·
Humans are all
susceptible to believing a lie. We believe what we want to believe and what we
think is true, whether or not it really is true. We need to check out what we hear and see to
make sure it is true.
·
Time and time again,
people have been deceived into trusting themselves and doing what seemed right
in their own eyes instead of trusting in what God commanded.· In the absence of objective truth, people are left to make their own conclusions about reality and often, those conclusions about reality are wrong or distorted.
· A wrong understanding of reality can lead to dangerous and disastrous consequences. A wrong understanding of reality can lead to destroyed marriages, the toppling of governments, public anger and death.
· If we don’t rightly understand the world around us; if we don’t rightly discern and understand the cause for things; if we don’t rightly understand other people and if we don’t rightly understand and discern ourselves and our own motives, it will lead to all kinds of unbelief.
· We need God’s Word to reveal who God is and who we are. We need His Word to understand how we can know God, have a relationship with Him and live a life that is pleasing to Him.
· This passage of Hebrews is meant to keep us grounded in the truth and it tells us that God’s Word is living and active. God’s Word reveals and it exposes us to the truth.
Main Idea: The Word of God Actively Reveals and Exposes the Truth
·
We have seen in the book of Hebrews so far,
that Jesus is the ultimate revelation of God. Jesus perfectly represents and
reveals God. He is the greatest High Priest, He is the greatest prophet and He
is the King of All. He is the ultimate revelator of God.· In fact, in John 14, Jesus is responding to Philip who asked Jesus to reveal the Father to Him and Jesus said, “whoever has seen me has seen the Father”.
· Hebrews chapter one has already told us that in these last days, God has spoken to us by His Son.
· God is a speaking God a God who reveals Himself to mankind
1. The Word of God is Alive
“For the word of God is living and active,”
· In the past, God revealed Himself to mankind in many ways and at many times.
· But now, we have the astounding privilege of God speaking to us through His own Son – the heir of all things; the very one who created the whole world.
· Jesus is the ultimate Word of God. He is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact imprint of His nature .
· Chapter one of Hebrews tell us that Jesus “upholds the universe by the Word of His power”
· Jesus has made such complete purification for our sins that He sat down at God’s right hand with His work of redemption being completed.
· In the first chapter of Hebrews, we read of the angles, who were messengers. They revealed God’s divine purposes to His creation.
· The very word which we have translated as angel in English means a messenger, an envoy or one who is sent. The angels were messengers sent from God to reveal God to man.
· But Jesus is far superior to these messengers, these revelators, in every way.
· Then, God spoke through His messenger Moses and gave commandments to His people through him.
· But Jesus is greater than Moses in every way, like the builder of the house is superior to the house.
· Then, we saw in chapter 4 that Jesus was greater than Joshua, who God used to reveal His plans and bring His people into the promised land, where God’s presence would live with them and they could experience God’s rest.
· But Jesus brings us into the true promised-land and He is our true rest. Most of the people of Israel never truly experienced God’s rest, but we can and we must rest in the person of Jesus.
· Jesus is the ultimate Word of God and Jesus remains alive. God’s Word is living and He is actively at work making people alive in Him through His Word.
· God’s active and living Word is not only Jesus, it is all of His written Word as well. His Word is where we encounter God. His Word is how we get to know God and experience God working in our heads and hearts.
· Unlike authors who have died, God is living and active and so, His Word is the primary way that we encounter the living and active God.
· His Word is the way the He brings life to us and acts in our hearts and minds. His word is alive because He lives and He continues to give us life through His Word
2. The Word of God Reveals
“sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart”
·
The Word of God reveals as it makes clear what
is really going on inside of us.
·
The Roman short-sword would have been
well-known throughout the entire Roman Empire, as it was carried by every
trained foot-soldier. It had very sharp sides for hacking and cutting through,
and it would cut you wherever you touched its blade. It also had a long point
for thrusting and cutting open. · The two-edged sword was razor sharp and it was known for both its ability to cut quickly and effectively pierce the vitals of the enemy. The author of Hebrews is using this very graphic illustration to say that God’s Word is like that.
· If there is any sword that cuts excellently, God’s Word is sharper – it does a better job at cutting.
· In our modern times not many are familiar with swords but many of us can relate to scalpels and know how sharp scalpels are and what scalpels are designed to do.
· Scalpels are designed to cut quickly, effortlessly and to enable a skilled surgeon not only to cut through the outer layers of our skin, but also through the muscle and tissue, exposing our insides.
· A few months back, I had intense abdominal pain. After going to the hospital and running various tests, they thought it was probably appendicitis. But in order to really tell what was going on and to see what was happening, they had to cut me open. So, they made three small incisions to look around and see what was going on inside of me.
