Untitled Sermon (8)

Scripture:

Hebrews 7:28–8:6 “For the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made perfect forever. Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man. For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; thus it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law. They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, “See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.” But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.”

Introduction:

We come to the true crescendo of the book and sermon of Hebrews itself. The Center, the Apex, the Message for the First Center Jewish Listener, and for the 21’st century Americans life.

Exposition Overview:

Exposition: In this short section, we find two things happening: 1. An eruption of praise from the Preacher, “We have such a high priest.” and 2. An Explanation of our Needs that are met only in Christ. Now there are truly endless treasures and riches in the person of Christ, And we can truly never exhaust the riches of Christ for his people but we must week after week examine the Treasure of Jesus. Ephesians 3:8 “To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ,” And I will with all the energy the Lord choses to give me this morning do the same.This list that we ourselves will be looking at this morning is but a thimble full compared to ocean of glory found in him. Nevertheless this “thimble” is enough to satisfy the most thirsty of souls. It is enough to cause the living water of God to spring up in the driest desserts of the heart. And it is enough cause any who have dug up cisterns of sinful fulfillments to abandon them completely, willingly and joyfully.

Before we come to the points of the sermon, I want to give you a lens at which to view it by. John 14:6 “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Have you ever thought about what that means? When we read that do we think it means, “ok I’ve tried coming to God in all my strength and might over and over again and I can see that Ive been doing it wrong. What I must do is come to the Father still with much zeal and fervency and strength but now Through Christ…” And if you're a honest thinker you would say “That doesn't make sense. How does one do that?”And you're right, it doesn’t make sense because Its the Fallacy of Circularity, or whats called a circular definition. In other words its when the question “what is a women” is asked, and you say “a women”. You're not teaching, your’e not helping the listener understand. Many of us Christians do this. We know the go to answers to many of the worlds questions about Christianity, but we've never sat and meditated on them long enough for them to penetrate our hearts… Some may say “No its by faith!” to which I would say “yes, but faith in what?” Faith that you can now come to God by saying something like “In Jesus Name?” Thats not true either because we see that although Jesus’s name in and of itself has power to cast out demons, faith in the power of his name is not the object of our saving faith nor something we seek to invoke so as to obtain right standing before God. (Matthew 7:21-23) (Acts 19:13-16)

So I want to submit to you this so as to assist your faith. When Jesus says, “no one comes to the Father except through me” what he is saying is, “Im going to the Father, and if we are united by Faith, Im taking you with me.” Galatians 3:28 “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” 1 Corinthians 12:12 “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.” Ephesians 5:31–32 ““Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” And our Faith in Christ, means that where Christ is, his body is. Matthew 6:21 “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” So I want and pray the Holy Spirit assists and carries strengthens our faith this morning.

Main Point:

In Christ we have everything we need, to be fully and completely accepted by the Father now and forevermore

How Do we get all this from the text?

1. We Have a Perfect Minister

It says “a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man.”

Hebrews 8:6 “But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.”

If we have been Given a Minister, that means we have deep needs to be met

Hebrews 7:26 “For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.”

Explanation: The Phrase it was fitting, means its necessary that we have have the type and kind of High priest that Jesus is. Not one who is a political hero, or conquerer of fallen earthly kingdoms, but a spotless sinless one. We need one who is “Holy, innocent, unstaned, seperated from sinners”, because unholy, guilty, stained sinners cannot get to God. And thats the point of all creation from the fall of man to today. “How do I get back to God! How do I get back to Eden, to his presence, to his glory!” And the answer of course that needs to be heralded and accepted by all of us in here is “You Cant!” So since we cant, we are in need. immense need. Eternal need, and if we do not find this need met. We die. We spend eternity paying the price in hell for our complete and daily willful rebellion of God. So since we are in need, we need to be served…And thats what ministers do, they serve. And thats what Christ here in the text is being seen as doing Right now. Serving. Our High Priest, is by heart and nature a servant. Mark 10:45 “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

So what is Christ eternally Serving?

The Love of God It says “The covenant he mediates”

Last week we saw that Christ, by praying for those of us who have drawn near, both before we drew near (John 17:20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word,” ) and while we draw near, that inso doing he shows us that he asks the Father to make the Atonement of Christ be applied to us daily deeper and deeper. He prays that we would become one. That the Covenant of Grace would prevail in our lives. But he not only prays that will happen, but he mediates its affects to us.

What does Mediate Mean? =  exhibiting indirect causation, connection, or relation

this means he serves as the source of connection bewteen sinful people, and a Holy Loving God.

John 15:5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

What is it that courses from the vine, to the branches? God

John 14:23 “Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”

Isaiah 62:5 “For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your sons marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.”

“The Father, from eternity, chose a people out of this sinful human race whom he intended to save. These he entrusted to Christ and appointed him to be their Savior.

