Daily Reading: Hebrews 2v9 'But we see Jesus...'

My boys love the card game Top Trumps, we have various version of the game.  If you don't know it the aim of the game is simply to win the other persons card by having a higher number in the chosen category, thus trumping their card.  Some of the versions have been played so well the boys don't even have to look at the cards, but know them off by heart.

Hebrews is a bit like a pack of top trump cards.  The pastor's point in writing Hebrews is to show how in Jesus we have the ultimate expression of God, and therefore everything is better in him.  Jesus, God the Son, provides a better revelation of God than angels - Chapter 1-2.  Jesus is better than Moses - Chapter 3.  Jesus is a better High Priest - Chapter 4 and so on.  At each stage the pastor warns against drifting away from Jesus, from what we have heard, from the salvation he provides and so on.

"But Jesus..." could in many ways be a good two word summary of the book.  Hebrews 2v5-9 remind us of our need of Jesus.  How the world made to be under the rule of man as the pinnacle of God's creation has been marred and marked by sin.  How that is not how the world is any more, that is not what we see.  Instead we see chaos and war and decay, sin ruining God's good creation.  Then come those words in verse 9 "But we see him...".  We see Jesus - God the Son stepping into the darkness, the chaos, the world infected by sin, giving a glimpse of his authority and his rule over it as he raises the dead, calms the storm, feeds the hungry.  And ultimately as he breathes his last only to burst through death to new life again, so that by faith in him we may all share in his life, and his coming rule.

Why would you want to drift from him?  Why would you forget?  Why would you choose not to listen to this good news?  How will we ensure that none of those things happen to us?  Feed again on what is yours in Christ - we don't earn it - it is given to us by faith.

Daily Reading: Hebrews 2v1-4 'In danger of drifting?'

This Sunday we're thinking about Hebrews 2v9, but today I want to dwell on v1-4 to set the context:

How good are you at listening? Everybody hears but how good are we at listening attentively. Good listening takes active involvement and concentration.

The story is told of Franklin Roosevelt, who often endured long receiving lines at the White House. He complained that no one really paid any attention to what was said. One day, during a reception, he decided to try an experiment. To each person who came down the line and shook his hand, he murmured, “I murdered my grandmother this morning.” The guests responded with phrases like, “Marvelous! Keep up the good work. We are proud of you. God bless you, sir.”

It was not till the end of the line, while greeting the ambassador from Bolivia, that his words were actually heard. Nonplussed, the ambassador leaned over and whispered, “I’m sure she had it coming.”

How well did you listen to that story? Who was it about? Where was he? What did he say to the visitors? Where was the person who listened from?

Some of us were hearing but not listening, it was just background noise which we never really tuned in to.

Hebrews 2 moves from the soaring truths about the nature and superiority of Jesus – God’s ruling reigning Son, the creator and sustainer, the ultimate revelation of God – to applying that to the lives of the readers. And the application is that given who Jesus we must pay attention to him and the revelation he brings.

We make choices all the time about who we listen to.  Here the pastor writing Hebrews tells his church who they should listen to. 1:2 “In these last days he [God] has spoken to us by his Son... We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard.” Listen to the glorious Son of God. Listen to the one who is superior to the angels, who ascended and rules , who the Old Testament points to, who saves, who is unique, who supremely reveals God because he is God. He is worth listening to.

What does Jesus reveal to them(3)? “so great a salvation”, later in the chapter he describes it like this; “But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honour because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered. Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.” (9-11)

Jesus comes to reveal God and as he does so he reveals our need of forgiveness because our sin – our hard hearts, our refusal to acknowledge our creator – means we face judgement. But Jesus revelation, his message, is that he, God’s perfect Son, has come to take our deserved punishment, to stand in our place, so that our sin is paid for and we are credited with his perfect record and become God’s holy sons and daughters and his brothers and sisters.

That is worth listening to, worth paying careful attention to, it is a message beyond anything else we will ever hear in terms of importance. Listen to Jesus, pay close attention to his words and his living. He alone reveals God, every other word you hear pales into insignificance.

I wonder what you think the most significant words you have ever heard are – ‘Will you marry me?’ the first cry of your child, I love you, we’d like to offer you the job...they all pale into insignificance compared to the message of the gospel.

