Jesus Is ... Greater Than Moses

Psalm of the Day: Psalm 37:1-19

Psalm 37:1–19 ESV

Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers! For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb. Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices! Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil. For the evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land. In just a little while, the wicked will be no more; though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there. But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace. The wicked plots against the righteous and gnashes his teeth at him, but the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he sees that his day is coming. The wicked draw the sword and bend their bows to bring down the poor and needy, to slay those whose way is upright; their sword shall enter their own heart, and their bows shall be broken. Better is the little that the righteous has than the abundance of many wicked. For the arms of the wicked shall be broken, but the Lord upholds the righteous. The Lord knows the days of the blameless, and their heritage will remain forever; they are not put to shame in evil times; in the days of famine they have abundance.

Scripture Reading: Advent 2 (Hymnal 379)

Sermon:

Well, once again and as always good morning church, i truly Was glad when they said to me, let us go and worship in the house of the lord.

That's how i start basically. Not, basically, that's how i start every sermon... so much, so that i get made fun of by my family for it. And i seem to know, That when i'm doing something pretty regularly, my family, my wife, and my son, especially right now. Willow, i'm sure when she gets older, will join in this chorus... but They like to make fun of me when i do the same things sort of over and over again.

But truly, i say these things because I am glad when we get to come together to worship in the house of the lord. This is an important, vital, beautiful time where god's people can gather together. We worship together. We encourage one another, we lift one another up. I love Coming to church — gathering together in the house of the lord.

I say that. Because i also need to be honest and say, I'm also not very good at going to church. This church. I think i'm pretty good at going to. We know each other. We love each other. We fellowship... it's it's good here. My problem comes when i go to other churches. I don't think this is a just “david” problem. I have a feeling most pastors — Maybe all pastors if they're going to be honest with you — May struggle In the same way.

I'm not good at going to church, because anytime i walk into a church, i immediately begin to, for lack of a better word, start judging. You sit down and you open the bulletin, maybe you sit down. And there's there's no bulletin and there's like a QR code and you scan it to get your digital bulletin. I don't know if i like that. I don't know if i would do it that way. You begin to look at the songs, you think? Oh, that's not a song. I would think i would ever do. In church, you read the welcome to the guests and you think They seem focused too much on this part and i think they left out this part. Then for me, the worst part, The pastor gets up. And begins preaching. And probably. In all honesty. It's probably a wonderful sermon. And if i were able to get out of my own way, i would receive probably a lot from this sermon. But i can't help myself. Sometimes we reading the passage. Come on, you could have read it a little better. Put a little more inflection in this point. You get to the first point and think. It's not how i would word that one. I think i think you could do a little better. Maybe. I sit back and think. You know, i see where he's going. I see where he gets these points, but i just don't think that's the heart of the passage. And i can't get out of my own way to stop. Judging anytime i come, or i go to A church.

And that's a problem. I say this not as someone who's hoping you're not judging me in the same way i judge everyone else. Which maybe i should listen to the words of jesus. The standard by which you judge people, you will be judged according to… But i say this because i'm going to, this Sunday, Break what is One of my cardinal rules of preaching. I'm going to do something that if i saw another pastor doing it, I would threaten to never go back to that church again. But i have my reasons and i hope to share the reasons why i'm going to do what i'm going to do this morning as we walk through this all We're continuing our advent series this week, second week of advent. We're working our way through the book of Hebrews looking at who jesus is and what jesus is. What roles does he fulfill? How does the writer of Hebrews? Describe the one who came to earth some 2000 years ago. Our lord, our savior And our king. Last week, we were in Hebrews 1 and the very beginning Of the argument of the writer of Hebrews. Which was describing the lofty Powerful beauty of jesus. He is, We said, greater than the angels, because he is, we noted greater than anything and everything.

Because he truly Is god. He's the way that god speaks to us. We noted this in the first part long ago at many times in many ways, god spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But now through jesus. We saw that He is truly god, he's the radiance of the glory of god and the exact imprint Of his nature. and so, he's greater. Than anyone or anything ever created for. He is the creator. And this thought just gets continually built and developed by the writer of hebrews. And now we're going to get to a particular person that jesus is much greater than. This week, we'll be looking at how jesus is greater than Moses will be reading mostly from Hebrews chapter 3 verses 1 through 6.

