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Hebrews Chapter 3 Verse 7a

• Notice here something essential regarding the Holy Spirit. He speaks! You’re like duh but I’m like shaaaaah! This is important! Because you cannot understand the Holy Spirit to be some sort of force, some sort of influential wind, some sort of impersonal thing, that is incorrect, non-biblical doctrine! The Holy Spirit exhibits all of the characteristics of a person and is indeed the third Person of the Holy Trinity.
• Check this out. First, right here…He speaks! And not just here, we see this in 1 Timothy 4:1 (“The Holy Spirit expressly says…”), Acts 8:29 (“Then the Spirit said to Philip…”), Acts 10:19-20 and Acts 13:1-4! Jesus Himself continually and consistently refers to the Holy Spirit as “He” - a personal pronoun rather than “it.”
• What’s more…He teaches! John 14:26! He bears witness! John 15:26-27! He guides, He hears, He tells, He forbids, He intercedes! Had enough? I ain’t done yet!
• Romans 8:27 tells us that He has a mind. 1 Corinthians 2:11 tells us that He has knowledge. Romans 15:30 reveals that the Holy Spirit possesses affection and 1 Corinthians 12:11 shows us that the Holy Spirit has His own will…These are all characteristics of a being possessing intelligence and personality!
• Finally, check this out, He can be grieved (Ephesians 4:30). He can be insulted! (Hebrews 10:29). He can be lied to (Acts 5:3), He can be resisted (Acts 7:51), and He can be blasphemed (Matthew 12:31-32). The one sin that cannot be forgiven…
• So you see a mere influence cannot sustain these attributes and so the correct doctrine, the Biblical presentation, the eternal mystery…is that the Holy Spirit is a Person! Indeed the third Person in a wondrously syfy God who eternally exists equally and completely in three Persons! And so the Holy Spirit speaks and says….

Hebrews Chapter 3 Verse 7b

• YES! See that? “Today, if you will hear His voice…!” Who His? Even in speaking, God the Holy Spirit reveals God the Father!

Hebrews Chapter 3 Verses 8 – 11

• The author of this letter is saying here that this stuff I’ve written, man it’s good…it’s straight from the heart and mouth of God Himself and so don’t turn away…hear me, believe the Word of God! Remember what happened last time…the Word of God came through Joshua and Caleb that God is with you, He will go before you, He has given you the land of promise but because you did not hear Him last time the entire nation wandered…the longest death march in history man…and so many times our lives are just a long death march because we harden our hearts to the things of God and fold into this world’s ways!

• Believing our senses, trusting in our own rationality and logic…making decisions based on human and worldly assessments and conveniences rather than trusting in the Creator of all things and taking Him at His Word! And wandering ensues!

• Notice there at the end of verse 10, God says, “They have not known My ways and so they cannot enter into My rest…” Don’t miss this association! Rest is not retirement. Rest is not to have everyone around you pleased with you or to have enough or to have the perfect wife or the perfect husband, “Oh I just don’t know if he is Mr. Right.” Girl let me introduce you to Mr. Right! Rest. Rest and inner peace and freedom of the heart and in the heart is a result of one single thing…knowing the ways of God!
• Literally in the Greek, that word for rest means a “calming of the winds.” And I love that. Because the winds of change blow don’t they? The fads and the tides and the currents of men and of ages and of cultures and of days and of times and yet here…a secret of not just survival but surging…to know the ways of the One who started it all…and thus to be well sustained and stable in the worst of storms…(horrible tragic things going on – bet they didn’t know the ways of God…)
• And so the exhortation from the Holy Spirit is do not harden your hearts (because you’re the ONLY ONE who can) but come to know and grow in the ways of God…