If you have the true love of God coursing to you through the Spirit of God, you have found rest

Zephaniah 3:17 “The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.”

Rest For Our Souls

It says “Who is Seated”

Hebrews 4:3 “For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said, “As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest,’ ” although his works were finished from the foundation of the world.”

Hebrews 4:10 “for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.”

3. How do I take hold of this rest?

Beloved, by faith, you're already there

Ephesians 2:5–6 “even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,”

This is the original lense of the Message. No man comes to the Father but by Me. And here we are said to be seated with Him in heavenly places. in, by way of, through our older brother, the forerunner of our faith, and firstfruits of his body, the Church. “No one comes to the Father (sits by the Father) but by, or unless through me.” If christ is your head, who serves and nurishes and feeds you the love of the triune God, you are seated in heavenly places, and you have entered into the rest of God. This then becomes a battle of faith. We seek to explain this mystery by saying things like “Already and not yet.” And this is true. We are not fully home. But we are home enough with God, based off of Christ sitting at the throne, that we must “consider ourselves seated with Christ.”

The Scriptures regularly speak this way.

Romans 6:8–11 “Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

in other words, “You've died with Christ, so since you’ve died with Christ consider yourself dead. Spend time each day learning how dead you really are. And youre not dead in the sense of without life. No you're now alive forevermore and perfectly loved forevermore no matter what happens because Christ is alive forevermore and in the arms of his Father as a staple and reminder to you that that is where your headed! That is where you are!”

John Owen Communion with God - “Does God then love his people while they are sinning? Yes! He loves his people but he does not love their sinning. Doesnt Gods love change towards then? Not the purpose of his will to love them, but the working out of his gracious acts and disciplines towards them….But wont this encourage sin? To suggest such a thing is to admit you have never tasted the love of God.”

4. Set your Faith on the Seated High Priest

St. Augustine, Confessions - “Thou move’st us to delight in praising Thee; for Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee… Oh! how shall I find rest in Thee? Who will send Thee into my heart to inebriate it, s that I may forget my woes, and embrace Thee my only good? What art Thou to me? Have compassion on me, that I may speak. What am I to Thee that Thou demandest my love, and unless I give it Thee art angry, and threatenest me with great sorrows? Is it, then, a light sorrow not to love Thee? Alas! alas! tell me of Thy compassion, O Lord my God, what Thou art to me. "Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation." So speak that I may hear. Behold, Lord, the ears of my heart are before Thee; open Thou them, and "say unto my soul, I am thy salvation." When I hear, may I run and lay hold on Thee. 

Christ is not anxious about your final salvation, and prays that you would “have the full assurance of hope.” Set your eyes of faith to the seated Savior, and see that he sits, so you may rest from your toil.

If He is seated there, and we have such a High Priest, then our access must be bound up in His position.

Where is he seated?

It says “of the Throne of the Majesty in Heaven” Thats the Closest Communion with the Father there is. And What happened When Christ ascended to the Throne?

Psalm 68:18 “You ascended on high, leading a host of captives in your train and receiving gifts among men, even among the rebellious, that the Lord God may dwell there.”

We Have Found What our Hearts Have Longed For

It says “At the Right Hand”

The Highest Pleasure

Titus 3:3–6 “For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,”It says “we have such.” and “Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more Excellent than the old”

Song of Solomon 3:4 “Scarcely had I passed them when I found him whom my soul loves. I held him, and would not let him go…”

Psalm 16:11 “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

If Christ, sits at the Fathers Right hand, as the Churches federal head and representative, and the psalmist says “At your right hand is pleasure forever more.” What he is saying is that for you beloved, when you feel crushed by the weight of sin and doubt creeps in as to wether or not youre “good enough” to be loved by God, know that all you are doing there is playing the devils game and answering his deceitful questions. You're never going to be good enough. You've committed enough sins this morning alone to burn for all of eternity in hell. And the most heinous sins committed in the church are not those sins that seem so obvious. No. The most destestable sins are the sins of self righteousness, even after one has claimed Christ, because those lead to if stayed in long enough, total unbelief. Thats the sin that Paul calls a “bewithching” in Galatians three. Thats an abandoning, or a “trampling on the blood of Christ.” Your biggest sin problem, is not porn. You're biggest sin problem is unbelief in the Righteousness of Christ, and the acceptance of the Father on the basis of that righteousness alone. And if you live day to day combining and distorting the gospel, you're missing out on Pleasures forever more. We fall in love with shadows far too often.

The Empty shadows

Hebrews 8:5 “They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, “See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.”

Colossians 2:17 “These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.”

What are shadows?

Colossians 2:16–17 “Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.”

