Better Promises

Have you ever had that moment in your life where you said “there’s got to be a better way”?

Image #1...Maybe these guys should have…

Image #2…No room for mom in your truck, just give her a seat in the bed.

Image #3…Perhaps waiting for Amazon Prime days for free delivery might be a better option...

Now we can look at these pictures, shake our heads, maybe laugh a little, but be honest…we’ve all had those moments when we should have said… “There has to be a better way”...

That essentially is the argument of the book of Hebrews…Jesus Christ is better…

Jesus is better than the prophets, and He’s better than the angels, and He’s better than the OT sacrificial system, and He’s better than Moses, and he’s better than the Levitical priests in the temple…

And every person then, and every person now, has to decide if they believe that…and if they are building their life around a vibrant, growing relationship with Him that is the logical extension of that belief…

The purpose of this book, in many ways, is to give us reasons to come to that conclusion…

Let me summarize our study to this point in this way..

Hebrews 1…Jesus is Superior in every way.

Heb 2…Jesus deserves your attention

Heb 3…Jesus can soften your heart

Heb 4-5…Jesus can give you rest.

Heb 5-6…Jesus can give you hope

Heb 7…Jesus can help you draw near to God.

And all of that was designed to bring the original readers and us to the place that a decision has to be made if that true...

and if they and we believe that is true, is there be clear evidence in our life to point to that assessment?

Is His superiority an organizing truth and a motivating factor in your existence?

Now, one of the ways Hebrews really helps us is by presenting a significant amount of evidence…or reasons to come to this conclusion…

Three primary ways Hebrews emphasizes the superiority of Jesus.

Many references back to the OT that show how Jesus is a perfect fulfillment of promises and prophecies made about the coming Messiah…

Careful students of the Scripture should have been expecting someone just like Him…

Secondly, there are many direct references to his superiority…

we have seen a number of beautiful descriptions of the Person and work of Christ in these chapters…

And then lastly there have been some very forceful warnings…

People who had not yet made up their mind about Christ needed to avoid the tendency to think they could always decide later – that’s why there is this significant emphasis on the importance of deciding…today…

And those who had trusted Christ needed to be careful not to let apathy or fear stop them from continuing to grow in their love for Christ.

Now we come to chapter 8 and we see additional truth about the superiority of Jesus.

Main Point: Jesus is Superior Because He Offers a Better Promise.

We’ve entitled this series Jesus is Better than Everything…that would include the way you choose to live your life this side of heaven.

See we have to ask the question “Is my way of living the right way, or is there a better way?”

Psalm 62:5 NASB95

My soul, wait in silence for God only, For my hope is from Him.

Are you searching for hope and joy in things and people other than in a vibrant relationship with Jesus?

Are you searching for hope and joy and peace in your job, your possessions, your earthly relationships, your ________.

When we look to other sources other than God for our hope, joy and peace, we buy into the false promises offered up that this is what we need…this is what we are looking for.

It takes us back to the Garden of Eden…they bought into the false promise that disobedience would make them like God...

How did that work out for them...How’s that working for you?

When life doesn’t turn out the way you thought it should, or when your way of handling situations doesn’t work...where do you turn? Do you say “There has to be a better way?”

What “promises” are you buying into that quite frankly are falling short…they don’t deliver?

Let’s look for 3 reasons we need to conclude Jesus’ promises are worth believing.

Jesus is Better Because of His Amazing Position.

We have said all along that this book is challenging…there are deep theological truths that are not for the theologically faint of heart...

but one of the nice things about this chapter is—it clearly states what the main point has been thus far…

Hebrews 8:1 “Now the main point in what has been said is this: we have such a high priest, who has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens,”

It is also a bit easier to understand that some of the previous chapters…which gives us a great opportunity to step back and ask…is this really having any impact on me?...

Am I finding ways to change?

Is my hope in Christ becoming more developed and mature?...

Now, what is the “main point in what has been said” ?

it has a lot to do with thinking about Jesus’ amazing position...

- for one thing…

He is seated.

v. 1 – who has taken His seat…

This is a very significant theological concept...

the words “priest” and “seated” do not go together very well…

why?...because a priest’s work was never done…

that will be emphasized in chapter 10...

Hebrews 10:11 - Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins;

see, a normal priest never rested because he was never through…

nothing he did was permanently effective…

and the impact that would have had on the people of God would have been significant…there is never a way to get out from under this crushing load of spiritual debt…it’s like the person who only makes the minimum payment on a high interest credit card…you’ll never be finished…

The repeated emphasis in the book of Hebrews is that because Christ was the perfect Son of God, He only had to make one sacrifice

…the perfect shedding of His own blood…once and for all and then, regarding our salvation, He was able to sit down…

another aspect of this amazing position was that it was…

At the right hand of the throne of Majesty.

v. 1 – who has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of Majesty

This too is a very significant theological truth...

of course the right hand of a king always symbolized favor, and position, and authority…

Psalm 118:16 “The right hand of the Lord is exalted; The right hand of the Lord does valiantly.”

Psalm 80:17 “Let Your hand be upon the man of Your right hand, Upon the son of man whom You made strong for Yourself.”