Hebrews Chapter 3 Verse 12

• Major statement there contextually but also practically for us! This word certainly is “evil” and can mean things that we might think of like Freddy Kruger or ISIS or carrots (HA! I hate those suckers!)…you know heinous evil (HA), but this actually means something as seemingly irrelevant as someone who is full of labors man…annoyances…that life is pain man…well that’s not right! We’ve made it that way going our own way! Jesus said, “I have come to give you life and life abundant!” And it is wickedness dwelling in you if your days are filled with frustrations and annoyances and labors especially when it is time to do what is right!
• Doing what is right should not be labor! Defaulting to God’s ways and choosing love, choosing grace, choosing to put yourself last…that should be the desperate desire of your heart, man! And when it’s not man it’s like chipping away at your softness of heart…making you harder and harder…and you don’t even see it…and then pretty soon you’ve completely departed from the very heart of God! It’s just little things man…little things…little annoyances, frustrations and labors that you check-off as just the way it is…or even that you check-off as obedience and move on while all the time your heart is hardening! Man true obedience…it just flows man…because your heart is to serve the King of Kings…the hero of your salvation…Check this out…

Hebrews Chapter 3 Verse 13

• The deceitfulness of sin…that is what hardens your heart…and this…man know this…you don’t see it…you can’t see it with logic, with your eyes, with reason…that’s why its deceitful. There’s no defense against this! Just offense! It sneaks in under the guise of “right” and “Oh I HAVE to do what’s right here.” The evil one disguises himself as an angel of light 2 Corinthians 11:14 says…and as sin deceives…you fade man…you drift from the heart of God…
• Ephesians 4 verses 17 – 22 gives us a taste of this in that the futility of our own minds, just walking out life whether in the Lord or not, decays us…now look at Ephesians 3 verses 14 – 19 which gives us a taste of the opposite of an evil heart of unbelief but a heart filled with Christ through faith…words like grounded, rooted, comprehension, knowledge of love that goes well beyond any capacity of understanding…being filled with the fullness of God! That is a heart softened!

• This is really a major thing for us. Especially the post-modern church of the 21^st century in ‘murrica. Because we can have it our way…the customer is always right. We have houses or apartments, clothes, cars, rent-a-center 70” televisions and hundreds of channels…we are surrounded by self-service…even if you don’t like or agree with one point I make this morning, you can just never show up again!? Absurd! That hardens our hearts….but God says come away…

• What are we to do? Quiet time with the Lord man. Talk to Him. Hang out with Him. Learn His Word, learn His heart…serve others…share with others…stick it out man when times are tough on your flesh…submit yourselves to one another in love…make these things your priorities and most importantly…open your hearts to God man…let Him in…because all of this faith stuff…if not rooted in love for Him who first loved you…will fade to black and white eventually…and become…evil. Laborious. Annoying. As it shouldn’t be…and the deceitfulness of sin will take you there fast…drifting while you do your thing…

Hebrews Chapter 3 Verses 14 – 19

• The eternal link of belief and obedience…There it is…but remember, true obedience is an act of love, not an act of obligation…And man as belief fills your heart and rebellion is kicked out…then guess what happens, you begin to love as He loves…to desire as He desires…you become more like Him and in doing so…a weapon against weakness and failure first in your own life and then almost immediately in the life of others as well!
• God’s desire for you is to rest in Him…which has nothing to do with being inactive by the way…this isn’t rest in a la-z-boy (Oh man check out my Jesus edition recliner!) …but rather a rest from the toil man…there are so many that have never known the rest and peace and joy and power available to you in Jesus because you are still laboring…still trying to be good under some sort of religious works based theology and trying to be pleasing to God…(marked by you imposing that on others by the way)…when you don’t try…you either are or you aren’t man…worship, pleasing God is a result, not an action…a result of a heart fully given over to Him…
• Or maybe because of unbelief that’s the issue. You haven’t given your life over fully to Him…made that total commitment of your life and the affairs of your life…everything…because you don’t know, or you’ve heard but you just don’t believe that He is faithful and will keep and perfect and protect all that I will commit to Him…maybe that’s it…in either circumstance, so many simply don’t know rest…hearts remain hard and folks think they are “ok.”
• God never wanted you to be “ok!” He calls you to LIFE! But anxiety and strife and pride and confusion lead you to tough times and a wilderness experience…going in circles…the same problems coming up again and again…
• Church, we must have soft hearts to the things of God and thick shields of faith to the things of the world! Lest we waste our time and miss all that God has for us in the name of religion or because of some sort of fear…this rest is a promise, written even in His own blood…