Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction:

We have an enemy that desperately wants to shipwreck our faith and ruin our lives.

We are introduced to the tactics of that enemy in the book of Job… He is an enemy that believes that the only reason why your faith and trust in God abide is because the circumstances of your life are good.

He believes that the fundamental reason why you trust in God is because God has been good to you.

Satan believes that you are nothing more than a spiritual dog.

That the only reason why you don’t bite the hand of God is because God has been feeding you.

On the other hand we serve a wonderful and gracious Savior who uses all things and circumstances in life to grow and mature us into a perfect, complete, and holy brethren.

We serve as Savior who is daily preparing us for tremendous weight of glory.

On this side of eternity we experience pains, sorrows, loss, and (for the recipients of this letter) persecutions.

But what is their point?

Well, we know, revealed in the pages of Scripture that one point of those sorrows, tribulations, and persecutions is a work of the enemy to uproot our faith.

Jesus makes this plain in the Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13:18-23.

Another point revealed in the pages of Scriptures to the sorrows, tribulations, and persecutions is a work of God to ground us in our faith.

James makes this plain in James 1:2-4.

Here again the author to the Hebrews is desiring to strengthen and establish the faith of Jewish Christians during a season of great persecution and trial.

Theme: May we confidently hold fast to the hope of our calling through consideration of our Savior.

Consider Your Holy and Heavenly Calling

Hebrews 3:1a (ESV)

Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling […]

“Holy Brothers”

Author begins by helping us to understand who we are...

We are a holy brotherhood.

We are set apart for a spiritual purpose by your savior.

“You Who Share in the Heavenly Calling”

We are called to consider our heavenly calling.

Cf.

Philippians 3:14-20; Ephesians 2:6; Colossians 3:1-4

Or Consider Hebrews 11:13-16

Application: The vital importance of understanding who we are in Christ to endure the trials and difficulties of life.

Consider Your Exalted and Faithful Savior

Hebrews 3:1–6 (ESV)

[…] consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession,

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 […]

“Consider Jesus”

Consider/κατανοήσατε

The word he uses (katanoein) is significant and full of meaning.

It does not mean simply to look at or to notice a thing.

Anyone can look at a thing or even notice it without really seeing it.

The word means to fix the attention on something in such a way that its inner meaning, the lesson that it is designed to teach, may be learned.

The text puts the name of Jesus at the very end of the command to punctuate the person and work of Christ.

It literally reads, “Consider the apostle and high priest of our confession Jesus.”

The importance of considering Jesus in the Christian Life.

The table calling us back to consider Jesus.

The presence of four Gospel witnesses to the life of Christ.

The overwhelming reference to the person of Christ in the NT.

The calling to discipleship as being that of a follower.

“Apostle and High Priest”

The word “Apostle” means “sent one” or “delegate” and its usage here may initially confuse the reader.

The title apostle is used in a couple of different ways in our NT.

One being what we typically think of as an Apostle, an individual who was present for the life and ministry of Jesus and had a special relationship with Christ.

Another way in which it is used is of individuals sent by another.

Here, it is used of Christ, speaking of his being sent by God the Father to accomplish a specific task.

The title given to Christ of “High Priest” is one that is used of an intermediary between God and Man and we have already examined this title in the preceeding text, and will certainly return to it later.

The Latin for a priest is pontifex, which means a bridge-builder.

The priest is the person who builds a bridge between men and women and God.

To do that, the priest must know both human nature and God, and must be able to speak to God for men and women and in turn to speak to them for God.

Moses

One of the primary ways in which the writer of Hebrews wants us to consider/contemplate Jesus is by considering him in relationship with Moses.

Important because of the Jewish background of the book and also because of the temptations to fall back to Judaism because of persecution.

Moses was incredibly important in the Jewish mind.

He is given an incredible place of prominence in the OT (as we will see as we explore the text that the writer of Hebrews is expositing in this section).

Moses was the instrument through which God rescued Israel out of Egypt and formed them into a people.

Moses was one of the very few men in the OT era who were given an experience of God’s presence.

(Moses seeing the backside of God’s glory in Exodus 33:17-23.

God spoke to Moses directly in a way unlike any other prophet before him as declared in Numbers 12:8.

It was through Moses that Israel received the OT law, essentially their constitution.

Illustration: Abraham Lincoln portrait in MN State Capital Building House Chamber… “Why?” Someone put up the portrait and the tour guide said that “once you put up a picture of Abraham Lincoln it is very hard to justify ever taking it down.”

Argument from Moses: His argument about Moses essentially takes two tracks:

A Builder is Better than a Building

A Son is Better than a Servant

The author desired for his original hearers to see through this argument that to fall back into judaism because of pressure and persectuion was to trade the builder and son for the structure and and the slave.

Numbers 12:7-8

Numbers 12:7 (ESV)

Not so with my servant Moses.

He is faithful in all my house.

Hebrews 3:2 is the first introduction to a passage that the author of Hebrews wants us to consider as we examine how Christ is better than Moses.

This passage he will also return to quoting in Hebrews 3:5 as well.

This helps us to see the structure in his argument I noted earlier.

The author builds his argument for the superiority of Christ upon this text.

Before fleshing out his argument, he wants us to consider what these two men share in common, their faithfulness.

Two Faithful Ones

“Who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses […]”

The author starts with a place of commonality.

Moses and Jesus were both men who stand apart from others who proceeded and come after them in that they were both uniquely faithful to the work God had called them to do.

Obviously, Moses’ faithfulness is tempered somewhat by occassional transgressions in a way that Christ’ ministry was not.

However, the author’s point is that both of these men stand uniquely to have been declared faithful.

The faithfulness of Jesus is boldly declared in the Gospel of John where he says, Jno.

6:38–40; 8:29; 12:27-28; 15:10; 17:4.

A Builder is Better than the Building

Verse 3 begins to distinguish between Moses and Jesus.

“For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses”

Moses did experience and receive something of God’s glory if you recall Exodus 34:29-30, 35 and its quotation in 2 Corinthians 3:12-18.

Yet, Scripture unequivocally places more glory on Christ.

This can been seen in John 12:27-30 where it is said from heaven that Jesus will receive Glory from the Father.

This can been seen in the transfiguration of Matthew 17 where the two greatest figures of the OT appear with Christ (Moses and Elijah) and they converse with Christ.

There when the disciples wish to honor Moses, Elijah, and Christ these other two OT figures are immediately overshadowed by bright cloud which declares that the disciples were to listen to the Son.

Application: Perhaps no greater application can be made from this text than that which the Apostle Paul applied in 2 Corinthians 3:17-18.