Hebrews 8
Notes
Transcript
Hebrews 8 “Now the main point of what we are saying is this: We have such a high priest, one who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister in the sanctuary and the true tabernacle that the Lord, not man, set up. For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices. So this one too had to have something to offer. Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest, since there are already priests who offer the gifts prescribed by the law. The place where they serve is a sketch and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary, just as Moses was warned by God as he was about to complete the tabernacle. For he says, “See that you make everything according to the design shown to you on the mountain.” But now Jesus has obtained a superior ministry, since the covenant that he mediates is also better and is enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, no one would have looked for a second one. But showing its fault, God says to them, “L…”
Introduction
I want to get real with you all for a minute. I want to peel back the curtain a little bit, and talk about how the sausage is made.
I want to be a better preacher for you. You all choose to come here every week. You don’t have to do that. You could be at some other church, you could stay home. You’re here because you choose to be here.
And because of that, because of my gratitude for you all, I feel an obligation to be a better preacher of the word for you.
And so on top of studying the passage itself, and digesting what the scripture is saying, That’s just baseline.
I spend time making sure that my presentation of the bible is beneficial to you. I try to think of ways that it will apply to your lives specifically. I try to think of different ways to explain things, because everyone learns differently.
I try to package it up in a way that is coherent, that makes sense, that has a logical flow.
I try to be…entertaining…that’s not the right word, because you’re not here to be entertaining.... I try not to be boring, let’s put it that way. It does you no good if I’m boring.
And so for you, I read all the books about preaching, I study other preachers, I listen to my own sermons and try to improve.
And there’s guidelines and rules about preaching that generally make for a better experience for you all.
Keep the sermon structured. Have clear points. organize the sermon in a way that is simple. So that you can walk away with three or four nuggets. Last week, the message was we can depend on God’s promises, permanence, and perfection. Boom. Easy to follow, nice simple structure. takeaway points, how are you trusting in God’s promises permanence and perfection.
And so now I have a problem. With the text we have for today, specifically. let me just read it, and I’ll explain.
Now the main point of what we are saying is this: We have such a high priest, one who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven,
Pause. As we’ve talked about before, hebrews was an ancient sermon. This is the main point of the sermon. This is the part where everything he has said up until this point culminates.
It’s a big deal.
That’s another thing by the way that I try to do in my messages. Instead of trying to get you to guess what the main point is, I’ll just say: this is the main point.
Usually I’ll say something like “The big idea is this:”
And that’s on purpose. So that if nothing else you hear the words “The big idea is” and hopefully your ears perk up and it helps you have an anchor for the rest of the message.
So we’re going to be reading the “big idea” of the book of hebrews. This better be good.
The big idea of the book of hebrew is this: We have such a high priest, one who sat down at the right hand of the throne of hte majesty in heaven
a minister in the sanctuary and the true tabernacle that the Lord, not man, set up.
For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices. So this one too had to have something to offer.
Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest, since there are already priests who offer the gifts prescribed by the law.
The place where they serve is a sketch and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary, just as Moses was warned by God as he was about to complete the tabernacle. For he says, “See that you make everything according to the design shown to you on the mountain.”
But now Jesus has obtained a superior ministry, since the covenant that he mediates is also better and is enacted on better promises.
That’s a very wordy big idea. Boil it down it’s this.
Jesus is a heavenly high priest. We’ve pretty well established that over the past 7 chapters.
He is a minister of a new covenant. And we are under that new covenant, which was enacted on better promises.
So if I were to take this text and plop it into the format that is “best practices” it would look something like this:
We’re under a new covenant.
The old covenant points to the new covenant
The new covenant is more good than the old covenant.
And you all would be like. Hmm. That’s cool. Where do you want to go for lunch?
The original audience of Hebrews would have been hanging on every word at this point.
Because for the Hebrews, this idea of new covenant old covenant it was a big deal in their lives.
It would be like if they came out on the news tomorrow and they were like “congress passed a new law, they’re discontinuing the constitution. They’re re-writing it, it’s going to be a whole new constitution, different than the last one. They’re re-vamping the ammendments. Getting rid of those.
You think we would be a little nervous? You think we might have some questions?
What do you mean there’s a new constitution? It’s the foundational document of our country. I kind of like ammendments. I’m a big fan. I mean the 16th ammendment, the one that authorizes income taxes.... you can take that one.
But besides that what do you mean a new constitution?
That’s how the Jewish people would have felt about a new covenant. Because covenant was baked into the culture of the jewish people in the same way that freedom of speech is baked into our identity.
All of that to say. As much as I tried to talk about this passage in a nice three point sermon where each point starts with a letter, and it rhymes and there’s some memorable illustrations...
If we want to understand it and appreciate it the way it was appreciated when this was first written we have to have a shared understanding of the importance of covenant.
This text is just begging for us to take a trip through the bible and explore God’s covenants.
Because the number one way that God interacts with his people is through covenant.
I guess you could call that “point 1”
Covenants are this weird type of relationship that we really don’t have in our culture. It’s like part contract, part oath, part promise, part relationship.
