Drift: Moses and Jesus
Drift • Sermon • Submitted
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· 6 viewsHebrews continues this theme of showing that Jesus deserves their supreme devotion and this time with their greatest hero, Moses. All along, Moses was being shaped by the God who would come in Jesus and that is why we see so many parallels between them.
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Introduction
Introduction
Story about helping with the children’s message. They were checking in with me about what to look for and what we were going to do. I learned long ago that if you want to look like the best children’s message deliverer of all time, you only craft questions where the answer is or could be Jesus. Right?! That is who they throw out with out fail over and over again.
Who is your favorite super hero? Jesus. It’s like they are conditioned.
That is what the author of this book is trying to do. That is the intentions of the sermon....to raise the views of Jesus. Teaching them Christology.
The theological epicenter of the Epistle to the Hebrews may be summed up in one word: Christology. No biblical document outside of the four Gospels focuses as totally and forcefully on the person and redemptive achievement of Jesus. Likely this factor more than any other secured its prominent place in the early church’s canon of Scripture in spite of doubts concerning its apostolic origin in the West (Carthage and Rome) prior to the fourth century.
The theological epicenter of the Epistle to the Hebrews may be summed up in one word: Christology. No biblical document outside of the four Gospels focuses as totally and forcefully on the person and redemptive achievement of Jesus. Likely this factor more than any other secured its prominent place in the early church’s canon of Scripture in spite of doubts concerning its apostolic origin in the West (Carthage and Rome) prior to the fourth century.
Walmark, L. S. (1996). Hebrews, Theology Of. In Evangelical dictionary of biblical theology (electronic ed., p. 335). Grand Rapids: Baker Book House.
Why? Because in light of all that they are facing this is critical.
So the preacher continues with his already established theme of showing the superiority of Jesus. To a Jewish crowd and one who would have incredible respect for Moses, the law, passover, and all that is wrapped into this hero of their faith. In order to understand this move from the preacher, we need to dig into Moses a little.
The culmination of this comparison is
“Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house,” bearing witness to what would be spoken by God in the future.
“Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house,” bearing witness to what would be spoken by God in the future. But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory.
Moses, the faithful servant of the house
Moses, the faithful servant of the house
Moses is a deliverer
First, Moses is a deliverer. We might know these characteristics but it is important to walk through them....Moses delivered his people.
The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats.
On that day tell your son, ‘I do this because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.’ This observance will be for you like a sign on your hand and a reminder on your forehead that this law of the Lord is to be on your lips. For the Lord brought you out of Egypt with his mighty hand.
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen.” Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing toward it, and the Lord swept them into the sea. The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen—the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived.
Exodus
Moses is the one chosen by God to deliver his people, to lead them out of Egypt and to defeat Pharoah.
Moses establishes his people
Moses is the one who establishes the Israelites as a people. Later in the promised land it becomes formalized but it is already taking place with Moses.
Moses turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands. They were inscribed on both sides, front and back. The tablets were the work of God; the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.
Exodus 32:1
These tablets represent contracts of sort. The covenant made between God and His people. You know I always thought there were two tablets because to carve into stone you had to use like 100 font and you cant fit it all on there kind of thing. No they are two copies of the covenant. One for each party. That is why God’s copy must be in the arc of the covenant...
Anyways, Moses is the one that establishes them as a people. In he begins to align leaders, regulators, legislators, enforcers....he puts the courts, police, and the government in place.
Moses is a mediator
Moses is a mediator between God and the people. I mean this in a couple of different ways. First, in the relational sense: in and it is clear the people asked Moses to be the spokesperson. They were afraid that even the words of Yahweh would be too much and kill them all. They send Moses up on the mountain. It is Moses in the tent of meeting, in the tabernacle.
The second sense in which Moses is a Mediator, is he becomes one who mediates with God on behalf of the sins of the people. When Moses took too long chiseling/dictating the words of God on stone, they got impatient and threw a party. God was not happy....
But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God. “Lord,” he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’ ” Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.
Moses makes a way....
Moses is the prototype human
Moses becomes the one who resembles what it was all supposed to be like. Talking with God in intimacy, ruling from God’s power, bringing order from the chaos, defeating of evil.
Then the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet.
