Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

About 10 years ago the Discovery Channel aired a program where a man was planning on walking a grand total of 1 quarter of a mile… Maybe you’re confused as to why that would be worth highlighting with a special program and how long exactly it would take this person to walk a quarter of a mile.

On a nice track it would take an olympic athlete about 45 seconds to run this distance.

For the average adult, this might take 2-4 minutes.

But it took this man almost 23 minutes!

What on earth was he doing and where was he walking?

Nik Wallenda found himself walking across a 1400 foot cable wire placed near the Grand Canyon over 1500 feet above the the ground!

Anyone want to sign up to attempt that walk?

Wallenda wasn’t strapped in even though he was at a height above the ground that was taller than the Empire State Building in New York City… all he had was a weighted bar to help him balance.

Wallenda battled 20 mile per hour wind gusts at several points and even had to crouch down on the wire at times, but 22 minutes and 54 seconds after he started, he completed his journey across this cable.

We’re not going to ask the question of why he would do this because I’m not sure anyone knows, but how on earth was this man able to do this?

Throughout his journey he was praying to God and quoting Scripture.

He was audibly thanking God for providing for him across this journey and for calming the wind each time it sped up.

Along this heart dropping walk, Wallenda kept his eyes on the other side of the canyon.

Even when the wind blew harder and whenever he’d take each next step, his eyes didn’t look down - they were looking ahead.

As long as his eyes were fixed forward, he knew where he was going and he had already done the training mentally and physically for the task at hand.

The only thing in the moment he needed to do was keep looking at the finish line.

Isn’t this a metaphor for the Christian life, church?

If you have been saved by grace through faith in Christ, you have the blessed assurance that you belong to Jesus and that you are going to spend eternity with Him in glory!

We know where our destination is! But, how should we walk in this life between here and there.

If we know where we’re going and we know that we can’t turn around and go back, what must we do?

We keep marching forward.

But what about whenever the wind picks up?

What about when someone says something that tempts us to turn to one side or the other?

The problem that we often face in this life, as Christians and non-Christians alike, is that we take our eyes off of Jesus.

We lose focus on the end goal - the finish line - and we allow ourselves to give into temptation one way or the other.

How can we guard against this?

How can we continue to press on and do the things that God wants us to do?

How can we keep our eyes on the finish line each step of the way and not look down or to the side?

The only way is to remind ourselves of what Jesus Christ has done and to consider what Jesus Christ commands us to do.

See, friends, Jesus is faithful!

He has saved us from the penalty of our sin, and each day He helps save us from the power of our sin, and one day He will save us from the presence of sin.

But until that day becomes our reality, we are called to hold on and keep our eyes on Jesus as we remember that He is the One who holds on to us.

Let’s study from Hebrews 3:1-6 as we remind ourselves to look and listen to Jesus, even in the storms that this life sends our way.

The NIV says to “Fix your eyes on Jesus” instead of “consider Jesus” - church, this is what we desire to do each time we gather and this should be what we do each day of our lives… We fix our eyes on Jesus and as we do this, we listen to His Word and we allow His Word to change the way we think, talk, and act.

Let’s fix our eyes on Jesus this morning and ask Him to guide us as we seek to apply His Word.

Consider Jesus (1)

Y’all will get sick of this in 20 years if you’re not already sick of it, but our text of Scripture begins with a therefore - so what do we have to do every time therefore shows up in Scripture?

Back up to see what it is there for!

Last week we looked specifically at Hebrews 2:14-18 and dug into what it means that Jesus Christ shared in flesh and blood and suffered for sinners like you and I on the cross.

We were reminded that Jesus wasn’t just a baby boy who was born in Bethlehem, but that the boy grew up and became a man who came to seek and serve the lost and to save His people from their sins!

He suffered greatly and He was tempted to give into sin, yet He never did… He was the perfect sacrifice for sinners.

Therefore, because of what He has done, we must consider Jesus.

We must pay attention to what the Bible tells us about Jesus and we must see what Scripture says about Who Jesus is.

Look at verse 1, Jesus is said to be our apostle and high priest.

The Bible is extremely clear as to Who Jesus is.