Jesus is worth listening to, listen to him his words bring life.

The pastor anticipates the question why should we listen and he answers with a warning about the consequences of not doing so and witnesses to verify the message.

(1)gives us an instruction and (2)“For” he is going to explain why, and he uses a lesser to a great argument.

He has established that Jesus is superior to angels and that the revelation he brings is superior to theirs. So if the angels message – the law – when ignored or broken brought punishment how much more is punishment deserved if the greater revelation and message is ignored or broken. If breaking the law led to punishment of the offender how on earth shall we escape if we ignore the Son of God the ultimate revelation of God and the message of salvation he brings! The answer is we won’t.

Who is this written to? Hebrew Christians, in fact the pastor applies it even to himself as he includes himself in this warning, “how shall we escape...”

It throws up a question doesn’t it; can you lose your salvation?

Part of our problem is that we think of salvation wrongly, we think of salvation as a past event. But in the Bible salvation is past, present and future. We have been saved when we trusted in Jesus – all our sins are paid for and we are viewed as God’s perfect children, but we are also being saved as we offer ourselves daily to God and grow in our understanding and application of salvation, and we will be saved finally when we are delivered from God’s judgement on the last day.

Be warned pay attention because you want to lay hold of your salvation not drift from it.

(3-4)It’s as if he is in a court of law calling witnesses to verify the message. In line with the Old Testament he produce 3 witnesses. The Lord announces salvation, it is confirmed by who? the apostles and other eyewitnesses, God testifies to who Jesus is and his message, how? By signs and wonders – just as he showed himself in redeeming Israel from slavery – and the Holy Spirit at work in Jesus followers is the final witness.

You can rely on the gospel and on Jesus but you must be warned not pay it careful attention is dangerous.

How does the pastor encourage his readers to listen? “We must pay the most careful attention...” That word carefully means frequently, especially, or to a greater degree. It is a call to attentiveness to active listening, to a listening that is keen, willing and active in application.

They must listen or they will drift. Life is not a pond which is still and in which you can stay still, it’s a river and if you are not making progress you are driven backwards, swept away. And notice that they aren’t in danger of outright rejection of the gospel, but of gradual, incremental, imperceptible drift.

We have to take this warning very seriously, so how can we spot if we are drifting?

There are two ways in the passage:

1. Not paying careful attention - Do we take time each day to dwell on our great salvation? Do we fix our thoughts on it, do we seek to apply it afresh to our lives every day? Do we delve into the bible longing to understand more of our great saviour and what he has saved us for or do we content ourselves with what we know? Do we take it for granted!

2. Ignoring our great salvation – That word ignore also carries with it the idea of neglecting something, not giving it the attention it deserves. There is the danger of distraction, we would never say we are ignoring the gospel, but we become taken up with other things they may be good things but they distract and draw us away effectively making us ignore the gospel; things like angels, or traditions, or ministry, or family, or money, or career.

Hebrews also contains some other signs of drifting:

1. Being hard hearted and not taking God’s warnings seriously

2. Not living looking for God’s promised rest

3. Not growing in our understanding and application of the gospel

4. Not spurring one another on

5. Giving up meeting together

6. Living by sight not by faith

7. Not fixing our eyes on Jesus and following his example

8. Forgetting the wonder of our salvation

9. Losing our joy

10.Grumbling

As you honestly evaluate your life and your heart do you see any of those symptoms? Are you in danger of drifting?  What is the antidote? How do we ensure we do not drift?

We pay careful attention to what we have heard. We turn back again to the gospel, the good news of Jesus. We don’t content ourselves with a cursory reading but we study it, we delve deeper into it, we do what the pastor does here; we seek to understand the wonder of who Jesus was and all he does, the full horror of our sin and the true wonder of our rescue and future. Because it is the gospel that is the fuel that fires our faith.

What happens if you put the wrong fuel in an engine? It may run ok for a short while but eventually as the mix of right fuel and wrong fuel works its way through the engine it coughs and splutters until it totally cuts out. You may be thinking I’ll redouble my effort, I’ll try harder, I’ll set aside longer for my readings, I’ll not get up until I have spent 20 minutes on my knees in prayer and so on... That will last for so long, but it is like the wrong fuel you will eventually cough and splutter and run out, because that is dependent on your own efforts.