The closes thing we have to a covenant is the institution of marriage, but even that doesn’t quite show it perfectly. It’s close. But covenants are more rich than that.
Covenants are this relationship contract that looks differently depending on who in the covenant has the higher social status. Who’s the king, who’s the peasant.
There’s usually a power dynamic at play.
Three types of covenants: Kinship covenant. This is where both party’s are equal in social status. This is like marriage. We’re both on equal standing, I promise you this, you promise me that. Neither one of us really has the “upper hand” in the deal.
Vassal covenants. This is where the lower party swears an oath to the higher party. The peasant approaches the king and swears a covenant of loyalty.
I swear this covenant to give you my labor, my land, my taxes. My loyalty.
And the peasant in return usually recieves a promise from the king that “maybe I won’t kill you” maybe. Not a guarantee. Don’t put that in writing. But a pretty good chance that I’m not going to send my army and take all of your stuff anyway.
And then you have grant covenants. These are like if someone with a lower status does something heroic. And the king swears a covenant in response to the heroic deed.
You singlehandedly saved the kingdom. I swear to you all of land east of the river is yours as a reward for what you did.
There’s a power dynamic at play usually. There’s a degree of permanence to covenants. Usually they’re eternal, to you and your children and chidren’s children.
There’s a predescribed punishment for if you break the covenant. Usually death.
And as we look through the Bible we see God immediatly starts enacting these covenant relationships with his people. And Each time god makes a covenant it adds to the picture of God’s desire for his people.
Clear back in the Garden of eden.
God makes this magnificient creation, he makes these people.
And he makes a covenant with them that’s basically this:
I swear a covenant oath to you to give you the entirety of paradise except one tree.
All of it. The birds, the animals, the trees (except for this one) the plants the water. It’s all yours. Rule over it, have dominion over what I made. And in return you have to take care of it.
if you had a rich uncle who was like hey I’m going to sign over the deed to my mansion. You can’t go into the basement. But other than that, it’s all yours. The ferari in the driveway, everything. Just stay out of hte basement, and you have to take my dog for a walk every afternoon. That’s it.
What a sweet deal.
We broke that covenant relationship with God.
And there’s consequences for that.
But to Adam he said, “Because you obeyed your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ the ground is cursed because of you; in painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.
It will produce thorns and thistles for you, but you will eat the grain of the field.
By the sweat of your brow you will eat food until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you will return.”
We see from this covenant, God’s purpose, God’s desire, is to be with his people, and to lavish them with paradise. But not at the expense of good and evil. He’s not willing to go that far.
Because once our ability to choose good and evil for ourself gets introduced into the picture, it’s no longer paradise that we’re living.
God clothes them, sends them out.
Immediately the offspring of Adam and eve succumb to sin. Brother kills brother.
Exactly what God said what was going to happen. If mankind is given the choice to choose good and evil for themselves…they’re going to choose evil.
And we choose evil for generation after generation. Until it gets to the point where God doesn’t even recognize the beautiful thing he made it gets so bad.
He sends a flood to clear the slate, give us a chance at hope.
He makes a covenant with a man named noah.
Noah built an altar to the Lord. He then took some of every kind of clean animal and clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
And the Lord smelled the soothing aroma and said to himself, “I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, even though the inclination of their minds is evil from childhood on. I will never again destroy everything that lives, as I have just done.
“While the earth continues to exist, planting time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night will not cease.”
Then God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
Every living creature of the earth and every bird of the sky will be terrified of you. Everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea are under your authority.
You may eat any moving thing that lives. As I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.
“But you must not eat meat with its life (that is, its blood) in it.
For your lifeblood I will surely exact punishment, from every living creature I will exact punishment. From each person I will exact punishment for the life of the individual since the man was his relative.
“Whoever sheds human blood, by other humans must his blood be shed; for in God’s image God has made humankind.”
God Doubles down on the promise that we are supposed to rule over creation. Even though that covenant with Adam was broken.
But then he introduces this idea of Blood being precious because blood is the sustainer of life.
Then you have Abraham..which is really the most incredible one of all so far. We were talking about this tuesday night small group about how God could have just as easily made his covenant with anyone on earth.
Adam and Eve makes sense, because they were like the only two people available.
Noah and his family, again, after the flood were kind of the only people available.
Abram was just some guy
And God just starts lavishing covenant promises on him
Rememember the power dynamic that goes along with Covenant.
God is in the position of King, Abram is the peasant here.
But God is the one who vows a promise to abram.
Three times.
In Genesis 12, god says I will make you a great nation, and bless you and give you this promised land
Genesis 17 God promises him a son, and many many descendants
Genesis 22 God promises to bless the whole earth through Abraham.
But he doesn’t stop there.
In Genesis 26 He re-confirms that covenant with Abrahams son Isaac
And then in Genesis 28 he reconfirms it Again with Isaac’s son Jacob.
5 times God makes this covenant. 5 Times God iterates his desire to havea people for himself. And to Bless them. And to bless the world through them.
Abraham’s decendents end up in egypt, in slavery. God rescues them. And he establishes another covenanant relationship with them
Where he lays out the law…what does it look like to be in this covenant relationship with the creator of the universe.