· The incisions they made for the surgery were very precise and they allowed the doctor to see what was inside of me. The cuts helped to expose and lay my insides bare to the skillful hands of the surgeon.
· Once the surgeon gained access to my insides through the cuts, he could see what was going on and saw that it was a rotten appendix that was causing the problems. The incision also enabled him to gain access to remove the infected part and make the necessary repairs.
· I am glad that they had a sharp knife to cut into me because of what it enabled the surgeon to do and because a small, sharp incision heals better.
· A two-edged sword cut to the core quickly, as a surgeon can use a scalpel to quickly lay you bare and get to see your insides.
· The Word of God is able to cut you like no other blade – only God’s Word is able to cut you to the core of who you are. Only God’s Word can cut to the division of soul and spirit, laying bare and exposing that which was previously hidden.
· And like a sword separates things, the Word of God is able to separate the thoughts and intentions of the heart, making plain what was not clearly seen before.
· God’s Word is unlike any self-help book, or counsel or even great reading materials. Ultimately, nothing cuts and nothing gets to the core of who we are, nothing exposes our thoughts and intentions like God’s Word.
· In chapter three and four of Hebrews, we were given a warning to watch out for unbelief. We were commanded to guard against unbelief and to help encourage one another in the battle against unbelief.
· Now, we are encouraged that we actually can battle unbelief with God’s Word. We can trust God’s Word to help us, because God’s Word is living, it is active, it is sharper than any two-edged sword and it can reveal and make plain what we all have a hard time with.
· We all don’t see even our own thoughts clearly. Our minds and our eyes are blinded at times. We think we know ourselves rightly but we don’t fully. We don’t understand things as we should.
Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can
understand it?
·
When we see this, we can be discouraged.· The context of this verse is that the preceding verses are talking about how trusting in ourselves leads our heart to turn away from God, resulting in awful consequences:
Jeremiah 17:5-10 Thus says the LORD: "Cursed is
the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart
turns away from the LORD. 6
He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall
dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.
·
This is similar to the exhortation of the
author of Hebrews to us in chapter 3 and 4, where we are being told to be on
guard against unbelief. We need to be fearful of trusting in ourselves and to
be fearful of not entering into God’s rest – fearful of not resting in Jesus,
the One in whom we have rest alone.· If you understand this warning to be on guard so that you don’t fall away from the living God and understand the exhortation to make every effort to enter into God’s rest, you might be tempted to discouragement and thinking that there is no way that you can do this.
· After all, the Israelites failed. We don’t even know our own hearts. We’re not able to guard against unbelief, we don’t feel able.
· We want to trust in God, we want to find rest in Jesus though.
· The other part of Jeremiah 17 is a contrast to the dry shrub in the desert that we will become if we don’t trust in God:
Jeremiah 17:7-8 7 "Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. 8 He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit."
·
If we do trust in God, we will be Blessed. We will
be like a well-watered tree that bears much fruit. That is exactly the kind of
person we want to be. We want to not fear when the heat comes, we want our
leaves to be green, we want to not be anxious when the drought comes and not
cease to bear fruit don’t we? If you are a Christian, if you’ve been born
again, I know this is your desire.
·
But then the next verse is when it tells us
that, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and
desperately sick; who can understand it?”· So, we want to trust God, but we don’t know how. We don’t understand our own hearts and thoughts. Then, the next verse tells us some good news. It says that although it is true that our hearts are deceitful, God knows and God understands our hearts and thoughts:
Jeremiah 17:10 10 "I the LORD search the heart and test
the mind,
·
Although the Israelites failed, we can have
hope because we’ve been given the living Word to save us, to redeem us and to
reveal God to us. · The Lord searches the heart and tests the mind and no creature is hidden from His sight. And this is the One who has given us His Word, so that we won’t fall into unbelief and so that we will be like trees planted by streams of living water, trusting in God during times of drought, resting in Jesus and bearing fruit because we are rooted and grounded in the giver of life.
· Jesus, God’s living Word is the one who gives us a new heart and He enables us to know God.
· God’s Word is meant to give us hope. His Word enables us to trust in God as we see Him for who He really is. God’s Word enables us to know the truth and the truth of His Word is what sets us free.
· We don’t have to fall prey to the lies of the devil. We don’t have to be locked in self-deceit. We don’t have to be captive to impure motives. God has given us His Word in Jesus Christ and in all of His written Word, to enable us to see and know Him and to change.
· In addition to revealing what is really going on inside of us to ourselves and then revealing the truth, so that we can change, God’s Word also exposes us for who we really are.