By contrast Hebrews would call us to look at Jesus, refresh yourself in the gospel of grace and as you do that change will flow from your heart – don’t redouble your efforts but listen carefully, attentively to the gospel. That may mean we do some of those things we have just said – prioritise reading the bible, home group etc – but that will be because we are seeking to know Jesus rather than as an end in itself.

Be where you can hear the gospel, but don’t settle for just hearing it but work out what changes it is calling for in your life and put them into action, get others to help you do so. Take the time to build relationships where you can work the gospel into each others lives.

Don’t drift – are you drifting? Do you see some of the symptoms? Be amazed at who Jesus is and what he has done for us and pay it careful attention!

Hebrews 13:1-17 Living looking for the City

I was really struck in preparing for yesterday just how good God is and how powerfully his word speaks to us his people throughout the centuries. It is timely, living, pertinent, challenging, encouraging, uplifting and precious.

Here are the notes from my rather lame attempt at teaching and applying God's word.

What is worship? How do you and I this morning worship God? How do we do it tomorrow? Authentic worship is life lived in praise of God and shared, in cross patterned love, with others.

I guess we think of conflict over worship being a very modern thing. But worship was a contentious issue in the first century, in fact the Hebrews are under-pressure because they’ve given up Jewish ways of worship and adopted those of disciples of Jesus. They’ve given up an authorised worship for an unauthorised one. Their faith has transformed their thinking and worshipping just as it should because Jesus is the fulfilment of the sacrifices, the temple, the priesthood, and the Old Testament, he is greater than any other mediator, greater than Moses, and brings a new way of worshipping God which makes the old obsolete.

But they are feeling the pressure, not least from the Jews. Judaism is an authorised religion, Christianity isn’t. It has led some to be imprisoned, to have property confiscated and to be publicly exposed to insult. And it may be about to happen again. Sometimes going through something once makes it easier the second time round, but sometimes it just means you know what is coming.

Wouldn’t life be easier if they compromised, if they adopted and adapted, if they played down the uniqueness of Christ, or how he transforms worship. I guess they are pressures we’re familiar with.

As the pastor closes his letter he wants them to respond rightly to God’s grace in Jesus and live worshipping boldly by faith. 12:28 “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.”

What are the marks of such worship?

1. Practical Worship
As the pastor examines what it means to worship God his focus is on their love for one another and the actions that produces, actions dependent not on circumstance but commitment.

a. love in action. (1-2) What does he call them to do? “Keep on loving...” Continue to do what you’re doing; love your family of faith. How do you do that? It’s back to 12:15-17, living at peace, watching out for each other and working the gospel into each other’s lives. This love is also shown in showing hospitality to strangers – having brothers and sisters you don’t know into your home. What is the motivation he gives for this? “for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.” Abraham is the man in question(Gen 18), the people you show hospitality may be a blessing from God to you.

b. Commitment in Crisis(3) Back in 10:32-34 the pastor reminds them of how when they faced hardship and opposition in the past they identified with those in prison and being mistreated, how they committed to them. Keep on doing that he says, don’t distance yourself but identify with them. Remember means not just to think about them and pray for them but to actively show compassion, its practical outworking was providing for the families of those in prison for their faith and for the prisoner themselves.

c. Pursue Purity(4) What is the next outworking of practical worship? Honour marriage and pursue purity. Flee from any sexual immorality – any sexual activity outside of marriage. Why? Because the sexually immoral will be judged. Sexual immorality and discipleship are incompatible.

d. Be content and confident(5-6) What are they to avoid? “the love of money”. Money is not evil, but loving money is. Instead be content with what you have. Previously when persecuted the Hebrews had their property confiscated but reacted joyfully, why? because they knew they “had better and lasting possessions.” Here the call is to contentment in God’s presence and trust in his promise. Contentment flows over into confidence even as possessions are taken away by those who oppose them enabling them to say and live(6).
Worshipping God is living practically day by day in the light of his word, its warnings and its promises. It is allowing that to seep deep into our hearts and our thinking so that our actions flow from grace, transformed by Jesus.

How is your worship this morning? Is it practical, is it love in action, is it committed in crisis, are you pursuing purity as one way you worship God, are you content because of your confidence in God.

