Hebrews 3: Jesus is Faithful

Intro

It seems like we all have a definition of who Jesus is and what Jesus does. We all have a favorite version of Jesus. The gentle Jesus, the table flipping Jesus. The shepherd, the yeller. 

It seems like we often make Christ into our image. We get caught up into what we want Him to do for us. What we want Him to look like. I assure you that whatever definitions you have placed on Him, our understanding of Christ is often half baked. Our understanding of Christ is often partial and incomplete. 

Consider for a moment Amy Carlson. She is the Mcdonalds manager turned cult leader who eventually died of coloidal silver and alcohol poisoning in 2021.

She had a definition of Christ. She herself was Jesus. And was also Mother Earth, Gaia, Joan of Arc, Harriet Tubman and Marilyn Monroe. She said she was reincarnated 534 times.

But before you and I just pass this off as a small cult following. For about 10 years she amassed hundreds of thousands of followers, employed 20 people full time and built a strange empire based on teachings that tickled ears.

She is the most recent iteration of others who say they either were Christ or shared divinity with Christ. Others in American history borrow off Christ’s teachings or say they are Him, Helena Blavatsky or Kate and Maggie Fox or Guy and Edna Ballard who started what they called an I AM temple, giving human considersation to the phrase I AM.

All these leaders led hundreds of thousands astray with their teaching. Taking their money, thier time, their lives, their dignity. And all because they confused the role of humanity and divinity.

They were satisfied, as were their followers, with a diluted definition of who Christ was. They allowed someone to take the role of savior in their lives who in the end, to a person, took everything for themselves, leaving bodies in their wake.

Our own defintions of Jesus always include our favorite parts of Him, but never completely Him. Our definitions of Jesus would never get Him to the place of a Savior, One who can actually do something about our condition. Whatever best subjective definition of Christ we come up with will fall short of HIm actually being able to save. 

It is too easy to confuse human activity for divine faithfulness.

But we will be duped if we do so.

The problem when we are in charge of finding what God is like or who Jesus is is that we rearrange our favorite parts and we end up putting together some weird and strange Jenga tower that is RIPE for tumbling

God has done for us what we have tried (see above examples) to do for ourselves. The role of the church is not to take the place of Christ but to exemplify Him, to witness to His good works and support those in need to be able to see who Christ is.

We need to know and preserve a better definition of who God is. we need to pay attention to what God is saying in His word. 

We easily shift our understanding into Christ in our image

The call this morning is to consider.

Consider Jesus

When we are asked this morning to consider Jesus, We are given reasons why we should consider Jesus and what it means to consider Jesus.

New Living Translation Chapter 3

And so, dear brothers and sisters who belong to God and are partners with those called to heaven, think carefully about this Jesus whom we declare to be God’s messenger and High Priest. 2 For he was faithful to God, who appointed him, just as Moses served faithfully when he was entrusted with God’s entire house.

What does it mean to consider something?

To consider means to look at and inspect. To turn over the idea in your mind. To kick the tires and take it for a test drive.

Think about the importance of this word. If you are invited to look at and inspect something then whoever is asking you to do so entirely trusts that object. Let’s pretend you were going to buy a used car. You arrived at the dealership and began talking to the salesperson. You communicated your needs, your budget and they produce a 2014 Honda Odyssey, universally understood as the greatest minivan in the world.

You ask if you can test drive it. You want to consider it, smushing together who you are and who this car is. You want to see if it holds up to your standards of what driving a minivan can do.

And the salesperson says no. You can’t drive it. You have to buy it without considering it. Immediately the question becomes, why don’t they want you to drive it? What don’t they trust about it? What is wrong with the car?

To not allow someone to consider something means they do not trust whatever it is youre trying to consider. If you can’t test drive the car, there is something in the car the salesperson doesn’t trust. you can’t consider it because it isn’t trusted.

The author of Hebrews tells us to Consider Jesus. Because Christ is trusted and reliable, he tells us to go ahead and put our understanding of Christ through the paces. He can be trusted to hold you up so go ahead and put your weight into who He is.

This invitation to consider is not just for those still trying to figure out what to do with Jesus. It certainly is for you. Take time to consider who Christ is.

But if you have already trusted Jesus keep in mind this letter was written to Christians who were facing persecution. This is for people who have placed their trust in Him. But it’s because we can get turned around and mixed up that we need to question our understanding based on better information. Meaning that our immediate understanding of something gets put on hold while we consider this new information. And the writer of Hebrews will give us the right information.

