When we stop becoming more spiritually mature, we become less mature. There is no spiritual “neutral” -- only spiritual progress and spiritual regress. Progress means to move forward and regress means to move backward. In today’s passage, the author is concerned that his Hebrew readers have lost spiritual momentum- they’ve stopped moving forward, and started moving backward.
Hebrews 5:7-10 - "Our Suffering Savior"
Suffering can lead us away from God. But the suffering of Christ was meant to reconnect our hearts to God. And the hope that we have in Christ helps us to persevere through the suffering in this life as we await the life to come, in which there will be no suffering. The big idea today is simply this: Jesus suffered to save us. In our passage, we see two basic realities: 1. Jesus suffered with us, and 2. Jesus suffered for us.
Hebrews 5:1-6 - "Our Perfect Priest"
Jesus is the perfect priest for imperfect people. When we understand His priestly service, and trust in Him as our Great High Priest, we can flourish in this life. But in order to do so, we must recognize two things: 1. that imperfect people need a high priest, and 2. that we have a perfect high priest in Christ.
Hebrews 4:14-16 - "Confession and Confidence"
Today’s passage explains a few things about the reality of Jesus and how we should respond as His followers. We learn that He is our great High Priest, our representative before God. So then, we should respond by holding firmly to our Christian confession, and approaching God’s throne of grace with humble confidence.
Hebrews 4:1-13 - "The Rest of Life"
What is true rest? That’s the million dollar question! But most of us struggle to understand the biblical meaning of and purpose behind rest. Thankfully, that’s exactly what we find out in today’s passage. The big idea is simply this: God promises rest, but we must pursue it.
Hebrews 3:13-19 - "Fight Hard, Finish Well"
Why is exhortation so important? As we saw last week, we need to “take care, lest there be an evil, unbelieving heart in us leading us to fall away from the living God.” The sobering reality is that unbelief leads to a hard heart that is deceived by sin. But exhortation helps us fight well and finish well, so let’s exhort one another in love.
Hebrews 3:7-12 - "Rest in Christ"
The main point of today’s sermon is very simple: there is no rest in resisting God, but there is always rest in humble submission. Today’s passage warns us to remain faithful, rather than become unfaithful, so that we can enter God’s rest through faith in Christ, rather than live lives of spiritual restlessness.
Hebrews 3:1-6 - "Consider Jesus"
When we fail to fix our eyes on Jesus, we stop paying attention to all that God has revealed through Him. We turn away from the truth of the Gospel, the good news about who Jesus is and what He has done, and is doing, and will do. And the result will always be a lack of hope and confidence in Christ. But, if we keep our eyes on Christ, we will become more and more Christlike. By considering who He is, we will better understand who we already are in Christ, and how we ought to be as Christians. And as we grow up in the knowledge and grace of our Lord, our confidence and hope in Him will develop and deepen over the course of our lives.
Hebrews 2:10-18 - "Hero Worship"
Our hearts are inclined to hero-worship. And our culture increasingly wants to attribute saving power to people, which pulls our attention and worship away from Jesus. Today, we will see that Jesus is our Ultimate Hero. We’ll see how He alone saves us from slavery and sin through self-sacrifice. Therefore, He alone deserves our worship.
Hebrews 2:5-9 - "Destined For Glory"
Sin causes us to forget our purpose, what God created and redeemed us for. So we seek our own goals instead of pressing on toward God’s destination. We drift away from God. We neglect our great salvation. But today’s passage reminds us that men and women were meant to rule over Creation in fellowship with our Creator. Through Christ, we will one day be restored to that honor, to rule with Him for eternity.
Hebrews 2:1-4 - "The Danger of Drifting"
What does it mean to “drift away” from the good news of Jesus? It is perhaps best pictured as a ship missing it’s harbor. We glide right by our destination, the goal, the prize, merely because we are distracted, careless, negligent. It wasn’t our main focus, so we weren’t paying close attention. We can all carelessly drift and miss the best Jesus offers, so we must pay close attention in order to live the life to which He is calling us.
Hebrews 1:4-14 - "The Better Messenger"
With so many competing messages flying in our direction, it can be hard to determine what is trustworthy. The trustworthiness of a message is rooted in the authority of the messenger. Today, we will see from this first chapter of Hebrews that Jesus is the ultimate Messenger from God, carrying the full authority of God, so His gospel message must be the ultimate guide for our lives.
Hebrews 1:1-3 - "The Exalted Christ"
We can’t let familiarity rob us of our wonder. When we don’t have a daily awe and wonder of Jesus Christ, we won’t be able to fully worship Him with our lives. Daily wonder produces a worship-filled life, a daily walk with Jesus that helps us persevere and stirs us to talk about Him with others.
Hebrews 1:1-13:25 - "Introduction to Hebrews"
The Letter to the Hebrews exalts Christ in order to exhort Christians. By lifting our eyes to Christ our High Priest--exalted in the heavens, superior to everything and everyone--we are able to see our earthly circumstances in light of the reality of who Christ is and what He has accomplished.
Isaiah 9:6-7 - "The Coming King: Part 2"
If we turn away from Jesus and focus on the overwhelming circumstances of life, we will be overwhelmed. But if we keep our eyes on Christ, we can remain hopeful in this life. He is the Creator of all things, and is more powerful than all of creation combined. And He uses His divine wisdom and power to provide us with everlasting protection and peace.
Isaiah 9:6 - "The Coming King: Part 1"
Jesus the Messiah is more than a mere man, so our hope is secure in Him. Isaiah’s poem in 9:1-7 reveals that Messiah would be unique and unequaled in every way. There has never been and never will be another person like Him. This is especially clear in Isaiah 9:6 where we see that Messiah would certainly be a man, but not merely a man.
Isaiah 8:11-9:7 - "Hopefully"
We tend to feel hopeful only IF our ever-changing circumstances seem hopeful at a particular moment in time. But this can only lead to unmet expectations and ultimate despair. We need something infinitely more secure in which to place our hope; we need someONE infinitely more secure… and that is exactly who we have in Jesus the Messiah. If Jesus is our living hope, then we can live our lives hopefully.
Proverbs 31:10-31 - "A Woman of Wisdom"
Focusing on God’s excellence is what produces godly excellence in our lives. In today’s passage, we see a wise woman who exudes godly excellence because she is living for God and others.
Proverbs 22:6 - "Wise Parenting"
Biblical wisdom teaches us that how we engage our young people will have lasting, even lifelong effects. Today’s proverb teaches us that parenting is powerful, so it must also be purposeful. We must be purposeful about our roles and goals in raising up our kids to love and serve the Lord.
Proverbs 30:7-9 - "Wealth and Wisdom"
Wealth can be deceptive, so we need to depend on God. The prayer of Agur encourages us to depend on God for two things, in particular: protection and provision.