2. Distinctive Worship (7-19)
It is important, however, not just to do the right things but to have the right focus, all through Hebrews the call has been to focus on Jesus Christ and it’s the same here.
(7)Remember those who taught you the word of God, their way of living, their faith in action, and live like them grounded on what they were grounded in. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

Why do they need to remember it? Because they are in danger of being carried away from it by strange teaching. This stranger teaching is a weird blend of Judaism and Christianity; it isn’t that they are in danger of abandoning Christianity but adapting and adopting a fusion of the two. Notice the contrast in (9)feed on grace not ceremonial foods; the church was in danger of adopting sacramentalism, special meals and the like as ways of worship, as additions to the gospel.

The gospel has transformed their worship but they are tempted to go back. But, the pastor says, you don’t need food to strengthen your faith, what you eat won’t build you up, grace will. You don’t need an altar or a high priest from the temple because you have the cross, you have Jesus who fulfils all that and whose once for all offering makes you right with God.
Why are they tempted to adopt elements of Judaism? Comfort of the familiar maybe, it will make them less distinctive and ease their suffering. (11-14)Why do I say that? Because he exhorts and encourages them to identify with Jesus, to stand out, to go outside the camp – to leave the people of Israel. Why? Because disciples follow their master and that is what Jesus did for us suffering outside the city, rejected by the people to make us holy. And because we know now is temporary and what is eternal is to come and that is what we live looking for.

The worship of the disciple is to be distinctive, (15-16)it is to openly profess and confess his name in word and loving action. Worship is transformed by Jesus, every believer serves God, with worship that is from both lip and hip.

We need this call to distinctive living; worshipping Jesus by confessing him because we face those same pressures to compromise not with Judaism but with multiculturalism. The pressure is always there to compromise, to fit in, be it through adopting society’s values or simply by not confessing what we believe and allowing others to assume our silence means consent.

Fundamentally the problem is allowing society to shape us rather than God’s word. And the pressure is on us just as it was the Hebrews not to believe God’s word, not to live by it, not to hold the it is THE truth.

Identify with your Saviour, worship distinctively.

3. Led to worship God
One of the features of Hebrews has been the reminder that each of us has pastoral responsibility to care for others, to look out for, encourage and teach one another the Bible. Here the pastor turns to the churches responsibility to their leaders as they carry out their task.

What are the churches leaders to do? (7)teach the Bible, model the bible, have an imitate-able faith, and keep watch over you as those who must give an account. Leaders are accountable for those they lead, that’s why leadership is something to be aspired to but not something to take on lightly – and you fulfil that charge as you faithfully teach God’s word in every context; be it Sunday morning, or at Lighthouse, or 1-2-1 or through conversations, and as you stay fixed in focus on Jesus.

How is the church to treat its leaders? Remember them, have confidence in them, and submit to them. Make their leading of you a joy not a burden. How do you do that? You respond to the teaching of the Bible, engaging with it together, you love one another practically.

How could you make it burdensome for your leaders? By being apathetic to the Bible being taught, by not focusing on Jesus, by worrying more about traditions and sacraments than grace, by not being changed as you are exposed to the Bible, and by drifting, hardening your heart and so on.

It poses the question doesn’t it; am I a joy to lead?

I think there is another danger with leaders today. One large church in the US found that when their internationally renowned pastor was on his sabbatical church attendance dropped 25%. Our problem in the western church is that we buy into the celebrity culture. We must not!

God gives us leaders to teach us the bible, to model gospel living, to care for us, and for us to submit to and trust but in no sense are they to be worshipped. They must not be put on a pedestal.

The letter to the Hebrews is a great model of this? Who wrote Hebrews? No one is sure, but that doesn’t matter, what we see is a pastor who constantly points his people to Jesus, who teaches those under his care how to use the bible and how to worship God in the light of grace.

“The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can human beings do to me?” Do we have that confidence that will liberate us from the fear of man, from being though of as non-pc? Remember God’s promise he will never leave us, remember what he has done for us in Jesus and strengthen your hearts by feeding on grace, by thinking about it, meditating on it. And live worshipping God distinctively despite the pressure.

Hebrews 10:1-18 Jesus: our once for all sacrifice

‘What does God really want?’ Have you ever thought about it? What would it take for someone to please God? Is it sacrifices, is it being good, is it giving away money?

