3. Look and Listen Hebrews 3:1 – 4:11
HEBREWS CHAPTER 3 VERSE 1 TO 4 VERSE 11
3. Look and Listen
3. Look and Listen Hebrews 3:1 – 4:11
Fix Your Eyes on Jesus
On August 7, 1974, a Frenchman named Philippe Petit did something remarkable. In the middle of the night he stretched a cable between the two towers of the World Trade Center in downtown Manhattan (which were still under construction). Early the next morning, with awestruck crowds watching below, Petit walked back and forth across the cable multiple times, performing one of the world’s most daring high-wire acts.
When we behold a feat like this, we have one simple question: how did he keep from falling? For high-wire performers, there is one simple answer. You keep your eyes focused on the destination and never look down.
Hebrews 3:1 tells us that it works that way in the Christian life. If we are to keep from falling, we need to “consider Jesus.” I prefer the way the NIV translates it: “Fix your eyes on Jesus.” Don’t look down, but stay focused on him.
Peter learned this lesson the hard way. In Matthew 14:22-33 the disciples are out on the Sea of Galilee in a boat, and they see Jesus walking toward them across the water. When they realize who it is, Peter gets out of the boat and walks on the water toward Jesus.
While Peter is looking at Jesus, all is well. But when he focuses on the wind and the waves, he starts to sink.
You and I, like Peter, are very easily distracted from Jesus. We fix our eyes on just about anything sometimes. We all have a tendency in our heart to follow other gods, as it were, which we think might satisfy us more than Jesus. That’s what the original recipients of this letter were doing—thinking maybe they should go back to Judaism. The author is saying to them and to us, No! Don’t get distracted, or you’ll start to sink.
Hebrews 3:1-6 gives us two reasons to fix our eyes on Jesus.
Who You Are
The first part of verse 1 directly addresses and identifies the audience. When the author does this, he is identifying you and me too, because this letter is written to all of Christ’s people. He addresses us as “holy brothers … who share in a heavenly calling.”
Before we get to the command to consider Jesus, we need to start where the passage starts: with understanding how God sees us. The author takes us through three things which tend to form identity, showing us who we are in Christ.
First, he calls us holy. He doesn’t just say, Therefore, brothers; he says, “Therefore, holy brothers.” He calls you holy; he calls me holy; and he calls the audience he is writing to holy.
You might think this is strange. Does he not know his audience? Does he not realize that his audience is filled with sinners? Is he naïve, unaware, or just simplistic here? Alternatively, you might think, “He clearly isn’t talking about me.” He is talking about holy people, but you know your own heart, and you are definitely not holy.
But here is the truth: in this one word, we see that a radical identity transformation has taken place for Christians. God regards us as holy. That doesn’t mean that Christians are perfect, that we have got our act together, or that we do not still struggle with sin. But it does mean that there is something different about us. We belong to Christ, we have the Spirit in us, and we have been set apart for God’s purposes.
Realizing that you are holy makes you see sin for the big deal that it is. Too often we say, “Well, I’m only human,” letting ourselves off the hook. But if you identify yourself as holy, then you see sin as something that is entirely against who you are.
That would make you miserable were it not for the fact that being holy also gives you hope. God has set you on a new trajectory. By his Spirit, you are set apart for his purposes. He is at work in you.
Second, our identity also involves a new family. He calls us “brothers.” This of course includes both brothers and sisters. The idea is very simple: you don’t belong to these other things, because you have a new family in Christ. Jesus is your brother (2:11).
All through my teenage years, whenever I did something wrong, my father would say, “That is not what Krugers do.” He wanted me to act in accordance with my family identity. Likewise, understanding that we are part of the family of God is an incredibly important way of keeping us on track in our faith.
This highlights the significance of church. Christians gather in groups because being together matters. The word is taught in community; church is an incredibly powerful tool that God uses to remind you that you belong in his family.
Third, we also have a new citizenship. He calls his audience “you who share in a heavenly calling.” We are called toward a heavenly destination: we will dwell with God forever in the new heavens and the new earth. That is our homeland; that is our country.
Who you are as a citizen is part of your identity. The values that your country stands for influence you. You are proud of where you come from and you seek to represent your country well. It is the same thing here. You belong with Jesus; he has called you to his country. That is who you are. Therefore, fix your eyes on him.
Who Jesus Is
“Consider Jesus” is the very next phrase in 3:1. What are we to consider about Jesus? First, he is the bridge between us and God. The author gives Jesus two titles: he calls him “the apostle and high priest of our confession.” These two terms are not accidentally linked together. They work as a summary of much of what has been discussed in the first two chapters of the letter.
