Boasting in Christ

It’s not very often that someone complains that you aren’t boasting enough. In fact, no one ever complains about that. If there’s anything to complain about, it’s because someone is boasting.

That was the problem here though, the Christians were not boasting as they should, and they lacked confidence in the person and work of Christ. For the writer, he is really wanting to focus in on the worthiness of Christ as the object of Christian boasting.

The author to the Hebrews has just taken us through a marvelous exaltation of the person and work of Christ. He has set Christ over and above everything as the Only Begotten Son of God, the creator of the universe and the One who upholds the whole universe “by the word of His mouth.”

It is Christ who is the founder of our salvation. Though He had taken the form of a servant for a little while, being made lower than the angels, for the sake of our salvation, He is now exalted to His rightful place at the right hand of the Father. He now intercedes for us as our glorious merciful and faithful High Priest.

It is to this Christ that the author now urges us to consider, to ponder, to look to, behold and boast in all our life. This Christ who is our saviour even now, to this day, to this hour and this minute, and in our time of greatest temptation. He is still, and forever will be, our saviour.

This evening, I want you to be renewed in your boasting in Christ alone. Boasting that is focused on Him renews our confidence in His work for us, bolsters our faith in the finality of His work for us and restores our hope in our Saviour.

We will do this by looking at three points: Improper Boasting, Boasting in the final Apostle and High Priest, Boasting in the Faithful Son.

Improper Boasting

Head

What is faith apart from whole-hearted boasting in Christ?

This passage is simple, yet confusing. Simple because the solution to the problem is plain, consider Christ. Simple because the Christ previously laid out is a saviour beyond worthy of our worship and adoration. But somewhat confusing because the author doesn’t begin with a problem and proceed to answer it like we’d expect.

Take 2:14 for example, the problem is that we share in flesh and blood, he answers that problem by saying that Christ then also had to share in flesh and blood in order that He is found to be a perfect, merciful saviour.

Here in our passage though, it seems that the author begins with the solution. “Consider Jesus” he says. Consider Him why though? The problem that he seeks to answer is found here at the end of our passage, in verse 6.

Read vs 6b

We hate hearing of someone boasting, of gloating of their success. Talking themselves up to no end. It leaves a rather unpleasant, bitter taste in our mouths.

But imagine with me, there’s a gathering of pastors from churches around the wider Roman Empire. As they’re catching up, trying to figure out how to deal with the impending persecution and how to pastor their people. One pastor pipes up and says, “one thing that I’ve noticed is my people just aren’t boasting much.”

“well, that’s a good thing, right?” might be the reply. Not boasting seems to be a good goal. To clarify, he says, it’s not boasting in themselves, but boasting in Christ. The reason this is brought up is because there’s a correlation between boasting in Christ, confidence in Christ and hope that the author picks up on.

Heart

When we stop boasting in Christ and begin boasting in other things, we lose sight of the One through whom we are saved and through whom we continue to be interceded by. The Christians hearing this letter were faced with rising pressure to deny Christ in the face of persecution.

There was, in their minds, good reason to not boast in Christ. Because boasting in Christ equals disdain, hatred, and persecution. But though not boasting in Christ may mean worldly peace and success, it means eternal death. For what does He say?

Read vs6b again.

We are Christ’s house, that is, His people, when we hold fast our confidence (in Christ and His work) and our boasting in our hope. Our hope that in Christ, what was begun in us will one day be brought to completion.

Hands

How do we continue in our boasting? It is easy to stand here and say, boast in Christ, have confidence in Him. But we all know the struggles we have with sin, with doubt, with wanting to be liked in the world. Sometimes it’s much easier to just give Christ a cursory glance while we continue on with our regular lives.

But boasting and confidence in Christ are things that are harboured and nurtured. Just like growing a plant, our confidence and boasting has to be nurtured in order that it may grow.

We do this by, considering Jesus. To consider Him is to look to Him, to turn our eyes away from ourselves and to look upon Him. Not in some ethereal, transcendent way, but to think upon Him and all that He has done for you.