Last weeks House opened with a guy being led up onto a hill carrying a cross, before he was then crucified. It turned out during the course of the programme that it was a deal he had made with God, every year his daughter stayed in remission from her cancer he would do that to show his faith in God. It is a fascinating idea, is that what God really wants? Is that the kind of deals God makes? Is such an action pleasing to him? Is that what it takes to earn God’s favour?

Hebrews is written to Jewish Christians who have left Judaism to follow Jesus, but who, under pressure from society, are drifting or being drawn back to adopt and adapt elements of their old religion with their new faith. The Pastor is encouraging them to persevere, to stay fixed on Jesus Christ because he is the only way to God, he is the ultimate high priest making the ultimate offering and securing unique access to God for his people. Here he summarises what he’s said about Jesus ministry and what he secures for his people, and answers the question ‘What does God really want?’ focusing on ‘what Jesus really gives’

1. What God really wants?
If you‘d asked a 1st Century Jew what God wanted what answers do you think you would have been given? The answers would have focused on obeying the law, the temple and the sacrifices which took place there. In fact that is exactly the answers that were given to Jesus. The Sinai covenant showed God’s people how to live, the temple was a sign of God’s presence with its offerings performed as God stipulated.

So (1)was revolutionary, what does the pastor say? “The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming – not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeatedly endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship.” The law is not the real thing it is just an outline, it gives a vague idea, and it can’t make you right with God. Even the sacrifices for sin, the burnt offerings, sin offering and fellowship offerings can’t do it.

In fact the continual repetition of these offerings prove that they do not decisively deal with sin, that they can’t, because if an offering made the offerer perfect there wouldn’t be the need for another offering, but there is because they can’t. In fact their repetition (3)is a yearly reminder of the seriousness of sin and its consequences in separating people from God.

What does God want? Imperfect offerings are not enough because they cannot take away sin and restore relationship.

So what does God want? (5-10)The pastor puts the words of Psalm 40 on Jesus lips, as David prophecies about the coming of the Messiah and what he would do.

What did God not want? (5)"Sacrifice and offering...burnt offerings and sin offerings...” What does God want? (7)”I have come to do your will, my God.” Someone who carries out, who lives out his will. He wants someone who fulfils the law, the Sinai covenant was given so that God’s redeemed and blood bought children would live as such but they could not. Enshrined in it was what God really wanted Deuteronomy 6v4 “Hear O Israel; the LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and all your soul and with all your strength.” That is what God wants.

In the Garden of Eden Adam and Eve lived like that and they never had to make an offering to atone for sin. But after the fall sin has to be atoned for, Cain, Abel, Noah, Abraham, all make offerings even before the law is given and afterwards Moses, Joshua, David, Solomon, continue because sin remains a constant cause of separation from God, but those offerings have to be repeated because sin is never decisively dealt with.

What is needed as David prophesies is one who will come and do what man cannot, perfectly fulfil God’s will, who will love God with all his heart, soul, and strength. God the Son becomes incarnate to do God’s will. That is what the battle rages over in the desert as Jesus is tempted. ‘Come on’ the Devil is saying ‘you don’t want to do the hard yards, you don’t want to do God’s will look where that will lead you.’ But Jesus remains determined, even in the Garden on the cusp of betrayal, desertion, injustice and in the face of God’s wrath he says “I have come to do your will, my God.”

Christ’s coming (8-10)shows the inadequacy of the first offerings and sacrifices. What God really wants Jesus incarnate gives. God doesn’t want sacrifices or offerings he wants his people to obey him as he deserves, to love him with all their heart, soul and strength.

(10)Jesus is what God really wants, and he lives as he does and dies as he does willingly to make us holy once and for all.

What does God require of us? There is nothing we can contribute that will make us right with God. If the sacrifices and offerings that occur in the temple can’t deal with sin how foolish of us to think we can make deals with God, or offer sacrifices that will make us acceptable. What God requires we can’t provide, but Jesus does it for us.

If you find yourself thinking if I just stop this, whatever it is drink less, swear less, get angry less, or maybe do more I’ll be more friendly, help more people, give more away none of those things even repeated frequently are enough. Why do I say that because sin is so serious Jesus had to come to die for us, to think our efforts at behaviour modification can achieve what his death does is insulting and inadequate.

