about Jesus.”

The author goes back to Psalm 95 one more time how the Israelites missed this: ¹⁵ Remember what it says: “Today when you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts as Israel did when they rebelled.” ¹⁶ And who was it who rebelled against God, even though they heard his voice? Wasn’t it the people Moses led out of Egypt? ¹⁷ And who made God angry for forty years? Wasn’t it the people who sinned, whose corpses lay in the wilderness? ¹⁸ And to whom was God speaking when he took an oath that they would never enter his rest? Wasn’t it the people who disobeyed him? ¹⁹ So we see that because of their unbelief they were not able to enter his rest. Belief stands the test of time. Beliefs shows that your heart is near to Jesus. That what the book of Hebrews is about – to warn you not to drift – to encourage you to stay near Jesus because He’s better than anything or anyone else. When your heart is knitted to Jesus, it gives you the strength and power you need. 

We still have that blue Jeep Power Wheels in our garage…I push the Power Wheels Jeep. What did my kids do when the Jeep runs out of battery? Do they get out and start screaming at the Jeep? Do they kick it and complain about it? Do they lament how much the Jeep has caused their lives to become a miserable existence? No! What do they do? They look to me. They ask me, “Dad, what’s going on?” “Dad, can you fix it?” “Dad, how can I go again?” I explain the battery needs to be recharged. They need to park the Jeep and let me recharge it. I tell them if they want to keep moving, they have to let me supply the power. They agree, but then I do something. I get behind the Jeep and I start pushing. And they go even faster than they did before!

Whether you are in a season where you feel that constant source of power from Jesus that keeps you going or you in a place where you need Jesus to come and give you a big push, keep your heart near to Jesus! Resting the Promised Land is far better than wandering in the wilderness. The only way to be faithful until the end is to be near to Jesus. To let your heart grow closer and closer. To fall more in love with Jesus. To treasure Him more than anything else in this world. Life with Jesus is better. Let’s be a people that lets the hope of Jesus saturate our hearts and pours out to others. Because there is nothing better than Jesus. Let’s pray.

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