Because again, just like adam, just like noah, God desires to bless his people, but not at the expense of good and evil.
He establishes priests, he establishes this mechanism that the people can use to be in right standing with him.
And by the end of the first 5 books of the bible we have 11 covenant promises that God makes.
Adam, Noah, Abraham x3, Isaac, Jacob, Israel x2, Aaron to establish the priesthood, Phineas numbers 25, to reconfirm the priesthood.
several generations later God shows up again with King david, swearing to establish an eternal kingdom.
All the while the message is the same. God’s desire throughout is the same.
God wants to bless his people. He wants them to rule over his creation. He wants them to know right from wrong. And he wants to be in relationship with them.
And all the while, we again and again choose curses instead of blessings.
We choose to rule over each other, instead of stewarding what God gave us
We choose to do evil over good
We choose to walk away from the relationship with God.
And the only thing standing between the Jewish people and utter catastrophe are these covenants between God and his people.
So when Hebrews says
But now Jesus has obtained a superior ministry, since the covenant that he mediates is also better and is enacted on better promises.
That’s worth paying attention to.
These covenants had a fault. And it wasn’t a fault on God’s part. It was a fault on our inability to remain in relationship with God, despite all of his promises.
Hebrews 8:7-13
Hebrews 8:7-13
For if that first covenant had been faultless, no one would have looked for a second one.
But showing its fault, God says to them, “Look, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will complete a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.
“It will not be like the covenant that I made with their fathers, on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not continue in my covenant and I had no regard for them, says the Lord.
“For this is the covenant that I will establish with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and I will inscribe them on their hearts. And I will be their God and they will be my people.
“And there will be no need at all for each one to teach his countryman or each one to teach his brother saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ since they will all know me, from the least to the greatest.
“For I will be merciful toward their evil deeds, and their sins I will remember no longer.”
When he speaks of a new covenant, he makes the first obsolete. Now what is growing obsolete and aging is about to disappear.
Jeremiah 31, where God promises again to establish a covenant with his people.
This time, he’s not going to depend on us to keep the law.
I’m going to place it directly on their hearts. Directly in their minds.
In exekiel God reiterates this New covenant
I will sprinkle you with pure water, and you will be clean from all your impurities. I will purify you from all your idols.
I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh.
I will put my Spirit within you; I will take the initiative, and you will obey my statutes and carefully observe my regulations.
And it’s not just Israel
As for foreigners who become followers of the Lord and serve him, who love the name of the Lord and want to be his servants— all who observe the Sabbath and do not defile it, and who are faithful to my covenant—
I will bring them to my holy mountain; I will make them happy in the temple where people pray to me. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar, for my temple will be known as a temple where all nations may pray.”
BRING KIDS BACK UP
And Christ established this new covenant once and for all.
Going all the way back to the book of Hebrews… Where we’re talking about a group of people who didn’t just understand Covenant.
They ate, slept and breathed covenant
These ideas of being in covenant relationship, and the promise of a new covenant were built in to their DNA.
So I guess if I was going to package up this message in that nice little format. If I was going to give you three easy to remember take home points.
If I would have read all the books, and paid attention to all the rules I’d say this.
Point number 1, being in a Covenant relationship with God is a Big deal.
Your status as a people who are sworn into a covenant relationship should be just as much a part of your DNA as it was to the Hebrew people. Being a Christian isn’t something you Do… It’s who you are. Built in to your DNA
Not just on Sunday, not just during tuesday night bible study. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
If we were to start thinking of ourselves as people who are in a covenant relationship with God, how might that change us?
How might we live differently knowing that we’re set apart. Set aside for God’s kingdom.
Would we waste it? Would we keep trying to reject the grace that God is trying to give us? or would we embrace the lifestyle that says “I am blessed by God”
Point number 2: The specifics of the Old and new covenant are different. But the purpose is unchanging.
Under the New covenant, God still desires to bless you. God still desires to live with you in the Garden. God still desires to bless the nations through you. God still desires to be your king on the throne forever. God still desires to lay out for you what it looks like to be covenant people, and to have you faithfully live out the values of his covenant promise.
Instead of a garden, it’s eternal life in heaven.
Instead of circumcision as the sign of your covenant, it’s your baptism.
Instead of a tabernacle to be the dwelling place of God, it’s you, the beliver who the holy spirit dwells in.
Instead of goats and bulls, it’s the blood of Christ.
Instead of the law of Moses, we follow the Law of Christ. Where Jesus sums up the law and the prophets by saying Love the lord your god with all your might, and love your neighbor as yourself.
Where Paul says neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but new creation.
Point number 3
Point number 3: The new covenant is built on better promises.
Because it’s built on the promises of every other covenant promise God has ever made, and then some.
It’s built on the promises God made to Adam. And noah. And Abraham. And Moses, and Aaron, and David.
And to the people through Jeremiah and Ezekiel.
All of those promises are good on their own. When you stack them all up, they’re great.
But when you seal them with the new covenant through the blood of Christ…they’re precious .
Pray.