3. The Word of God Exposes
“And
no creature is hidden from His sight”
·
The truth may be hidden to some. Mankind may
not see the truth or know the truth but the truth is not hidden from God.· Some may think that they can hide their actions or maybe their motives from God, but no creature is hidden from His sight. His truth penetrates all attempts to conceal, to deceive and to hide. Nothing is hidden from His sight.
· We often don’t see things as they really are, but God knows and sees things as they really are.
· We often don’t understand our own motives and why we do things, but God does understand.
· At times we are confused and we can’t make sense of our own hearts, but our hearts are not hidden from God.
· This means that God is able to help us. He is able to penetrate the darkest heart with His Word. He is able to discern our thoughts and intentions as well as the thoughts and intentions of all mankind.
· There is hope in the fact that God can do surgery on us.
“but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”
· Everyone is naked and exposed to the eyes of God. God sees what we do. God sees our hearts. Everything about us is exposed before God’s eyes and it is to God that we must give account.
· We will all one day give a reckoning to God of what we believed and how we have lived in response.
· It is both a terrifying thing and a good thing that we are naked and exposed to the eyes of God, to whom we must give account. It is terrifying to those who are trusting in themselves ultimately, because their works will be exposed and what or who they are trusting in will be made plain. But for those who are trusting and resting in Christ, that too will be made clear.
· We actually can enter into the rest that Jesus is and brings and we can trust in Him. God gives us the means of His living and active, powerful Word, that is sharper than any blade.
· His Word enables us to know Him and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of our own but one that depends on Jesus Christ and His righteousness alone.
· The question for us, is whether we are feeding on His Word. Are we receiving regular infusions of God’s Word?
· Like a patient who has lost a lot of blood from a traumatic injury and needs regular infusions of blood to live, we need regular infusions of God’s Word to live.
· We need to regularly be reading God’s Word not because it is our duty alone, but because His Word is where we receive life and help. His Word is how we combat doubts and the temptations to unbelief.
· We need to devote ourselves to regularly listening to the proclaimed Word of God. That is why we gather to hear preaching from God’s Word on Sunday mornings.
· We need to devote ourselves to applying God’s Word in our small groups and not forsaking fellowship together both on Sunday mornings, through small groups and in each other’s homes.
· We are prone to be led astray, prone to believe our own press, prone to believe the lies of the devil and the world around us and we need to help each other with God’s Word.
· We need to be speaking God’s Word to each other and encouraging each other daily with His Word, speaking the truth in love.
· We are prone to doubt when troubles come and we must guard against unbelief. God’s Word will make us able to do this.
· We need to be seeking to grow in God’s Word and to help others grow as we disciple them in God’s Word.
· In the last part of the great commission, Jesus commands us to make disciples, “teaching them to obey all that I have I commanded you”. This means we not only have to know what Jesus commanded but help others know it too.
· We have been given God’s ultimate revelation of Himself in Jesus Christ. And we’ve been given His Word as the means by which we understand who we are and who God is, so that we don’t fall into unbelief and instead remain in Him
· We can have confidence that God’s Word will make us able to believe, trust and rest in Jesus . We can also know that we don’t need to fear any condemnation, because Jesus knew us and all of our sins completely when He died for us. He took all of our punishment and shame knowing fully what that entailed, so that we might be ashamed no longer and never fear punishment from God if we are found in Him.
· Jesus saw just how bad we were and then He became our High Priest, who made atonement for all of our sins, enabling us to hold fast our confession of Hope in Him, the living Word.
· Now, the living Word of God sits at the right hand of God, constantly makes intercession for us. Oh what hope we have in the Word of God!
Potential Application
Questions:
1.
Why do you need God’s Word to help reveal who you
are to yourself?2. When have you thought you understood your thoughts and intentions rightly, only to find out later that you were really wrong?
3. God’s Word is objective truth. How has God used His Word to actively work in your life? When have you experienced life when you’ve heard or read His Word?
4. How have circumstances or trouble shaped your view of reality in the past?
5. How has God’s Word revealed the truth about your circumstances to you?
6. Sometime we are dull in our thinking and understanding our own hearts. Why is it good news to know that His Word is sharper than anything else and able to cut right to the core of who we are?
7. When have you experienced conviction from hearing or reading God’s Word?
8. When have you been encouraged through reading or hearing God’s Word?
9. How can it be encouraging for us to know that God knows our hearts and minds?
10. How has God increased your hope in His Word, to combat sin and unbelief through this passage?
11. How does this passage (and God’s Word) relate to being a disciple of Jesus?
12. How does this passage relate to growing as a disciple of Jesus?
13. How does this passage relate to making disciples of Jesus?
14. How is God calling you to pursue applying this message to your life personally?
15. What types of change do you need to make, trusting in God to change you?