Jesus makes us holy by his life and death.

2. What Jesus really gives (11-18)
Jesus fulfils God’s requirements, he lives life perfectly meeting God’s requirements, and as a High Priest mediates a better covenant for us. (11-14)Contrast the old covenant priesthood with Jesus to emphasis the superiority of his ministry, mediation and what is the believers by faith in Christ.

(11)The priest stands and performs his sacrifices daily – every day, repeated again and again, making the same sacrifices continually because they cannot provide forgiveness of sins.
How does (12)begin? “But”. By contrast Jesus offers one sacrifice, not repeatedly but once forever, and his sacrifice is himself, and having offered that sacrifice what does he do? He sits – he doesn’t stand to continue offering sacrifices - his work complete, his once for all sacrifice enough and he is seated at God’s right hand waiting. And his once for all sacrifice makes his people perfect for every.

Jesus gives God what he wants, and then by dying in our place takes our sin and transfers to us his perfect record, so that God sees us as those who do his will, so that God views us as his perfect sons and daughters. We are given that status made holy(11), made perfect(14) so why would you go back to what cannot perfect, what is only a vague shadow.

Do you see what Jesus gives us? What do we contribute to our salvation? Nothing, only our sin and need.

But he is not finished there. (15-18)Under the new covenant, in Jesus we are given new hearts on which God by his Spirit applying his word writes the law. God’s people are forgiven and given a new status, we contribute nothing to our salvation but we are to live in the light of what we have been given.

Do you see your status this morning? Jesus provides God with what he wants and transfers that status to us – his once for all sacrifice cleanses us and gives us new hearts. There is nothing we can do to add to it. When you have sinned this week there is no sense in which you can atone for it, God will not punish you to balance the scales, there is no cosmic Karma. You are made perfect by Jesus one sacrifice.

I guess we aren’t tempted to build an altar in the garden and slaughter a bull or goat but sometimes we do find ourselves thinking we ought to atone for what we have done. You cannot and you need not! Isn’t that liberating, Jesus has done it all there is nothing left to add to what he has done.

But accepting and following Jesus transforms us, we aren’t saved to sin, we are saved to serve. God puts his law on our heart and minds so that as a result of recognising the wonder of what Jesus has done for us we live in the of light of it. So that we follow Jesus our lives a living echo of his words “I have come to do your will”. Living to delight our loving heavenly father and following Jesus who has saved us.

Grace transforms, legalism binds. Don’t turn back to the inadequate fix your eye son your glorious Saviour and live transformed by grace.

What does that look like? We’ll come back to Hebrews 10 after Christmas but just look at:

• (19)We make use of our access to God – children naturally talk to their Father because they can, they have a relationship that provides them with unlimited access. So do we.
• (23)We don’t abandon our hope – we don’t turn aside from trusting Jesus alone but we persevere, we must not add anything to Jesus as our hope.
• (24)We spur one another on to love and good deeds – we work the gospel into each other’s lives so it bears practical results. How by meeting together, praying together, sharing our lives together. By engaging not in small talk and not in spiritual talk but in real life talk – helping each other apply the gospel of grace to every situation we face in our lives.
• (25)We commit to one another – to be here (That feels a bit like preaching to the choir this morning give the weather). It also means we need to be committed to encouraging others to being here. Phoning them, giving lifts, etc...
• (26)We encourage one another – that means keep on reminding each other of the wonder of salvation and provoking each other to live in the light of grace.

Hebrews 9 Jesus: Our Redeemer

If you hold on to something it comes back into fashion, Take That albums that were once embarrassing are back, and tickets for their tour sold out in hours. With toys Lego was almost out of business 5 years ago but now is one of the must have toys for Christmas.

And it isn’t just in music and toys but religious beliefs too, despite its name ‘new age’ ideas and spiritualism are actually a collection of old thought patterns and practices that venerate the natural world. And at this time of year it’s seen in people’s desire to go to a traditional carol service, with carols, an old building, and uncomfortable pews.
Sometimes the old is more attractive than the new.

We’ve seen over the last few weeks in Hebrews that part of their struggle with following Jesus is their gazing back longingly at their former Judaism with its traditions, sacraments, ceremonies, and symbols. Would it be so bad to go back to the Old Covenant, or to incorporate some Old Covenant worship into their worship? To do so would alleviate some of the pressure they‘re under, so why not?