We are in the midst of a political season where everyone seeking a position in government makes all kinds of promises…and many people are placing all their hope, all their joy, all their desire for peace on the individuals who make those promises of a better life if you elect them. So you have to decide whose promises you are going to believe.

Not only in the political arena, but with life itself you and I are bombarded with people, theories, concepts, philosophies that are selling promises of a better life if you only buy this product, if you accept what they say as truth, your life will be complete when you do this or that...

I want to lovingly challenge you with this...when you’re considering whose promises you’re going to believe and embrace, you need to think carefully about the nature of the person’s relationship with God the Father…

Some of those people offering you a better life are far from the throne of God…

If you’re going to put all your eggs in one basket then...

Consider Jesus’ promises as better because no one else is closer to God…he is seated at God’s right hand…

the passage also makes the obvious point that he is seated…

In the heavens.

v. 1 – who has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of Majesty in the heavens

and as beautiful as the tabernacle and various temples were…verses 4-5 tell us those are just shadows of the reality...

The High priest could only enter once a year and when he did, he had to come out...

The significance of our high priest being seated in the heavens…means he is in the very presence of God, the highest place of honor, dignity, and excellence!

No other priest or individual can ever hold that place where Jesus sits!

another curious aspect of this that is very clear in this text is that Christ is…

Continuing to serve.

Hebrews 8:2–3 “a minister in the sanctuary and in the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man. For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices; so it is necessary that this high priest also have something to offer.”

The point the writer makes here is that Jesus is continuing to serve us

He continues to make “gift offerings” on our behalf…

Priests made more than sin offerings...

Thank offerings, commitment, dedication

John MacArthur - Jesus has already ministered the one final blood sacrifice that is sufficient for all people for all time. This work of His is completely finished, because there is no need, and there will forever be no need, for any additional sacrifice for the cleansing of sin. But the need for His redeemed people to come to dedication and commitment and thanksgiving is not over. These gifts of praise and thanksgiving Jesus continues to minister for us before His Father.

I can’t fully understand what all that means…but it is amazing that Jesus Christ would still be willing to serve people like you and me…

He serves more effectively

Hebrews 8:4–5 “Now if He were on earth, He would not be a priest at all, since there are those who offer the gifts according to the Law; who serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, just as Moses was warned by God when he was about to erect the tabernacle; for, “See,” He says, “that you make all things according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain.””

Jesus’ effective work as a priest did not occur on earth.

According to the Mosaic Law, Jesus was not descended from the proper tribe for serving as an earthly priest (see 7:14).

Jesus would find no place for serving as a priest on earth. but he serves effectively as a priest in heaven.

His effective ministry on earth was his offering up of himself as a sacrifice for sins.

No Levitical priest could offer himself as the perfect sacrifice to end all sacrifices.

Verse 5

The Levitical priestly ministry on earth represented only a shadow of the truly effective priestly ministry Jesus performed in heaven.

A shadow is a reflection of another object.

It resembles the other object, but it contains some distortion.

The work of the Levitical priests only served as a preview of the atoning work of Christ.

Even though the earthly ministry was only a copy of the heavenly reality, God had still designed this earthly priestly ministry in detail.

Quoting Exodus 25:40, the author reminds his readers that God had provided precise instructions about the details of the tabernacle.

Even the small details of the earthly tabernacle were in God’s hands.

If this were true, then the heavenly sanctuary in which Jesus served with such effectiveness must be more glorious and significant.

The priestly activity on earth pointed to the cross of Christ.

It was on the cross that Jesus accomplished the real activity which affected our relationship with God.

The writer of Hebrews is making a clear point that Jesus occupies an amazing position.

now, what are the practical implications of all of this?...

if Jesus Christ truly is willing to be our high priest, seated at the right hand of the throne of Majesty in the heavens, willing to minister on our behalf in a more effective way…whatever promises He has to make to us are worthy of our faith, and our allegiance, and our hope…

now, let’s bring verse 6 into this discussion…

Jesus is Superior Because of His Crucial Ministry.

Let’s expand our thinking on his more effective ministry...

He is the Mediator...

Hebrews 8:6 - But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, by as much as He is also the mediator…

mediator – mesites – someone who stands between two people and brings them together

This is the only way you and I could possibly hope to be reconciled to a holy God…we need to know someone on the inside…

...Of a better covenant.

This is where you need to have a good knowledge of the Old Testament and the importance of covenants.

God often chose to relate to His people on the basis of covenants…promises, agreements…

like the Adamic covenant made with Adam and Eve…

or the Noahic covenant…made with Noah…

or the Abrahamic covenant (Abraham), or the Davidic covenant (David)…

Some promises of those covenants were unconditional…God was going to do something regardless of what humans did.

The problem was that any aspect of those covenants that was dependent on the faithfulness of man to do his part, was always broken…which is why God said through the prophet…

Jeremiah 31:31–32 (NASB95)

“Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord.

the rest of Hebrews 8 is a quote of Jeremiah 31…

that is why it is so significant that in the upper room, Jesus raised the cup of wine, signifying His blood and said…this cup is the New Covenant in my blood...