Jesus is not someone that we have to find, but someone who has come to us. He possesses in Himself, all the motivation we need to boast in Him and confidence in His work for us, the hope that is ours.

This is what the author seeks to show us through the rest of the passage.

Boasting in the Apostle and High Priest

Read vs 1-2

Head

Two aspects of Christ’s work stick out to us in this section. The second one we are familiar with; Christ is our High Priest. But the first, this seems unusual, Christ as our Apostle. What does it mean that Christ is the Apostle and High Priest of our confession?

It means that Christ is the Word as an Apostle and the Work as our High Priest of our confession.

The author wrote at the beginning of the letter:

Read vs 1:1-3.

Our confession that we believe in; that Christ, the only begotten Son of God, came and took upon Himself our body of flesh, and died and rose again, and now sits as our High Priest, making purification for our sins. Christ is the final revelation.

John writes similarly in chapter 1 of his Gospel.

Read John 1:14-18.

Christ comes as the final Word of God, the ultimate Apostle, proclaiming to us the Gospel of grace that is now ours in Him. He also comes as the final work of God, the ultimate High Priest. As the High Priest had to go in day after day to the temple to make purification for sins, Christ goes in to the holy of holies once, by His blood, and sits down. Forever enabling us to come to God.

Heart

Christ was sent by the Father to do all this for us. He says in John 6:37-39

All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.

What greater reason do we have to boast in Christ than this? Christ is ours by offering Himself as the sacrifice and then mediating for us before God. And we are His because He has declared this message to us and we have believed.

Hands

How do we know of this work for us in order that we may continue to consider Christ? We need to go where we can hear His Word proclaimed. We know how fickle we are and how often we are led astray.

As Isaiah says, we like sheep have gone astray. We are led by others’ teaching and by our own sin away from Christ and to other things. But Christ is the True Shepherd, He promises to care for us and tend to us. But as Christians we also need to where we can hear that call from Christ. How are we to know His voice calling us, if we do go to a place where it can be heard?

Because Christ knows how easily we fall, he also gave us a picture of Himself in the Lord’s Supper. That’s why we partake regularly. He says to us, that the bread and the wine are His body and blood.

That same body that was broken for you and cut off so that you would not be. That same blood that He poured out that you would be made pure, are given to us in the Lord’s Supper. We need to be constantly reminded of the unbreakable covenant He has cut. We need to be reminded of His continued intercession for us.

It was through His body being broken and His blood poured out that He is now able to intercede for us.

He has given us things that we can hear, see, and touch in order that we would have our hearts to turned to consider Him each day, each week, and each month. Year upon year, these normal things we do is Christ continuing to preach to us and remind us of his priesthood.

We should not neglect them. Young or old. New Christian or veteran. If this is your first sermon or 5000th, Christ continues to minister to you.

Head

The writer’s key motivation through this letter is that we would be satisfied with the person and work of Christ.

Why? Because we He knows how quickly we stray, how quickly we fall into sin, and knows how much we need a faithful high priest.

It is so easy for us fall back into relying on our own faithfulness to God for success. But we are reminded here that it is Christ who is faithful for us.

How is Christ faithful?

1. He is faithful to God in operating as Apostle and High Priest as our appointed mediator. Both in his resisting of sin (look at the desert temptation), and his positive obedience of God’s law, he provided Himself to be worthy of that position.

2. He is faithful to us. Because Christ has proven Himself, He is now able to fully operate for us on our behalf. He does not weary of His task of ministering for you and to you. As High Priest he works faithfully before God for you. As Apostle, He delivers to you His good Word that “it is finished.”

Moses did this for the people of God, he pleaded on their behalf when they fell into sin. He stood between them and God. Yet, he did not and could not alleviate their burden, he could not cleanse them of their sin. Christ is the true Apostle and High Priest that Moses could not be.

Heart

You may feel as though your sin is not worthy to be brought to Christ. You may feel as though your sin is too horrible to admit to Him in repentance.