But before we dive into anything else, let's open with a word of prayer.

Dear lord. We thank you for today. We thank you for your grace and your mercy for your goodness. Thank you for your love. We thank you for all that you do for us. We thank you that you would send your son. Our lord, our king. And our savior. The one who knew, no sin who became sin for us, The one who though he was in the form of god, did not count equality with god, a thing to be grasped, but rather humbled himself. The one who is now been given a name that's above all other names, the name unto which every knee will bow. And every tongue will confess We thank you for the precious gift of jesus christ. Our lord. We thank you for the spirit at work within us teaching us. And moving us. Thank you for the power that is at work within us. that we can proclaim the same power that raised christ from the dead is making us alive. And so we pray You would meet with us this morning. Open our eyes to see all that you have said and done. Give us ears to hear. we Pray that you would speak to our hearts. help us to be People who are changed As we hear from you this morning, it's in jesus name, we pray. Amen. And amen.

So, what am i going to do this morning? That I would judge any pastor. For doing. Well, i'm going to get to my first point Before we even read Any scripture. I know this is shocking. I I pray that you forgive me if you don't think this is the right way, i just don't know how else we can really grasp and wrestle with This passage.

We don't have the same context as the original audience of the book of Hebrews. Because we're going through this and sort of picking sections of the book of Hebrews, we don't even have the same context of the first people hearing this because we we're going from chapter one in the first four verses really of chapter 1. And now we're skipping to chapter 3 and we're going to miss a lot of his His work in laying the foundation, a lot of his work and sort of showing us what we need to see. And so my my goal today is to get that for us so that we can adequately dive in to Hebrews chapter 3. And so the first thing i'm going to ask you to do Is to consider. Moses.

CONSIDER MOSES

Most of us here. Are at least familiar with the name moses. We at least know, kind of who that was. Maybe we've seen Charlton Heston in the ten commandments we think. Yeah, that's moses. I mean, that's not really Moses, but yeah, that's sort of What he did.

Maybe we grew up in church, and so when we think of moses with the first place we go, to is, he's the guy who said “pharaoh pharaoh. Oh, baby. Let my people go.” Whatever it is we think of moses. To start out and to grasp and understand what the writer of Hebrews is going to do in Hebrews 3. We have to spend a little bit more time grappling with and understanding who, exactly, Moses was and what he did. And what all of that means

So, who was moses? Moses. Was a Hebrew, a Jew born in. Really born in slavery in Egypt. He was born at the time when the slavery of god's people, the oppression of god's people had reached a fevered pitch. If you're to go back and read Genesis, And you read through and you get to the part, kind of everyone's favorite parts of genesis are usually the Joseph parts, his coat of many colors. And because of god, working things out to save and to preserve the line of Abraham Joseph is elevated to a high position in Egypt. He's elevated to a position where he is sort of lord over All of Egypt. He's second in command. The only person above Joseph is pharaoh. And so he gives his family. The then sort of infant Jewish people. It's just Sort of 12 brothers and their dad, and their sons and their families. That's the nation of Israel at This time, he gives them good land and a place where they can care for their Their flocks and all of these other things. But then, in Exodus chapter 1. We read. What is sort of one of the More interesting turns. In scripture.

Exodus 1:8 ESV

Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.

He didn't know what god had done, didn't know, Joseph's sort of ability to hear from god to translate dreams to run the country efficiently. He didn't know Joseph and so all of the Israelite people are now thrown into slavery. And it keeps getting worse and worse and Pharaoh looks and the numbers of the Hebrew people are exploding. And so, he thinks. “Okay, we got to put an end on this. Any Hebrew boy must be killed. Immediately, the people of Israel are too many. And so if any boy is born, just kill them.”

