Greater Than (3)
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Greater Than
Greater Than
Good morning. Thank you for joining us this morning. I know there are a lot of places you could be this morning and I am so grateful you chose to be here or watch online.
Please continue to like and share our Sunday messages with other you think it will encourage and let us know how we can pray for you. Here we have Connect cards you can fill out and drop off at the end of the service and for those online you can place any request in the comments section of whatever platform you are watching on.
We are continuing our journey through the book of Hebrews. So if you have your Bibles, please open them, your apps, or however you are reading His word today to Hebrews 3.
We have already seen that Christ is the ultimate upgrade, that nothing comes close to Him and that He is greater than our greatest need, the need for a Savior.
Those are both grand ideas and most of us can see it, but what if we make more personal. What if we bring it down to realm of where we live?
That’s what I want to do today and for the next few weeks.
I want us to see that there have been:
Great Leaders / Greater Leader
Great Leaders / Greater Leader
Anyone hear like history?
Think back, outside of Jesus, call out who you would consider to be a great leader.
For me one of favorite leaders was Winston Churchill.
I just finished probably a 900 page book about his life.
At 16, Churchill predicted he would lead England and save it and the world from a terrible threat.
in 1940 became Prime Minister and led the fight against Hitler, kept him at bay, and was the driving force of the Allies and their victory.
In the realm of the church their are men like Spurgeon, the prince of preachers, who has had probably the most influence on Pastors than any other and whose sermons were printed out all over the world and still are today.
There is Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose 600 page biography I am reading now, was a brilliant theologian that knew his calling at age 13 and views of grace and discipleship and his courage to stand against the evil of the Nazis costing his life still inspire believers today.
These are all great leaders, but they all fell short in one way or the other.
Christ never fell short, and completed all He set out to do.
Please stand with me as we read the most important words you with hear today.
1 Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, 2 who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God’s house.
3 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.
4 (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) 5 Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later,
6 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.
7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, 9 where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years.
10 Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.’ 11 As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’ ”
12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.
13 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.
14 For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.
15 As it is said, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” 16 For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses?
17 And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? 19 So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.
Let’s Pray
Great Leaders / Greater Leader
Great Leaders / Greater Leader
Next to Abraham, no one was more revered than Moses.
He led them to freedom and to the promised land.
Through him God gave the law and formed the nation of Israel.
If you remember, the author is talking to Jewish believers who are struggling and thinking they should go back to the Law and thus Moses as their ultimate leader.
You can put any name in there of someone you respect and admire. The point is Christ is superior than all of them.
Christ is greater in His person.
1 Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, 2 who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God’s house.
Christ is greater in His person.
First remember this is to us, the church.
We all share a heavenly calling and share in Jesus Christ.
30 because we are members of his body.
Christ is greater in His person.
It is not Moses gave us this calling and adopted us in
This why he says to consider Jesus
Consider means to consider carefully, understand fully.
Christ is superior in His person.
Moses was a mere man, called and commissioned.
Jesus was God in flesh sent as God’s last word to sinful man. (Apostle sent with a commission)
Moses was a prophet who occasionally served as a priest.
Jesus is our great high priest who as an apostle who represented God to man and as a high priest now represents man to God.
Moses ultimately failed by disobeying God
Jesus remained perfect and blameless.
Christ is greater in His ministry.
3 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. 4 (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.)
5 Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, 6 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.
Christ is greater in His ministry.
The word house is used 6 times in this section. -It is referring to the people of God.
Christ again is shown superior.
Moses was a servant in the house - Christ is Son over the house
Moses was a member of the household but Jesus built the house.
Moses spoke of things to come but Jesus is the fulfillment of these things.
The word if has confused some.
It is not saying we lose our salvation.
It is saying that those who hold fast - the world will see our changed life.
We were meant o enjoy our faith not just endure it.
Confidence in Christ shows itself as hope and joy beyond our circumstances.
Through Christ, we are not burdened by past failures, threatened by the present, or fearful of the future.
Think of Caleb and Joshua. The believed and trusted God. Their entire generation died in the dessert wandering, but they held on to the promise that because of their faithfulness they would enter the promised land.
Imagine that day when they crossed over in to it.
Christ is greater in the rest He gives.
7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, 9 where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years.
10 Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.’ 11 As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’ ”
12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 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. 14 For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.
Christ is greater in the rest He gives.
The entire story of the Exodus and journey to the promised land is a picture of Christ and us.
Slavery in Egypt - sinners bondage, Salvation through the passover - blood of a lamb, Caanan our inheritance in Christ, the wilderness - believers who will not claim their spiritual inheritance, live in doubt and restlessness.
They never fully received the rest promised, because they fully took hold of it.
2 For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. 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.
Christ is greater in the rest He gives.
This entire section ends with the second of 5 exhortations or warnings.
The first explained the dangers of drifting from the Word because of neglect.
This one warns of disbelieving or doubting because the hardness of heart
11 Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. 12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
Great Leaders / Greater Leader
Great Leaders / Greater Leader
So many great people throughout history
After Bonhoeffer’s execution by the Nazis 2 weeks before his prison camp was liberated the confessing church he established dissolved. His writings still have great influence b ut he never saw its full impact.
Spurgeon died in 1892 and dealt with severe dpression towards the end of his life as he fought against a liberal theology making its way into the Baptist Union.
After Churchill died in 1965, the great British Empire declined and disappeared. Churchill never publicly confessed his need of a Savior or of his faith in Christ.
Moses never led the people into the promised land.
Jesus Christ completed every task he needed to complete, was crucified and buried, then rose again. His kingdom continues to grow and He is ever present in the lives of his followers and is returning again.
12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. 13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
HG Wells once said:
I am an historian, I am not a believer, but I must confess as a historian that this penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the very center of history. Jesus Christ is easily the most dominant figure in all history.
Great Leaders / Greater Leader
Great Leaders / Greater Leader
Who are you trusting in?
There is none better than Christ.
Let’s pray.
