The Best Brother You Could Ever Have, Part 4

Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. Believers have a calling to faithfully center our attention on Christ.

He is our reference point for all of life. While the calling is the same, the faithful stewardship of that calling will look a little different within the unique context in which God has placed us, each investing in the relationships around us. Today, Pastor Rich looks into Hebrews 3, 1-6, to help us better define what it looks like to be faithful as we point others to the Savior. So I want to begin with some review this morning as we begin in chapter 1 of the book of Hebrews.

The title for today's message is Defining Faithfulness. And before we get to that part, we need to go back and understand where the writer of Hebrews has taken us so far. And the first of all, in the first chapter, the first four verses of the first chapter, he says, Listen, God has communicated in person. The infinite sovereign creator of the universe has come down in person to communicate with you and me.

That's pretty important. So what does that mean if the infinite sovereign creator of the universe has come in person to communicate to us? Well, let's consider the person, point number 2, where he takes us in chapter 2, I mean the rest of chapter 1, is who do you say that I am? If we study this person and we look at him, we consider him, we understand who he is, when we have done that, we cannot walk away from that saying he is but a man.

We cannot. He is God in the form of a man. He is a man who is God. He has spoken, therefore, the things that he says, what he has revealed carries significant weight to it that you and I must heed. So on that point, considering who he is, he takes us then to the beginning of chapter 2 and the challenge is this. Devote your mind to God's truth because God has spoken in person. This one Jesus who came to reveal God has spoken in person. We ought then to devote our minds to God's truth.

Put it in a negative which is the warning of the beginning of chapter 2. He says if you just marginalize that and you ignore that and you drift away from that, then that drift will lead to destruction. This is a very weighty revelation that God has given us and so we are called to devote our minds to God's truth lest we drift away and if we drift, we head for destruction.

This is his challenge to the right to the people to whom he is writing. And then in the balance of chapter 2 then, what he gives us is a picture of and the gospel according to Hebrews. The picture of this one God who has come in person to speak to us has revealed God to us. He gives us the gospel in that this one that came is after all our brother and he came to rescue us because as creatures of God made in God's image, we had rebelled against him. And the first person of the Trinity looked at the second person of the Trinity and he said, go get my children and bring them home to me.

It's going to cost you everything you have and it's going to hurt really bad. But because of our love, go get my children and bring them back to me. And that's what he did. He laid down his life so that you can be reconciled to the Father. That's a pretty weighty message. And so the challenge then as we come into the beginning of chapter 3 of the letter to the Hebrews, in the first 6 verses, we are going to be defining faithfulness. And there is a challenge for us if you look then at the end of the sixth verse. The last half of the sixth verse, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end, there's a challenge there, isn't there?

How do we do that? Well, that's why the first five and a half verses are there to get to that point and that's what we're going to be unpacking this morning. The writer of Hebrews then is looking at this Hebrew nation and he says, who is the hero of faithfulness in the Old Testament? Well, Moses of course. Nobody was more faithful than Moses.

Was he perfect? No, he had his flaws, he had his setbacks, but he was faithful. And who was more faithful than Moses? And the writer of Hebrews says, I have an answer for that. The one that Moses followed is the one that was absolutely faithful. And so as he is writing this, he asserts that Jesus, even more than Moses, was faithful because Jesus made Moses and Moses faithfully followed him. And with this then, he argues that we should follow the apostle and high priest of our confession faithfully.

And that's what we're going to define this morning. He calls Christ the apostle of our confession. Confession means the common faith that we have, the faith of the gospel of grace, of the gospel of the grace of God in Jesus Christ. The apostle of our confession, apostle means commissioned sent one. So Jesus was sent to us from the Father and he perfectly, absolutely represents God to man.

He is called the high priest of our confession because he perfectly and absolutely represents man before God as our brother because he is a man. And so we are called then to look to Christ. And this is the definition of faithfulness then.

Let's begin with this this morning. This is a challenge. What is faithfulness? When you hear the word faithfulness, when you understand that you are called to rise up to faithfulness, let this definition be in your mind. This is my calling to center my attention on Christ in the context of entrusted relationships.

I will continue the course with confident joy knowing the outcome. We're going to unpack that one key word at a time. Now, the first one is calling. Look what he says in Hebrews chapter three in the first verse. Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high priest of our confession, Christ Jesus. Calling, partakers of the heavenly calling.

That's what we are. When he says this, he's affirming the fact that what we have here is something way beyond the created creature saying this is something I chose to sign up for. I think, Bob, you're kind of covering that in your justification class, aren't we? It's not this is something I chose to sign up for.

Look at me, I signed up for this. Calling is way beyond that. Understand this. Upon surrendered faith in Christ, if you have done that this morning, as of this morning, upon surrendered faith in Jesus Christ, what happens then? You become justified. You become regenerated. The biblical word is regeneration, the biblical word converted is another biblical word. You are made new. This is not just one of those things where a person chooses to turn over a new leaf in his life. You are made new.

Life exists where it did not exist before. When you place your surrendered trust in Jesus Christ, you become justified, judicially declared righteous before God, and you are regenerated. You are made new. God takes up residence in you, and he makes you a partaker of his nature.

That's pretty amazing, isn't it? With that being the fact, it's like God says to you, I have created you and equipped you for this appointment. You are an heir, a son. You have my authority and my power.

Now walk in it. That's a calling. And that is way beyond, this is something I chose to sign up for. That's the calling. And so it is the word appointed that we have in here, and Jesus Christ himself was appointed as the son, as the second person of the Trinity.

He was appointed to go to accomplish a mission. This is the idea, the nuance behind the whole doctrine of being chosen, of being set apart to a function. That's what you and I are, those of us who have placed our faith in Jesus Christ. It is being devoted to serve God's purposes. We find this understanding as we look at other verses in the New Testament. Consider Ephesians 4, 1 for example. I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, this is Paul speaking as a prisoner. I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you are called. Consider 2 Thessalonians 1, 11. Therefore, we also pray always for you that our God would count you worthy of this calling and fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodness and the work of faith with power.

That's an amazing call, isn't it? What a sense of purpose. Consider 2 Timothy 1, 9. Who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began. You are a son, an heir with the authority and power of the infinite sovereign of the universe. That is a calling. That is the calling that we have. In this light, C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity, If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in.

Aim at earth and you will get neither. That's a good statement. That's a man who understands calling. That's a man who understands the heavenly calling.

Where does our focus need to be? So, we begin then the definition of faithfulness with this is my calling. Do you understand that if you're in Christ here this morning, it is a heavenly calling.

It's not just something you've chosen to sign up for. It is a calling. You have been commissioned. This is my calling. I will center my attention on Christ. You know what, folks?

That's almost so simple, it's easy to miss. This is my calling. I will center my attention on Christ. The book of Revelation, The Words That Can Change Your Life is available wherever books are sold. As always, tune in to Delight in Grace weekdays at 10 a.m.