Every Knee Will Bow
6/29/2009
(Hebrews 3:1-19)
3:1 Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, partners in a heavenly calling, take note of Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess, 3:2 who is faithful to the one who appointed him, as Moses was also in God’s house. 3:3 For he has come to deserve greater glory than Moses, just as the builder of a house deserves greater honor than the house itself! 3:4 For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God. 3:5 Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that would be spoken. 3:6 But Christ is faithful as a son over God’s house. We are of his house, if in fact we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope we take pride in.
3:7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Oh, that today you would listen as he speaks! 3:8 “Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of testing in the wilderness. 3:9 “There your fathers tested me and tried me, and they saw my works for forty years. 3:10 “Therefore, I became provoked at that generation and said, ‘Their hearts are always wandering and they have not known my ways.’ 3:11 “As I swore in my anger, ‘They will never enter my rest!’”
3:12 See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has an evil, unbelieving heart that forsakes the living God. 3:13 But exhort one another daily, each day, as long as it is called “Today,” that none of you may become hardened by sin’s deception. 3:14 For we have become partners with Christ, if in fact we hold our initial confidence firm until the end. 3:15 As it says, “Oh, that today you would listen as he speaks! Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” 3:16 For which ones heard and rebelled? Was it not all who came out of Egypt under Moses’ leadership? 3:17 And against whom was God provoked for forty years? Was it not those who sinned, whose dead bodies fell in the wilderness? 3:18 And to whom did he swear they would never enter into his rest, except those who were disobedient? 3:19 So we see that they could not enter because of unbelief. (NET Bible)
I think the thing that stood out to me most this time and last night when we read it was that part that said, "He suffered when He was tempted, therefore He is able to help us with our temptations."
I think I’ve always read that as, "Because He was tempted, He can help us with our temptations.” And I never really gave much thought to the fact that “Well, He was God, so the temptation wasn't maybe as hard for Him." But it doesn't even say that! It says, "Because He suffered when He was tempted..."
He faces temptation and there's a lot of pain that comes sometimes when you decide, "I'm not going to give into that temptation. I'm not going to sin." And the process of not sinning often involves a lot of suffering. And it's because Jesus chose to suffer, and therefore not give into sin -- that's what qualified Him to be able to help us in our temptations. It wasn't facing the temptations themselves, but the fact that He suffered and is able to relate to us…
If you kinda back up to capture the essence of what the book of Hebrews was written about, you notice right off that he spent an inordinate amount of time talking about how, "He was made a little lower than the angels." In the first couple of chapters, especially in chapter 1, he goes on and on about – the Hebrews writer, which is probably not Paul for some set of pretty reasonable reasons – but he spends a lot of time talking about how Jesus was the exact representation of God. He was the fullness of all that God is, dwelling in human flesh. And the Hebrews writer knew that that would be a hard pill to swallow.
What is a Hebrew, anyway? What is a Hebrew? A Jew. So, this book is written particularly from the Jewish perspective. They were waiting for a Messiah, but they didn't really understand that the Messiah – the Deliverer, the person that would come and conquer and be their King…they didn’t really understand a lot of the Old Testament prophecies that this Messiah, this King, would actually be God.
On one level they totally underestimated Him. They thought they were going to get a great new king like David. They totally underestimated Him. And the Hebrews writer says, "You don't even understand. I'll grant you that all things are not subject to Him yet, but all things will be subject to Him."
Like, there are plenty of people that disobey Jesus every day, right? But when He comes back again, He's going to ride a white horse and He’s going to trample underfoot all the disobedience of men, and every knee will bow. Every king will bow. Every mocking tongue will be silenced.
When Jesus comes back, every knee WILL bow. Every knee will buckle. All defiance will be shut down. All selfishness will be crushed. All rebellion and disobedience and laziness will be absolutely crushed to dust.
He wants to invite us to be His friends as a voluntary Army and as a voluntary Family. He invites us to give our lives to Him, and when we turn down that invitation, then He will crush all rebellion.