But Christ is faithful to you, His work as your mediator never stops and He desires us all to come to Him each day, each hour, in order that He may purify us and sanctify us. His invitation is free to us all, “come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Come to Him now.

Hands

What do we do with this then? We know that it is not us who work and are faithful. We know that it is not based upon our faithfulness to God that He calls us to Himself, but the faithfulness of Christ for us.

1. We have only to trust in Him and His provision for us. Christian, Christ’s work for you does not stop the minute you become a Christian. His work is for you, every day. He continually advocates for you. Like Moses before God after Israel sinned with the golden calf, Christ is our intercessor for our sins.

2. Because of His faithfulness, we can know fully that His work for us, His life, death, burial, and resurrection, is fully able to cleanse us from our sins. Do not doubt this today, Christ has more grace in Him than you have sin in yourself. He is more than able and ready to cleanse you.

3. We are free and able to live according to Christ’s law. We are now not living to please God; Christ has already provided everything we need in that regard. But now because we are free, we are free to live how we were created. To be images of God, to live in conformity with His character revealed in His law but fulfilled in Christ. WE do not strain to appease an angry God, but obey, out of love, our heavenly Father. This is true freedom, to live according to how we were created to be. Not bound up by enslaving sin.

Boasting in the faithful Son.

Jesus does all this work for us as a Son. It is because of this that He is worthy of our consideration and devotion.

Head

Read vs 3-6

Think with me for a moment about Moses. He was called by God to free Israel from their captors. He delivered them through the Red Sea to enter into the Promised Land. He gave them the law and the covenant which bound Israel to God. He met with God.

It is said in Numbers 12:

Hear my words: If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make myself known to him in a vision; I speak with him in a dream. 7 Not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house. 8 With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the Lord.

Moses was a powerful, glorious guy. So close with God was He that whenever Moses went in to speak with God, he came back out with his face glowing with the glory of God. So much so that people feared him.

In fact, so revered was he that many were facing pressure to turn back to venerating him as the High Priest, for who else had such close communion with God?

The writer does not deny the glory of Moses, for he was glorious. But even in his glory, the writer is at pains to point out that even Moses was still a servant in the house. Despite his elevated status, he still served the owner.

Heart

We often are in the habit of celebrating the building far more than the builder. We look at the Empire State building and are struck with awe. Or we are blown away by the beauty of the mosaic on St. Peter’s Cathedral. We are struck by the thing itself. What we should also be drawn to is the mind behind that creation. If this piece of artwork is so glorious, how much more glorious is the person who created it?

This is what the writer is saying to us. However glorious Moses was and is to you guys, he is still just one of you guys. It is the One who has made Him glorious that we must turn to and celebrate.

Moses could only bring the law and work in a way which pointed to the One who would come to fulfill the law. Moses can only point to our sin. He can only say, look there it is, that’s not so great.

But in doing so, in showing us our sin, the Law points us to our saviour. Their saviour was given to them in shadowy types, but it was not Moses who lifts their burdens, but the One he points to.

As John says, For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Yet, when Christ appeared, He did not seem to be as glorious as Moses, let alone more glorious.

Isaiah describes Him in Isaiah 53,

he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

This is the opposite of the glowing glory of Moses.

Yet, it is not outward glory that Christ came with, but He came as “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature.” This is what it means that Christ came with grace and truth.

Grace and truth for John is the exact imprint of the nature of God, it is the radiance of His glory. This is why the author to the Hebrews is eager to point this out to us about Christ.

The paradox of the Gospel is that true glory is not found in being served but serving. Christ came not to rule as King, but to give His life as a ransom for many.

It is through this that He now builds us up into His house, renewing us and making us into images of Himself that reflect His glory. We do not shine with outward glory, but instead are filled the Christ’s Spirit and enabled to live, albeit imperfectly, as He lived. Free to love God and our neighbour.

It is through His faithfulness for us for us as the final Work and Word of God that we are made into His house. Indeed, we are His house and we have every reason to hold fast our confidence in Him and boast in our hope, hope that one day we will be as He is, united with our Father in heaven.