Listening for God (from the series, Five Gems from Hebrews) Hebrews 4
Jamie Maciejewski May 7, 2023
A couple of years ago I prepared a sermon that made a deep impression on me. lt was based on an exchange between Jesus and some Pharisees in Mark 7. He takes them to task over the condition of their hearts: cold hearts that are far from God, and hearts as polluted as a sewer. As I studied, I took a bit of comfort that the Pharisees weren't Christians. They didn't even like Jesus. Perhaps heart troubles are taken care of once you let Jesus be Lord of your life. But... then I read the passage that comes just a few verses earlier. ln it, Jesus's disciples are having a hard time because of what? Their hard hearts.
Heart troubles. God's people seem prone to them. Cold hearts. Polluted hearts. Hard hearts. Our text this morning picks up on heart troubles. Let's pull it apart, shall we? What gems are waiting to be found?
On first read, it's a bit of an odd text. The writer spends a lot of space talking about the Old Testament. The central part is a story about God's people many hundreds of years earlier; at the time of the Exodus. God has saved them from slavery in Egypt through a series of miraculous acts, including when the angel of death passed over the Hebrew homes and didn't touch a hair on their heads. Gods made a spectacle of Egypt's king and military. He's had Moses part the sea so the people could cross over without getting even their toes wet. And now God is traveling with them in a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. The Exodus is Israel’s salvation story.
But now the adrenalin and excitement have worn off and God's people find themselves far from civilization, camping in the wilderness, and not a drop of water to be found. None. Nada. They are thirsty. The kids are thirsty. The cows are thirsty. The dog is thirsty. It's miserable.
I once hiked part of the Washington coast with my brothers. Our water was very limited, I was so thirsty I dreamed l found a 7-11 and bought a Big Gulp. The Israelites are dreaming about Big Gulps. When the water dries up, not a 7-11 in sight, the complaining sets in. That's when God's people start making plans to head back to Egypt. They're dreaming about the "good old days”, the days before God saved them!
This is the story behind Hebrews 3 and 4. When it says, "Today when you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts," it's referring to this very story, when the Israelites got thirsty in the desert and worked out a plan to get some. This verse, 4:7, Is repeated multiple times over two chapters. lt comes from a passage in Psalm 95. And the passage in Psalm 95 refers back to the story in Exodus. It’s at the heart of our text this morning. Today when you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts.
Let's break the verse in two and begin with the end: Don’t harden your hearts.
ln the Old Testament story, God is unhappy because his people are complaining. It’s a bit more than complaining, to be sure' The Bible calls it a rebellion. And God isn't pleased. on the surface of it, the problem is thirst. But there must be more. Somehow it doesn't seem like God to be angry at people for being thirsty. After all, he made us with a need for water.
When we look deeper at the Old Testament passages that Hebrews points to, we begin to see that Gods deeply disappointed because his people don't trust him. And it's their hard hearts that are the problem.
Trust is the bedrock on which all good relationships are built, our relationship with God is no different. When God went to rescue the Israelites out of Egypt, they hadn't heard much from him for 400 years. Their lives were hard. They were literally slaves, misused and abused and looked down on by their Egyptian masters. When God sent Moses to lead them out of slavery, God knew it would take some work to build trust. All those signs and judgments God inflicted on Pharoah and the Egyptians were not just to show Pharoah who was God. It was to show the Israelites who was God, The Exodus story is the Old Testament salvation story, where God remembers his people, intervenes miraculously in their lives, and leads them out to the promised rest.
When the people begin complaining about water, it doesn't compute. They've seen God provide in every way for them. Protection from death. Rescue from Pharoah's armies. Dry passage across the sea. Manna from heaven to eat. Pillar of cloud by day and fire by night for protection and guidance. But apparently the old habits die hard. When they got thirsty, they automatically went back to relying on themselves instead of trusting the God who has already demonstrated, over and over, his love and tender care for them. Not trusting God is the evidence of a hard heart.