“Apostle” means “sent.” As you read the term “apostle,” you are likely to think about the twelve apostles whom Jesus sent out. But in fact, Jesus himself was the very first apostle. In John 20:21, Jesus says, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” He was an apostle before his disciples were. Jesus was sent by God to speak for God to humans (Hebrews 1:2)—which is what an apostle does.
A high priest goes in the opposite direction. He represents humans to God, bringing offerings into the temple on their behalf. We saw this in 2:17-18.
Jesus, uniquely, is both an apostle and a priest. He goes both ways. He can do this because he is both God and man. Who better to represent God to humans than God? Who better to represent humans to God than a human? Jesus alone is both these things. That is why I use the term “bridge.” Jesus perfectly bridges the gap between humans and God.
Greater Than Moses
If you were a first-century Jew it would be hard to find a figure who ranked higher in your mind than Moses. Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt in the exodus, a crucial and foundational moment in the story of God’s people. Moses was the one who delivered the law and set up the whole system of temple worship. He is also the author of the first five books of the Bible. He is a major pillar of the Jewish faith.
Yet Jesus is so much more glorious than Moses. This is the argument which our author now develops in 3:2-6.
He starts by praising both Jesus and Moses. Look at verse 2: Jesus “was faithful to [God] … just as Moses also was faithful in all God’s house.” Both are faithful servants of God, to be praised and honored.
Our author will not disparage Moses. He does not say that Moses was wrong and that we are thankful to Jesus for fixing his mistakes. No, Jesus doesn’t fix or correct Moses. He fulfills all that Moses pointed toward.
In the following verses there are two big differences between Moses and Jesus. Moses is in the house as part of God’s people, but Jesus is over the house. And Moses is described as a servant of God’s house, but Jesus is God’s Son. They are on the same team, but Jesus surpasses Moses.
The shift happens in verse 3. “For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself.” Moses was only part of the house, while Christ built the house.
Look forward to verse 6: “And we are [God’s] house.” This is a remarkable statement. The average Jewish reader might have assumed the author is talking about a physical building—the Old Testament temple. But the house that God is building through Jesus Christ is not a physical structure; it is the people of God. The community of believers is God’s real “house.” Indeed, elsewhere Peter refers to Christians as “living stones [which] are being built up as a spiritual house” (1 Peter 2:5).
In short, Moses was part of the people of God, whereas Jesus is the creator and builder of the people of God. Why is Jesus able to do this? Because he is God. Hebrews 3:4: “For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.” Moses pointed toward the coming Savior—he came “to testify to the things that were to be spoken later” (v 5)—but Jesus is the Savior himself.
In verses 5-6 the house imagery is used in a different way. “Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant … but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son.”
Imagine you are paying a house call to someone very wealthy who lives on a big estate. You are met at the door by a servant, who greets you and brings you in. But this servant is not the owner of the house. He is not the one you are there to see. The servant may do his job well, but you are there to see the son—the heir to the estate. He is the one whom you honor.
In the same way, although Moses and Jesus are both faithful, it is Jesus who is most worthy of honor. He is the builder of the house. He is the Son of God.
Let me draw out a couple of implications.
First, notice that there is only one house. The author is not contrasting Moses’ house with Jesus’ house. It is all one house. There is a single people of God throughout all the history of the world. Moses was the shepherd of those people in the Old Testament, and we call them Israel; yet he was only pointing toward the coming of Jesus, who would continue that same people of God in the church. Israel and the church are not two separate peoples of God. There is one people of God: the church is the continuation of Israel.
This means that we must not think of the Old Testament as completely irrelevant to us. It is not. In Christ we become heirs of the promises which were made to Abraham and his descendants through Isaac (Galatians 3:29). So we need to pay attention to those promises and stories.
The second implication stems from the fact that as followers of Jesus we are God’s house. Ephesians 2:19-22 sheds light on this:
“You are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God … Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you are also being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”
In the church, Christ dwells. After all, we are his house. Not only does he live in individual Christians by the power of the Holy Spirit but we are all “being built together into a dwelling place for God.” The Spirit of Christ lives in his corporate body, the church.
In our world today, the spirit of individualism reigns supreme. It is tempting to think, “I don’t need a church. I’ll just show up when I feel like it. I might hop around, do a little church shopping, figure out what I like, and if I don’t like it, move on.” That is the spirit of the age. But that is not the spirit we see in the book of Hebrews. You are the people of God, and God dwells in your midst. That means it is vital to be committed to one another and linked together as his people.