Ultimately Jer 31 is a promise for Israel, but when Israel officially rejected Jesus as their Messiah, they were temporarily set aside allowing the church to be built and now we are able to enjoy some of the benefits and provisions of the New Covenant

that is why verse 6 ends by saying that Jesus ministry is…

Established on better promises.

Hebrews 8:6–8 “But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, by as much as He is also the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second. For finding fault with them, He says, “Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, When I will effect a new covenant With the house of Israel and with the house of Judah;”

The writer is going to bring this up again in chapter 9...

Hebrews 9:15 - For this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that, since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.

The Old Covenant was flawed, not in what was spelled out in the Law’s requirements, for the Law was good (cf. Romans 7:12), but it was “weakened by the sinful nature” of the people (Romans 8:3), because “the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so” (Romans 8:7, 8).

Because of this, it could not deliver on its wonderful promises.

The Old Covenant was “faulty” because...

It couldn’t deliver because it was rooted in its incompleteness.

It wasn’t final...

If it were the final covenant, there would have been no need for a better covenant.

It couldn’t deliver because it could not provide a priest who would make ultimate and full atonement for the sins of God’s people.

The old covenant’s fault and failure to provide a final sacrifice for sin should have been obvious.

under the old covenant there remained an unrelenting need for constant sacrifices.

This endless repetition of sacrifices demonstrated the covenant’s incompleteness and its inability to deal with sin once for all time.

Think with me about the significance of Jesus’ statement on the cross...

When he cried, “It is finished” (John 19:30), he was announcing that the wrath of God toward the sin of his people was finally paid in full. Never again would there be a need for animal sacrifice, for Jesus paid it all.

Furthermore, even the high priest of the old covenant had to make unrelenting sacrifices for his own sins before he could make a sacrifice for the sin of his countrymen.

The author of Hebrews is now declaring that the final priest has come, not to atone for his own sins, but to save his people.

Indeed, a better priest with a better ministry has come to mediate a better covenant enacted on better promises.

Jesus’s ministry of inaugurating the new covenant is “superior” precisely because of these “better promises.”

Jesus offers a better promise because of His amazing position, and because of His crucial ministry…and also…

Jesus is Superior Because of His Transforming Relationship

New inwardness.

Hebrews 8:10 - …I put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts…

under the Old Covenant, the Word of God was primary an external matter…the tables of stone, something they would carry on their foreheads or write on their doorposts…

but now because of the finished work of Christ, and because of the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the potential change was much more concentrated on the heart…

John 14:16-18 - I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans…

the better promise is that you can have a new relationship with God’s truth in your heart…

New identification.

Hebrews 8:10 - …I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

Galatians 2:20 - I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

develop the importance of the “sustaining gospel”…walk through how this impacts the way we respond to worry and fear…, or if time, relationship problems

Colossians 3:1-3 - If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

New knowledge.

Hebrews 8:11 - And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.

while of course the possibility exists for people to be in the church who don’t truly know Christ…there is a potential genuineness, and authenticity for those who are in the local church…

When you put a group of people who have claimed the promises of the high priest together in the same body – powerful things can occur…

God would not confine the knowledge of him to a privileged few. All those under the new covenant would enjoy a walk of deep fellowship with God.

New forgiveness.

Hebrews 8:12 - For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.

This is another great theological concepts we would do well to cling to...

This is precisely what the Old Covenant could not do.

Under the Old Covenant, sins were never completely forgiven because they were never truly forgotten.

They were covered, awaiting and pointing to the true forgiveness through Christ’s death.

God’s forgiveness is an active choice of His will to “not remember”.

It is theologically impossible for God to forget.

For the Hebrew, “remembering” was more than a mental effort; it carried with it the thought of doing something to the advantage, or disadvantage, of the person remembered.

If men’s sins are remembered by God, His holiness must take action against them; if they are not remembered, it is because His grace has determined to forgive them—not in spite of His holiness, but in harmony with it.

When God says He will not remember, He means that He will not remember sin against us.

He will no longer hold it against us; He will not judge us for it. He will not bring it up for remembrance. He buries it once for all.

Under the old sacrificial system, there was “a remembrance made of sins year by year”

If no such remembrance of sins is made under the new covenant, it is because of a sacrifice offered up once for all (Ch. 7:27).

The assurance of forgiveness of sins is written into the very terms of the new covenant in the most unqualified fashion: “I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more.”

Lesson for Life — Hold On to Grace!

Our greatest problem is sin, because it severs us from the presence of God.

Our sin and his holiness are incompatible, yet God promised to reconcile sinful people to himself through the mediator who would inaugurate the new covenant.

He chose to do this through his Son, Jesus Christ, the mediator who established the new covenant in his blood (Luke 22:20).

The Hebrews were being tempted to draw back into Judaism, holding on to a covenant that was obsolete…there IS a Better Way…it is Jesus.

God is merciful to his people because Jesus suffered and died in our place, and we are now hidden in him forever by virtue of our faith and repentance.

God promises that under the new covenant, we have complete forgiveness in Christ.

In Jesus all the new covenant promises belong to God’s people.

Why would we want anything else?

Let’s find our hope, joy and peace in our relationship with Him.