Sovereign Grace Community Church

After directing his readers to examine themselves as to where they were seeking resource and relief in their struggle of faith, the writer called them to turn their gaze outward to those who were leading them. If these Hebrews could draw encouragement from their faithful Israelite ancestors, how much more their faithful brethren in the Messiah who labored alongside them as His devoted shepherds.

The writer's next exhortation concerns the obligation of contentment. But this, too, must be understood in terms of the larger purpose for the epistle, which was penned to encourage its Hebrew audience to persevere in their faith and faithfulness. Thus the contentment the writer had in mind doesn't pertain to one's material goods per se, but one's sufficiency in God and His provision and faithfulness.

The writer was jealous for his readers, that they should persevere in their faith and faithfulness. And central to this faithfulness is the abiding obligation of love. God is love, and those whose lives are hidden with Christ in God must live in love. This is a universal obligation, but it has a primary concern in the marital relationship. And not just for its own sake, but because of what it represents.

The Hebrews writer insisted that his readers persevere in their love for one another, for this is fundamental to the Christian obligation to persevere in faith. And central to this conscious, intentional commitment to brotherly love is the ordinance of the Lord's Table. Nothing speaks more clearly and powerfully to the nature, significance and importance of loving the brethren.

The Hebrews writer ended his epistle with a series of brief practical exhortations, the first of which addresses the most basic Christian obligation, namely love for the brethren. This might seem to depart from the topic of faith and faithfulness, but manifest love is actually the very marrow of faithfulness. The one who holds fast to the truth as it is in Jesus abides in love toward His people in whom He has His fullness.

Key to perseverance in faith is recognizing one's suffering as serving the Father's purpose to mature His children unto their inheritance as fellow heirs with Jesus. But in a very real way, that inheritance is already theirs, for they have been raised up in the Messiah and seated in the heavenly realm with Him. They are already sons in the Father's house, not as residing with Him in a particular place, but as His everlasting dwelling in the Spirit.

The writer's overall purpose for his epistle was to encourage his readers to persevere in faith through the many things they were suffering as Jesus' disciples. Key to their perseverance was rightly perceiving their suffering as their Father's discipline. But right perception must be joined to right response - that is, a pattern of faithfulness that reflects and conforms to the truth and goal of the Father's discipline of His children.

The writer's goal for his brief survey of the faithful in Israel's history was to encourage his readers in their own ordeal of faith. They weren't alone, but were surrounded by countless witnesses who testified to what it means to endure in faith - to persevere in unwavering trust in God through all difficulty and suffering. The faithful forefathers endured in faith, though they had only God's promises to hold onto- how much more ought these Hebrews endure whose faith was in the One in whom all of God's promises had become -yes and amen--

Suffering is inherent to human life in this world, and Christians aren't exempt from it. But they are also uniquely subject to the suffering that results from sharing in Jesus' resurrection life. This is the suffering associated with living the life of new creation within the old creation that stills groans under the curse. This contradiction between the -now- and the -not yet- is the basis of lament as both a scriptural virtue and a key dimension of authentic worship and prayer. This message explores the nature of lament and its place in a vital relationship with God.

The Thanksgiving holiday encourages people to step back and consider again the matter of their own thankfulness. Gratitude is a universally-recognized human virtue, and yet all people struggle to be thankful. Christians, especially, understand the central place of thankfulness in human existence, and yet tend to perceive and practice it in the way non-Christians do, with the exception that they direct their gratitude to the God of the Bible. This message examines the issue of thankfulness as the Scriptures understand it, and what it means to be a truly thankful people.

The Hebrews writer concluded his treatment of Israel's legacy of faith with a broad summary that swept up the balance of the Old Testament history. Along with Israel's prophets, he named six individuals as a collective group, and then summarized their faith in terms of triumphs and suffering. This message considers the first four named men- Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah.

The writer drew two of his examples of faith from the Jericho episode. The first was the Israelites, whose faith saw Jericho conquered and destroyed, and the second was Rahab, whose faith delivered her and her family from that destruction. Rahab's inclusion in the writer's catalog of faith is hugely important, for she had no connection with the Abrahamic family and their covenant God. She was outside the commonwealth of Israel and a stranger to Israel's covenant- her faith wasn't in the God who'd spoken at Sinai and given His Torah, but the God whose mighty deeds testified of His veracity and faithfulness. Her inclusion here, then, illumines the concept of faith and its place in God's intent for the human race.

From the Red Sea episode, the writer jumped forward forty years to the time of Israel's entrance into Canaan. After bringing His people across the Jordan River in another miraculous passage, God directed them toward the city of Jericho as their first conquest in the land. This messages examines that event and Israel's faith in relation to it.

Most Christians know that there is a connection between Israel's Passover observance and the Lord's Table instituted by Jesus. But many have only a limited sense of the scope and significance of that connection. Put simply, the Passover was central to Israel's hope in God and His fulfillment of His purposes and promises to and through them. This message considers how that was the case, how that hope was fulfilled in Jesus, and the implications for Christian faith and practice.

The writer turned to the Passover episode as his final example of Moses' faith. His previous two examples emphasized Moses' embrace of His Hebrew identity and his renunciation of the life he'd known since his young childhood. This third example shows how that commitment reached its climax in Moses' return to Egypt to deliver his Hebrew brethren.

Moses spent nearly all of his first forty years as a prince of Egypt, but God had set him apart for a different calling. Pharaoh had groomed him to be a leader in Egypt, but God appointed him to lead His people out of Egypt into the inheritance promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. That process began when Moses renounced his Egyptian identity by aligning himself with his Hebrew brethren and abandoning Egypt for the land of Midian.