And yet he was always a foreshadow of what God was going to do in a full way.
Moses understood this....
Moses is a unique typological figure of Jesus, for his status as such is explicitly put forth in a prophecy by Moses himself in :
The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brethren—him you shall heed—just as you desired of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, “Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, or see this great fire any more, lest I die.” And the Lord said to me, “They have rightly said all that they have spoken. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brethren; and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And whoever will not give heed to my words which he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.”
Old Testament in the New Testament
The writers of the New Testament are seeing Jesus through their experiences and formation with their faith and their life.
For example, Moses in mentioned by name 43 times in the NT.
Matthews Gospel
Matthews Gospel’s gospel is actually shaped so that when you follow Jesus then the audience would think about Moses. Jesus comes out of Egypt and the next thing Matthew writes about is the baptism. He passes through the waters and into the desert. He goes up on the mountain to deliver his great teaching the sermon on the mount that extrapolates the law that they knew so well.
Moses is a typology of Jesus
Moses is a typology of Jesus. And let me flesh this out a little because a typology can just be a symbol of something else. Moses is more than a symbol. But in as much as he is sent from God he becomes the ultimate foreshadow of who God will send in His ultimate mission.
“Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house,” bearing witness to what would be spoken by God in the future. But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory.
Typology pointing to the ultimate....
Hebrews 3:
It is like those moments when we look at someone and see something greater behind them. It would be silly to look at the sistine chapel ceiling and not wonder about the artist Michaelangelo.
It is like those moments when we look at someone and see something greater behind them. It would be silly to look at the sistine chapel ceiling and not wonder about the artist Michaelangelo.
Moses happened. The exodus happened.
It is not just some analogy but rather it is an early installment of a series that will point to the endgame. Let me see how many nerds are in the room....
Show Endgame picture. How many of you saw all of the parts leading up to the last one. Your experience of endgame is much more like the first century experience of the audience. You saw the plot develop piece by piece and at the end it all sort of clicked. For me, my experience was a little different. Went and saw it the other day and loved it. But I was missing a lot because I got superhero fatigue and couldnt keep up with everything. So if I were to go back and watch some of the other movies then Endgame would make more sense. For all of us today, we are reminding ourselves of the earlier installment of God’s plan that was always point to Christ.
Moses happened. The exodus happened. It is not just some analogy but rather it is the first installment of a series that will point to the endgame. Far removed from each other, Moses and Jesus but they shared the heart of God. Obviously one more of inspiration and the latter more in the literal sense.
Far removed from each other, Moses and Jesus are, but they shared the heart of God. Obviously one more of inspiration and the latter more in the literal sense.
Let me give one more example of this, Friday night prayer night with one of our people.
The preacher of Hebrews is not pushing Moses down to make Jesus more important, he is showing the granduer of Jesus in the superiority of the mission of Moses....
Moses was a deliverer, Jesus is the deliverer:
He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Luke
Luke 4:
Moses established the Israelites, Jesus establishing all of God’s people:
1 Peter tells us that Jesus is the cornerstone to which the whole house is being built....
Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Moses was a mediator, Jesus is the mediator:
Jesus the mediator:
He becomes the mouthpiece of the people to God, and he becomes the one who intercedes on our behalf.....both in his death as a ransom for our sins and in his rule and reign at the right hand of God the father.
Moses was a prototype Jesus is the protoype....
The one who became fully human, fully sharing in God’s kingdom and fully and intimately involved in the will of God.
This new and better Moses has come to bring his people, the church, the new Israel, out of a slavery far worse than that imposed by Egypt—a slavery to sin and death. And by his death and resurrection he has defeated an anti-God figure much more heinous than a mere human pharaoh—Satan himself. And, having himself proceeded to a new, heavenly country, he will one day return to bring his people to a land far better than Israel’s piece of land in the Middle East—heaven itself. In the meantime the church, having experienced its own Exodus from sin and death, is now in its desert march awaiting that final redemption (see ).
Enns, P. E. (2000). Exodus (Book). In T. D. Alexander & B. S. Rosner (Eds.), New dictionary of biblical theology (electronic ed., p. 150). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
Practical:
The old testament is important
We are the house that Jesus built.
but this is a conditional statement....