We can have confidence in who Christ is as we consider Him

We can be confident in Christ

To consider something rightly is to have confidence in it. The ability to have confidence in something or someone is in predictability of that object. We have confidence in what is predictable. We live in an unpredictable world. There is not much that is faithful, not much that can be relied upon. (See Oaths and Vows).

If we consider Christ this morning we can place our confidence in Him because He is reliable. We need reliable things in our world.

Christian faith relies upon promises made by God. We are invited to remain confident in those promises because of Christ.

We will see that Christ in this chapter is called faithful. We are to consider Him who is faithful. That means He can be counted upon and should be trusted to do so.

He is faithful to lead us

Hebrews 3:2–6 ESV

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.

This chapter compares Jesus to Moses. That as great as Moses is, he doesn’t compare with what JEsus has done. Now we may have a cursory understanding of Moses. We might know some of his OT fame or maybe can point out some events in his life in Exodus but we don’t have much else than a passing interest in Him.

before we get Christ’s faithfulness, we need to make sure we place Moses rightly.

For the hearers of this letter or sermon Moses was not just an interesting religious figure, he was the center of the Jewish faith.

Moses makes an entrance to the world of Jewish faith in the book of Exodus. He is the one called by God to lead His people out of slavery into the promised land. Moses is chosen by God to free people and lead them to a better life.

The writer of Hebrews calls Moses all of those things here. That Moses was faithful as a servant. HE did what God called him to do.

Moses is great. Jesus is greater. We see that Moses is rightly upheld. His words are listened to and clung to. Moses is held up as the greatest religious figure. There had been no one greater or better.

But then Jesus. What Moses did to the Israelites in the desert Jesus is doing in our lives now. He is freeing, He is rescuing, He is restoring. He leads us through the desert into the promised land.

Here is what we can see. Whatever it is that you have deemed the most faithful, Christ is moreso. Whatever it is you have trusted to not move, that can be leaned on, Christ is moreso.

The author points out just how necessary we place Christ correctly. He is greater than whatever expert you have considered greatest. We are called to consider that. Take time with that. But what happens when we are frustrated, overwhelmed or angry? What happens when we pray and we can’t see God? It seems like the expert is missing?

We are called to consider Jesus, His glory and majesty, but to challenge and encourage one another in it. It is too easy to get caught up in our own stories or sin. It is too easy to think we have it all together, and then when we recognize we don’t, to simply crumble apart.

Instead we are to come together to encourage each other who Christ is. And we do that with a shared confession of the goodness of Christ in our lives but a shared confession in how hard it is sometimes.

Hebrews 3:12–14 ESV

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.

Christ cannot be out considered. You can choose to walk from Him, you can choose to trust in other things. But if you sincerely consider Christ, you will see His faithfulness.

Our confidence comes from Christ. He has been and is the One who has held us up, who leads us faithfully. We listen and trust what He has to say. And we grow in our ability to know His faithfulness by hearing from one another.

We need other voices around us to call us back to consider. To call us back to listen.

When we were living in Oregon my friend and I went hiking in the Cascades for 5 days. We were attempting to hike 50 miles in five days. A good amount but not insurmountable. We were 2 days in when we took a trail we thought we be a little easier than the one we were on. The trail wasn’t on the map but we knew the direction we were heading. About 3 hours later we realized the trail didn’t go in the direction we were hoping. We were lost. We doubled back for an hour and didn’t find the trail. We came back to where we originally realized we were lost and panic began to settle in. In a rare moment of irrationality for my friend he decided to just head in the direction of our car and started walking off trail. Just tromping through the woods. That is one of the most dangerous things you can do in the woods when you are lost, just act and head further into the woods off trail.

We needed some time to consider our options. To look at the best next step for our situation. Instead of just heading off into the woods we needed to figure out what was best for us in that moment.

We live unpredictable lives in an unpredictable world. Our confidence comes from what we can predict, it is not formed any other way.

While we do not always know what God is doing, we can rest, we can be confident in who Christ says He is and what He said He would do.

He is faithful. More than whatever definition we have used to define faithfulness. He in fact is our definition of faithfulness

Let’s close by looking at this verses

Proverbs 3:5–6 ESV

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

This week you may come up against something that sounds reliable but isn’t. You may have a thought that you feel is reliable, someone may say something that sounds reliable.

Someone may do something in the name of reliability. Our confidence comes in considering Jesus. Consider JEsus in these moments. What does He say, what has He done? How has He acted?

We are called to make adjustments to what we are most confident all the time, everyday. We are called to consider Jesus. When you face issues of straying from a path or looking elsewhere, or testing reliability, consider Jesus. He is our confidence.