We are His House If

Hebrews 3:1-6 ESV

 

“Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God's house. For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) Now Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over God's house as a son. And we are his house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.”

 

It brought tears to my eyes reading this today, and the tears have not stopped. So, why am I crying? Why am I weeping over this passage of Scripture? Because my Lord, my Savior Jesus Christ is not being treated with the honor and the glory that he deserves by so many people who call themselves Christians today.

 

So many professing followers of Jesus just want what they can get out of Jesus, or they just want the free ride into heaven, but they don’t want to or they don’t feel that they have to honor Jesus with their lives. They feel that what Jesus did was for them, not for his praise and glory.

 

But we, as followers of Jesus, are to give him all our praise. We are to honor him, submit to him, show him respect, worship him, and surrender our lives to him. We are to bow before him in all humility, thanking him for all that he has done. But this is not in words only. We do this by how we live.

 

I believe the worst insult to Jesus of all is when people say they have faith in Jesus Christ for salvation of sin and for eternal life with God, but they believe that they don’t have to surrender their lives to Christ, that they don’t have to turn away from their sin, and that they don’t have to obey him.

 

For, Jesus died on that cross that we might die with him to sin and live to him and to his righteousness. He died that we might no longer live for ourselves, but for him who gave his life up for us. He shed his blood for us on that cross to buy us back for God so that we would honor God with our lives (1 Pet 2:24; 2 Co 5:15, 21; 1 Co 6:19-20).

 

Jesus gave his life up for us on that cross to put sin to death in our lives so that we would no longer be slaves to sin, but so we would now be slaves of his righteousness. For if we obey sin, we are slaves to sin, and that will end in death, not in eternal life with God. For, we must walk (in practice) according to the Spirit and no longer according to the flesh, if we want salvation from sin and eternal life with God.

 

[Lu 9:23-26; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-17; Eph 4:17-24; 1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn 2:3-6; Tit 2:11-14; Jn 10:27]

 

Our salvation and our eternal life with God, thus, are conditional. We are not guaranteed eternal life with God because we prayed a prayer, or we invited Jesus into our hearts, or we made some public confession of faith in Christ.

 

We are his house, IF indeed we hold fast (continue in) our confidence (faith) and our boasting in our hope. And this confidence and hope are based on all the teachings in the New Testament with regard to our faith in Jesus Christ. For many passages say we must repent, obey, and submit to Christ, and we must continue in that if we want to have eternal life with God.

 

[Jn. 8:31-32; Rom. 11:17-24; I Co. 15:2; Col. 1:21-23; II Tim 2:10-13; Heb. 3:6, 14-15; 2 Pet. 1:5-11; I Jn. 2:24-25; Lu 9:23-26; Rom 8:1-17]

 

Hebrews 3:7-14 ESV

 

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,

 

“Today, if you hear his voice,

do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,

    on the day of testing in the wilderness,

where your fathers put me to the test

    and saw my works for forty years.

Therefore I was provoked with that generation,

and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart;

    they have not known my ways.’

As I swore in my wrath,

    ‘They shall not enter my rest.’”

 

“Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.”

 

Our faith in Jesus Christ was gifted to us by God. It is divine persuasion as to the will of God for our lives. For, we can’t even come to faith in Jesus Christ unless the Father first draws us to Christ. So, not one of us can be saved by our own effort. But we have to appropriate that faith to our lives.

 

Our faith is also obedience, it is submission to Christ as Lord, and it is leaving our lives of sin behind us to follow Jesus wherever he leads us. By faith in Jesus Christ we die with Christ to sin, we are delivered from our slavery to sin, and we are given new lives in Christ as slaves now to his righteousness (Lu 9:23-26; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-17; Eph 4:17-24).

 

And our faith is continuous, as was already discussed in the previous section. We must walk according to the Spirit and not according to the flesh, and we must walk in the light as Jesus is in the light. So, this has to do with lifestyle. Also, we are saved (past), we are being saved (present), and we will be saved (future) when Jesus returns.

 

So, this warning here is written to the church, to believers in Jesus Christ, who are the holy ones of God, who share in the heavenly calling. Remember, we are his house (his church, his body) IF we hold fast to our faith until Jesus returns, or until he takes us home.

 

If we hear the Lord speaking to us through his word, through his Holy Spirit, we are not to harden our hearts and refuse to listen to him and refuse to do what he says. We are not to go astray in our hearts. We must guard our hearts and minds against deceiving spirits who would turn our hearts away from our pure devotion to Christ back to living in sin and for self.

 

For, if we refuse Him, and we turn back to unbelief through disobedience, as the Israelites of old did in the wilderness, we are in danger of falling away from the living God. So, we must encourage one another daily to walk in purity of devotion to Christ and to abide in Christ and in his word, and we must honor Christ with our lives, and glorify our Lord by how we live.

 

Great is The Lord  

 

Ward, Asaph Alexander

 

Great is the Lord

He is holy and just

By His power we trust

In his love

Great is the Lord

He is faithful and true

By his mercy he proves

He is love

 

Great is the Lord

And worthy of glory

Great is the Lord

And worthy of praise

Great is the Lord

Now lift up your voice

Great is the Lord

 

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