Lesson 4  

Hebrews 3 New King James Version

1 Therefore, 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. 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 ^[a]firm to the end.

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.’ ”

¹² Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; ¹³ but ^[b]exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. ¹⁴ For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, ¹⁵ while it is said:

“Today, if you will hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”

¹⁶ For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? ¹⁷ Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? ¹⁸ And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey? ¹⁹ So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.

 

First Impression?

• The group had Jesus is awesome, Jesus is higher, God is above all don’t harden your heart, and try to believe. My impression now is that the author is pleading with non-believers who have heard the gospel to accept the gift of salvation right now.

The Apostle and High Priest – Is this who you confess to?

• I confess to God the Father. I understand the concept of Jesus as my intercessor, but in practice, I treat the two as one. 

Faithful – How do you define faithful in this verse (2)?

• The word is used of Christ and Moses who being different had different examples of faith. Christ’s was perfect and Moses’s not. I want to define faithfulness as simply acting on the belief that one has in God. My mind tells me that as we relate to non-believers, this concept has to be about acting out one’s belief in God.  

Counted worthy – Do you try to be worthy?

• I fail in so many ways, that I feel as though even trying to be worthy is almost sin. I need to try to let the love of God flow through me, but I know even that does not make me worthy, so I like to try to leave the thought of worthiness out of any reference to me.

He who built all things – Is there some way that you honor God that is not evident to the outside world?

• My want to ask this question was driven to show that much of what we do should be to give glory to God, but that sometimes being faithful requires actions that will never see the light of day. I want to be sarcastic, and I want to leave the shopping cart by my car, but now that I know sarcasm is not good and that I should put the cart in the rack, I try to follow the best path.

As a servant, spoken afterward – Do you do things that will bring honor to God after you are out of the picture?

I have the memory of my mom’s funeral and the example of living to bring glory to God, so I think about this, but I mainly try to avoid negative actions. I want to do more, but my sinfulness often hinders my action.

If we hold to the end – What if we do not?

• As discussed at other points, I believe once saved always saved, so I believe the answer here is that you bring no further glory to God and are useless.

The Holy Spirit says – Do not harden your heart. What does this mean for the believer?

• I have the paradigm for the non-believer that this is turning away to eternal damnation. For the believer, I feel this is wasting opportunities to glorify God. 

Exhort one another daily – How do you do this?

• Obviously, the goal is to cause us to do this more often. As much as our mission is to spread the gospel, there is a huge need to encourage others as despite the attempts of Satan to deceive us into inaction, Satan does work in the lives of Christians to lessen their impact on the world. Our tool is to love one another so well, that others want in on it too.

If we hold to the end – Again, what if we do not?

• Same. Just trying to point out the importance of the decision to accept. 

Who did not hold to the end?

• Everyone except Joshua and Caleb. Two out of a million (or millions). Regardless of the opportunity for those who lived before Christ to be saved, the numbers here are staggering. The percentage of people who live that will believe can be assumed to be small enough that we can impact every person me meet on any given day. Our great example of Christ is that He cared for every single person enough to die for them. We should not be ashamed to share that message.