Though its hard for us in the 21’st century to recall the ceremonial laws and the sacrificial system, or the temple, or the levitical priests as readily and vividly as these listeners - who on tracking the preacher thus far - knows from personal experience all the blood and smells and noises and chanting and somberness and horror and beauty and exhaustion of all the sacrifices and offerings and priestly transcendence. However, even in spite of this the implication and exhortation does not fall flat.

We too erect and love our Religious shadows just as much and these listeners who fell tempted to go back to theirs. We have shadows as well: Church attendance, Sunday liturgy, Sacraments / ordinances (when detached from faith),Sermons admired but not believed,Theology consumed but not trusted, Confessions and catechisms without conformity, Creeds repeated without affection, Worship styles (traditional or modern),“Sound doctrine” as identity rather than life,Denominational loyalty,Church history pride,Correct language about grace,Reformed identity,Charismatic identity,“Being biblical” as a badge,Orthodoxy without doxology, These are shadows when they terminate on themselves rather than lead us to the seated Christ.

Or what about Personal Shadows like: Personal holiness detached from Christ, Moral improvement plans, Sin management techniques,Habit tracking, Accountability structures without gospel hope, Sexual purity culture, Sobriety as righteousness, Family values, Ethical stances, Political morality,“Being better than before”, Avoiding scandal, Respectability. Hebrews 8 doesn’t call us to better behavior, but to a better priest.

Or How about Experiential shadows like we saw in Hebrews 6? Things like:Emotional worship moments,Tears as proof of sincerity,Spiritual highs,Conference encounters,Retreat breakthroughs,Camp nostalgia,Being “moved”,Felt peace,Subjective impressions,Internal promptings, Powerful movements of the Holy Spirit through and or around you. All of these are wonderful and should be evident in the believers life at various times and season. But one can Cast out demons and never have casted out doubt as who Christ is on their behalf.

Or I’ll point the finger to me and anyone who serves in Ministry, because Ministry Shadows can be dangerous as well. Things like: Ministry productivity, Numbers, growth, engagement, Faithfulness defined by exhaustion, Platform building, Influence, Recognition,“Burning out for Jesus”,Being needed,Being indispensable,Helping others meet Jesus while avoiding Him yourself,Using ministry to justify dryness. One can preach Christ weekly and still stop at the shadow of usefulness.

Praise: The Point of Everything

Illustration: Plato once told a story about prisoners chained in a cave. They had been there their whole lives. Behind them was a fire, and between the fire and the prisoners people carried objects back and forth. All the prisoners could see were shadows on a wall. And because they had never seen anything else, they believed the shadows were reality.One prisoner was freed. He walked out of the cave and saw the sun — the true source of light. And when he came back to tell the others, they didn’t rejoice. They resisted him. They preferred the shadows they knew to the light they had never seen. Hebrews tells us something even more sobering. Israel’s problem was not that they lived with shadows — God Himself gave them those shadows. The tabernacle, the sacrifices, the priests — they were real. They were holy. They were purposeful. But they were never meant to be final. They were copies and shadows of the heavenly things. They were outlines cast by Christ Himself. The problem is not shadows. The Problem is stopping at them.To stop at the sacrifices when the Lamb has come. To stop at the priesthood when the High Priest is seated. To stop at religion when the reality stands before us.To stop at small group. To stop attending church on Sunday's. To stop at your baptism. To stop at your profession you made with your lips. To stop after 5 minutes of reading your bible in the morning. All the while to never see the light. The point. The Great High Priest who ministers to you and I in the Presence of our Father…

Hebrews says, “Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a High Priest.” Turn around. Look up.The light is no longer behind us — He is seated at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.

John Mcarther - “When we ponder the cross we are reminded how much Christ has done for us. There we also learn the need to separate ourselves from worldly vanities. There we see the extent of true humility there we find the assurance of salvation. Motivation for self denial. Hope to cheer our troubled hearts. Love to energize our obedience. A grand example to guid our footsteps. And a powerful reminder that our only reasonable service, is to become living sacrifices of praise.”

Closing:

Beloved, Hebrews does not end this section with a command. It ends it with a declaration.“Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest.”

Not you must become. Not you must prove. Not you must ascend.

But Rather we have the one who has. We have Him. He is not pacing. He is not negotiating your future. He is not waiting to see how sincere you’ll be tomorrow.

He is seated.

And if He is seated, then the work that brings sinners to God is finished. If He is seated, then your standing before the Father is not fragile. If He is seated, then your salvation is not suspended on your performance.The law appointed men in their weakness.But the word of the oath appointed a Son — perfect forever. And where He is, His people are. So stop staring at the shadows. Stop measuring your faith by your feelings. Stop rehearsing your failures as though Christ did not know them when He sat down.Turn around.Look up.

The throne is not empty. The priest is not standing. The sacrifice has been accepted.

And the point of everything we’ve said is this:

We have such a High Priest.

So rest. Worship. And live this week not trying to get to God —but trusting the One who already brought you there.