Read Hebrews 5:11-14

The entire book of Hebrews alternates massive argument with earnest exhortation. Nowhere is there a better example of the exhortation than these verses and those that follow.

Having brought us to the brink of his central argument—the qualifications of Jesus to be our eternal High Priest—you would expect the author to pursue that argument. Instead, he breaks off and issues a stinging rebuke to his readers. You have been Christians long enough to be teaching others, he says. Instead, his readers are spiritual infants, mere babies in the Christian way. It’s hard to explain anything to you because you are so ignorant, he complains.

He is not criticizing the first stages of the Christian life. He is speaking strongly of arrested development. “Grow up!” he shouts. Babies are cute and appealing. We have all been one. But how sad it is when an individual never develops beyond infancy. What happens when you do not use what you have learned? Or worse yet, what happens when you start a course of instruction, give up, and quit before mastering the subject? He cries out to us that such neglect or disregard for Christian truth does not just result in lack of progress in the Christian life. Such neglect puts our souls in peril.

An old song says, “Out of my bondage, sorrow, and night, Jesus, I come….Into thy freedom, gladness, and light, Jesus, I come to thee.” Let’s do it.

Read Hebrews 5:1-10

How does a preacher get his job? First of all, he/she should be called of God to enter the ministry. He prepares himself, then finds a place of service.

In ancient Israel, God appointed the first high priest, Aaron, brother of Moses. God gave elaborate instructions for the high priest’s clothing and how he was to offer the gifts and sacrifices for sin. Because he was himself a man capable of sin, he had to offer “a young bull without defect” (Lev. 4:3) to the Lord for his own sin offering. Because of his own weakness, the high priest was to be gentle and sympathetic with the people. All of this is recorded in the books of Exodus and Leviticus.

God called Jesus to be our High Priest. Through his own sufferings as a man Jesus can sympathize with us. Through his divinity as God’s Son, he can make the necessary sacrifice to atone for our sins, being at once the Lamb for the offering, and High Priest to stand before God in our behalf. Jesus was a high priest with another difference. Aaron was priest for a period of years, then he died. Jesus was like Melchizedek whose story is recorded in Genesis 14 and Hebrews 7. He foreshadowed Jesus in having no known beginning or end. Jesus is the final victor over sin and death. His victory is forever. He is our eternal High Priest.

Read Hebrews 4:12-16

Did you ever deceive yourself? We all have.

God has a method for showing us ourselves. It’s called the Bible. You cannot read the Bible seriously without gaining self-knowledge. Deeply hidden motives come to light without trips to the psychoanalyst. We say humans have three parts—body, mind, and spirit. As this passage points out, the Bible helps us plumb all three. In the Bible we find passages that help us understand our real motives (divide soul and spirit), open our eyes to responsible use of our bodies (divide joints and marrow), and find proper employment of our minds (judge thoughts and attitudes).

In addition to not being able to hide from yourself when reading scripture, the writer remarks that none of this can be hidden from God. We will give an accounting to God. This is not optional. It’s all very unsettling.

By what route can we escape the penalty of our sins? Where can we find strength to cease doing as we please, and find true freedom in God? From Jesus, our great high priest. In these verses the author introduces the central message of the book of Hebrews. Jesus is the sympathetic mediator between God and mankind. We can confess the terrible burden of hidden sin and shame to Jesus who hears in tenderness and forgives, taking the load of our guilt upon himself. He understands because he was tempted. Yet he did not sin.

Read Hebrews 4:1-11

What is this “rest” God wants to give us? Who are “they” who missed it? Why did “they” miss it? The writer warns us not to be like “them.” Of whom is he speaking? Does it have anything to do with what he says about Israel in Chapter 3?

Christians understand the Old Testament on two levels. The first is as historical fact. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph were real persons. They did what Genesis says they did. The Israelites were slaves in Egypt. By God’s miracle they did cross the Red Sea to freedom. With all that, they did not trust God and spent 40 years wandering in the wilderness of Sinai instead of claiming their promised land.

The “second story” view is not only are these events historical, they are an allegory of the Christian life. Egyptian slavery becomes a symbol for sin. God wants to deliver us from it and is able to do so. But we must receive his gift in faith. In disobedience we separate ourselves from him, spending our lives in fruitless labor, unfulfilling to us, useless to God. We’re “running laps” in the wilderness. Don’t do that the writer urges.

The people of Israel would not obey, and lost their promised land. We can obtain God’s rest—God’s perfect will for our lives—only by the route they disdained: faith in God. Entering God’s rest is turning your life over to God.