This is harkens back to the beginning of Matthew — I guess it is more right that Matthew wants us to think back to moses… but there. When jesus is born and Herod is killing all of the infants, this is what pharaoh was doing. And so moses is born in a very dark time when people needed a savior. But moses. Is that rather unlikely SAvior. Through some events and him being put in the river. He is adopted into Pharaoh's family and sort of gains power and prominence but then he kills someone. He kills someone and then flees. And this is then when his life takes a sudden turn.

Moses meets with The burning bush. God Meets with Moses and speaks to moses in a way. I mean no one else can say. It is the voice of God in the burning bush. So Moses gets to speak to by god in a very particular and very powerful way. And then we know what happens then in Moses life. God gives him a duty, a job go. You're going to free my people. You're going to go be my witness in Egypt to pharaoh. You will be the one to deliver and lead all of god's people.

Moses doesn't want it. God says you're gonna do it.Moses says I can't. God says you can.

Turns out when god says you can, that means you can because he's god He gets help from Aaron. He goes.

The plagues are sent. Moses is sort of the vehicle of god's power to release his people. And he begins to lead them. He leaves them first to the red sea and the people feel trapped and god says Moses lift up your hands and the red sea is parted god's people Walk through. Pharaoh's army is destroyed. Here we have in a real and powerful way victory for god's people against the evil people who were murdering them and their children.

And Moses leads them and they get to Mount Sinai. And moses goes up on the mountain and we should note Only moses can go because It's holy ground. Only Moses can stand there. And he begins to intercede for the people. With god. And we, he comes down. And we have, what's one of the more ironic sort of passages in all of scripture. The people have -- while he's gone — made it idol and most like what in the world is going on here? And they're like, well we threw the gold in this. This idol just popped out. It was crazy Moses.

But he continually leads god's people. And he continues to be the one who hears from god and then speaks god's words to the people and he goes in, heres from god and he speaks god's words to the people.

Sure, Moses had his own problems. We already said he killed someone. That was what sort of changed his life in the first place. He also had a bit of anger problem. And when God told him, he needed to do one thing, speak to a rock... in his anger, he did another, he struck the rock.

And moses was not allowed to enter into the promised lane. Moses was not perfect. But probably in all of the old testament. Until we get to David. He's one of the closest. He's the person again until we get to David. The god's going to use in a very powerful way. I mean, we can note, God is the God of Abraham Issac and Jacob… But how do we know who Abraham is? Was because moses wrote the first five books of the bible. To tell us who he was and importantly What promises god made to him.

But one of the most important things Moses did, Is he collected for all time. For all people. The law of god.

He said this is what god has said. He wrote the 10 commandments. Thou shall have no other gods before me shall not murder. Honor your father and mother don't bear false witness. He told us what god expects us from us for a righteous and holy life. He taught us how to be god's people. He taught us what god expected of us. He led the people through the wilderness and also gave them god's words to them. He carried this tablet, the tablets that were literally written in god's own handwriting. I could not overstate how big a deal moses and his law and what he did for God's people. was He's a big, huge enormous deal. He laid the foundation For everything that would be to come.

Without moses. We get none of the old testament. Without moses we get none of all that is happening. without moses We cannot even get to jesus. Moses. Is of critical. Importance.

Hebrews 3:1–6 ESV

Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God’s house. 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. (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.

The writer of Hebrews, He is formulating, an argument.

Jesus is better than the angels you we need to listen and understand... He's greater. And in Hebrews 1. Why is jesus greater? Because the angels are nothing but ministering spirits and i say “nothing”, but ministering spirits, that's a big deal but that's all they are.

Hebrews 1:14 ESV

Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?

That's what they do. But jesus, god's son, is the prophet that god spoke through. He's the exact imprint of god's nature. He's the radiance of god's glory. He's the one who is the only begotten son, the one whose throne... hebrews one verse 8… is forever. He's the one who is there. Hebrews 1 10, who is at the beginning? When God, laid the foundations of the earth jesus is greater.

And he's also, Hebrews 2 begins to teach us the one who founded, who made our salvation Possible. So, He says in Hebrews chapter 3, verse 1. Consider jesus.