Let’s look quickly at a couple of passages of Scripture to see what the Bible says about Jesus

So, Who exactly is Jesus?

He is fully God and full man.

Hebrews to this point has been explaining that Jesus is better than the Old Testament prophets, better than the Angels, and he’s also better than the priests.

He’s better because He is fully-God as Hebrews 1:1-3 told us that He spoke the world into existence.

He is also fully man as Hebrews 2:14-18 reminded us that he suffered on the cross, had flesh and blood, and died for sinners as our substitute.

The Bible is clear as to Who Jesus is but we’re not always super clear in our communication, are we?

This is true for younger parents with kids.

Parents have you ever had a miscommunication problem with your kids?

Maybe like the mom who is with her son at the park and the son is having a fun time playing with his friends but then the playing starts to turn into playing tag.

The mom looks for her son amid all of the kids and finds him running straight toward a walkway just a couple feet above the ground with his head to the side looking at his friend who is chasing him.

The mom see’s the accident before it happens and yells and points, “Jonathan duck!” Now, why on earth did this phrase become mainstream in our culture?

Whenever you hear duck, what do you almost always do?

You perk your head up like a prairie dog coming up out of his hole.

Jonathan see’s and hears his mom and he thinks that there’s actually a duck in front of him and he turns his head expecting to see a yellow duck only to bang his head on the metal piece of playground equipment and you could say that he quacked his head.

Kids and parents aren’t the only people who struggle with miscommunication, though.

Adults, have you ever sent a text message to someone and gotten back a question mark because the message you thought in your head wasn’t at all the one that you typed out?

It’s so easy for us to miscommunicate and misunderstand other people, even when we try really hard not to!

Aren’t you thankful that the Bible makes the most important thing extremely clear?

We are all sinners in need of a Savior!

The fact of the matter is that whenever the Bible is clear, we have to be as well.

We have to be extremely clear about Who Jesus Christ is.

Hebrews 3:1 tells us that He is our apostle and high priest - what exactly does this mean?

This is the only time that Jesus is called an apostle in the Bible and that literally means that Jesus is a “sent one.”

Who sends Jesus?

We read in the Bible that this is the Father’s plan to send His Son in John 3:16

He is a sent one who serves as our high priest.

What was the purpose for sending Jesus?

To live a perfect life and die a criminals death in our place for our sins.

To serve as our great high priest and to make a way for us to be forgiven and redeemed!

See, God doesn’t ever miscommunicate.

We might not always understand everything that He’s doing - but His Word is straightforward.

We’re all sinners and we all need a Savior, it’s black and white, church!

Therefore, we must consider Jesus.

Who do you consider Jesus to be? 3/4 people believe that Jesus was a nice guy and I agree, but He was and is so much more than just that!

What you believe about Jesus impacts everything about you.

Even though many people might be a little confused as to who Jesus is, we must not get Him wrong.

We must consider what the Bible tells us.

We must remember that He isn’t ashamed to call us brothers and sisters, if you have been saved by Jesus Christ, you’ve already been adopted into His family.

This is why the preacher of Hebrews calls his audience holy brothers and sisters because they’ve already been washed clean by Jesus’ blood.

But we still must consider Him and all that He’s done.

If you’re here and you simply think that Jesus is a nice guy who wants to help you live your best life now, the Bible shares so much more about Who He truly is.

He is the son of God who came to seek and save the lost and to serve rather than be served.

He is the only way that we can be saved and we must consider what He’s done today.

Contrast Jesus (2-6a)

As we consider what He has done, we quickly realize that Jesus has done something greater than anything we could do ourselves.

Jesus is contrasted with Moses in the coming verses of Scripture and that might seem strange to us in 2022.

Obviously we know that Jesus, the Son of God, is greater than Moses, a sinful man.

Because of this, it’s so important for us to understand how the audience of Hebrews would have understood this argument.

In the Old Testament you have a lot of stories of heroes doing great things for the Kingdom of God.

During our Wednesday night Bible study we’ve been looking at some of these heroes and the covenants or promises that God made with them.

Think of Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, David, Solomon, and others!

There are lots of good options for people to look up to.

As a child growing up and falling in love with Cardinals baseball in the early 2000s there were a lot of good players to root for.