What's the opposite of a hard heart? It's not the same thing as tender feelings. There are times in my walk with God that I feel very tender and overwhelmed by God's love for me. That is a sweet experience, and lam always grateful for it when it happens. But... it is not the same thing as a soft heart. "Don't harden your hearts" doesn't mean living a perpetual state of bliss. That is personally a relief for me, because sustaining that state hasn't been my experience as a Christian. Think of marriage. I want to keep a soft heart toward my husband, one that is responsive and attentive, but sustaining sweet feelings of bliss every day of our lives is just not a realistic goal.
lf a soft heart isn't about how we feel, what is it? A soft heart is one that listens and responds. "Today if you hear his voice, don't harden your hearts." The idea of listening runs throughout our text today. God speaks and we listen. How do we know we listen? Because we respond. Listening with the intent to respond obediently is the opposite of a hard heart. This is what God is after.
How can we cultivate a soft and responsive heart toward God, one that trusts him? The core of it is this: Memory and identity.
Memory. How quick I am to complain when the going gets tough. How often I resort to my own wits to figure the way out of a bind. What if, instead, I call to mind the ways God has been faithful in the past? Remind myself of our great New Testament salvation story, the love of Christ poured out on the cross to rescue us from slavery. Call to mind the stories I've heard from you of how God has met your needs when you've been in a hard place.
The Exodus story doesn't warn us against belong honest with God. Life lS hard. The Exodus story warns us not to forget how faithful God has been in the past, to us, to others. Faithfulness is the very character of God. The stories we recall of God's faithfulness may be in our own lives or may be in the lives of others. Prayers answered, needs met, healing received, loneliness filled. And if I can't remember any of those stories, then I can open my Bible and read the stories of God's faithfulness to his people throughout ages and ages, ever since the dawn of creation. The people in the Bible have a beautiful habit we can make our own. They claim the stories of God's faithfulness from hundreds of years before as their very own stories. Memory is vital to cultivating a soft heart.
Second, identity. When God's people complained in the wilderness, they forgot who they were. This is what we read in Exodus: "Moses named the place Massah (which means "test") and Meribah (which means "arguing") because the people of Israel argued with Moses and tested the LORD by saying, 'ls the
LORD here with us or not?"' (Exodus 17:7) ln other words, they questioned their identity as the people of
God. Living as Christians requires that we remember who we are - or we might say, Whosewe are. God
had clearly claimed the people as his own when he saved them from slavery. It was sure and solid
ground upon which to build trust.
The New Testament salvation story is the one written in the cross and resurrection of Christ. God has
proven his love for us, once and for all. We can trust his love for us in this great act. When we come to
the hard places in our lives, God is with us, whether we feel it or not. Asking God to provehis love for us
again when he's already done so on the cross is a failure of trust.
Memory and identity are the two actions that most help us cultivate soft hearts. Remembering who God
is and his faithfulness to us. Remembering our identity, the people to whom God has already
demonstrated his great love. Memory. Identity.
Let's go back to the first half of the verse. "Today when you hear his voice, don't harden your hearts."
How do we hear God's voice? How do we listen for God?
There's a very important verse in our text today. Many of us have memorized this verse at some point in
our Christian lives. "For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged
sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow, It exposes our innermost thoughts
and desires." (Heb 4:12)
What is this "word of God"? lt is God's voice. lt's how God reveals himself. How do we hear it? How do
we listen?
Certainly, Scripture is very important. God speaks on every page of the Bible. The Greek word translated
as "scripture" is grophe. lt's used dozens of times in the New Testament. But it isn't contained in this
verse. When it says, "the word of God is alive and powerful," the Greek behind "word" is logos. Logosis
a larger word than grophe. Some of you might recognize that /ogos is the word used in the gospel of
John to refer to Jesus: "ln the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was
God." (John 1:1). Jesus is the fullest expression of God, the /ogos of God.
How else does God reveal himself? A better question might be how does God not reveal himself? God is
constantly making himself known, if we pay attention with soft hearts, ready to respond. ln the creation
ln conversations we have. As the Holy Spirit whispers into our hearts. "Word" as it's used in our passage
in Hebrews includes all the ways God reveals himself. lf we want to hear God's voice, we need to pay attention, because God is always revealing himself.
Memory. Identity. Paying attention. These are spiritual exercises for the heart, ones that help us listen for
God and respond with soft hearts,
Our text today tells us there is a throne of grace to which we can run, It tells us Jesus has experienced
every temptation we have. That must even include the temptation to have a hard heart. But Jesus didn't
sin. Jesus is there to help us/ our faithful high priest, and we can trust him.