CONSIDER JESUS

He's the best. Period. Remember moses. We just spent time considering him. Remember, moses, the writer of Hebrews is saying... Moses was fantastic. He led god's people. He built god's house. Jesus built moses.

Moses did a great things, he came and he was a servant for god, one of the greatest servants god that has existed since time began. Jesus is better. He's one who empowered Moses. Because he's the son.

Moses was faithful... as a servant. He even testified, he gave us god's law. He taught us and showed us what god would expect of us, what god would demand of us? He taught us what god would do for us. He taught us how God would save us.

Jesus Is the one who gives god's law. He's the very word of god, he's the one who upholds god's law and he is the one who will save us. Not just tell us about the one who will save us. Jesus is our savior. He's better.

Moses. Is a servant. A great servant. We should all Endeavor, to be a fraction of the servant of god, that moses was. He's nothing compared to jesus.

We share in a heavenly calling. Because of jesus. He is the apostle and high priest of our confession, so we confess. Jesus.

Jesus is hebrews chapter 3 verse 2. Faithful. Even more faithful than Moses. We mentioned it. Moses was a great servant. He didn't get to enter the promised land. Why not? He disobeyed god. That's an interesting story. One, that's worth your time. Why is Moses hitting the rock? So detrimental to Moses's life. The hyper short answer is Because moses doesn't get to do whatever he wants.... But Jesus does. Because moses has to FOLLOW every word of god. Jesus IS the very word of god.

Jesus is worthy of more glory than moses. Because he's the builder of the house.

As we celebrate this advent series. We need to spend more time Considering jesus. We have all these cute fun, little phrases. “Jesus is the reason for the season”. Well yeah. But have you thought about jesus enough to realize why, that's true?

It's not just that 2000 years ago, some infant was born. No some 2000 years ago God himself entered into creation. Consider jesus.

Some 2000 years ago, born in a stable to the virgin Mary, wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger was the one through whom the glory of god shines. consider jesus.

As we gather together this advent season. Don't allow our traditions and thoughts and all of the things that go on around to distract us from this thought, consider jesus. He's better. Period.

He's the founder and perfecter of our faith, the high priest And the apostle of our confession, he is our lord and our savior. Consider jesus.

And as you can consider jesus, here's our final thought this morning consider our confidence and Our hope.

Consider OUR CONFIDENCE AND HOPE

The writer of Hebrews. Is dealing with how jesus is better. And if you were to push me, what's the theme of Hebrews david? I would say it's the “betterness” of jesus, that jesus better than all things. And we're going to keep doing this for the next few weeks talking about. How jesus is better? But the sort of sub thought under that is this: Jesus is better So, so rest in him and Trust in him.

What is our confidence? Our confidence. Is that jesus? Is the perfect savior. For all who call On his name.

I am confident that all who come to jesus in faith and repentance. Find a perfect savior.

My confidence is that i can say, like, Paul does that there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in christ jesus. So i am confident i stand before god made righteous through the work of christ.

I am confident that neither height nor depth nor angels nor demons nor the present, nor the future, nor any powers neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of god, that is in christ jesus, our lord… of this, i am confident.

I am confident that he who began a good work in, you will bring it about to completion at the coming of our lord. Jesus christ. I am confident in the work of jesus.

I am confident that he Who raised christ from the dead, who gave us his own son, Will he not also with him graciously? Give us all things.

I am confident. That whoever confesses with their mouth, that jesus is lord, and believes in your heart, that god raised him from the dead. You will be saved. of this I am confident.

For I have considered jesus.

And consider also today. Our hope. There's a lot we could talk about our hope, our hope of salvation, our hope of new life, i think here in this season. And in this time, it's most right for us to consider this hope: Our savior who once came. Will come again.

The time of advent, this advent season is a time for us to set, aside to remember That jesus came. But we must also remember. That he's coming. Again. Our confidence and our hope is that jesus are lord and savior. The one who defeated our enemies of sin and death, the one who conquered the grave will return He'll call us home. Of this. I am confident. And in this, I place. My hope. Let's pray.