The pastor’s answer is to prove the superiority again of what is theirs in Jesus. He begins by examining in detail the Old Covenant(1-10), outlining the physical structure of the tabernacle(1-5) its sections and curtains, and then looking at the reminders of God’s work and his relationship with Israel in the tabernacle. The tablets of the covenant inscribed with the 10 commandments, Aaron’s staff which budded, the jar with manna in and so on, and then having described the physical structures, symbols and reminders moves on to the worship(6-10).

And what he emphasises is that the Old Covenant and its worship fails in two key ways. Israel were meant to be God’s people (7) “But only the high priest entered the inner room, and that only once a year, and never without blood, which he offered for himself and for the sins the people had committed in ignorance.” What is the problem? Access to God. Only one person, one day per year went into the Holy of Holies. Why? Because of sin. (8)The Holy Spirit teaches that the way into God’s presence is closed.

But there is a second problem connected with the first (9)what is it? “gifts and sacrifices which are offered there cannot perfect the conscience of the worshipper...” The sacrifices for sin are repeated and therefore temporary, they can’t cleanse from sin, they can’t cleanse consciences – the inward faculty which determined right and wrong.

The Old Covenant was good but it didn’t bring relationship with God and it couldn’t cleanse conscience – sin remained the default mode, but(10) there is hope, what is it? It lasts only until the new order, or until it is reformed. Jesus established that new order, you are new covenant people; the way to relationship with God is open and your conscience has been cleansed.

1. Jesus blood cleanses once for all
How does (11)begin? “But when Christ came...” That for the pastor, and the Hebrews, is the defining moment in history because it utterly transformed the most fundamental thing in all the universe; the relationship between humanity, creation and its creator.

Before Christ came man was cut off from God and could not enjoy intimate relationship with him because of sin, it tainted our conscience and made us predisposed to rebel against God– that is the story of the Old Testament where the faithful stand out because they wait believing that God will make relationship possible one day, and in Jesus God came to solve those problems.
Jesus High Priesthood is far greater than that of the Old Covenant, he ministers in heaven(12) and offered his blood securing our eternal redemption. (14)God the Son offers himself to his Father without blemish through the Spirit and cleanses not just the externals temporarily but our consciences from sin forever – it is no longer inevitable that we will sin, that’s what Jeremiah promised the New covenant would change “I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts.”

What the Old Testament offerings couldn’t do Jesus blood does, our consciences are cleansed, sin is no longer our master we are ransomed, redeemed from slavery to sin, the price is paid and we are free from sins mastery. But do you notice what we are redeemed from and for? (14)We are freed from acts that lead to death to serve the living God. Blood was used to consecrate objects in the temple for worship(20), to set them aside for God’s service. By Jesus blood our consciences are changed so that we long to obey God and we are consecrated, set apart for God’s service.

In Christ the old covenant problem is overcome, sin is no longer your master; we are given a new heart so that we can serve God.

But hang on that poses a question doesn’t it; are we saying that without putting your faith in Jesus it’s impossible to please God? Yes, you may do good things, you may be a nice person but without putting your faith in Jesus you can’t live a life that pleases God, because your conscience is faulty.

We have a grandfather clock in our house, its broken the hands are stuck at 10.15. Twice a day that clock is right and if you walked in at 10.15 and looked at it you may think it worked, but even though it looks right twice a day it is broken. The mechanism is faulty. We may do good things but they are not done to bring God glory, we are a bit like the grandfather clock, and just as the clock needs a new mechanism so it fulfils its designers purpose so we need a new heart so that we fulfil the purpose we were made for; to glorify God and enjoy relationship with him for eternity.

By trusting in Jesus you can have that, you could go out and stubbornly try to do it yourself this week and you may do what is right more than twice a day but the essential problem will remain you won’t be fulfilling the purpose you were made for, only by trusting Jesus can you have a new heart.

If this morning you have trusted Jesus your conscience has been cleansed, your default setting is not pleasing self but pleasing God and you are saved to serve him. How do you do that?

After Christmas we’ll look at Ch12-13, but turn there now and we see how the Hebrews are to serve God, what it means to live with a cleansed conscience:
• (13:1)Keep on loving one another
• (2)show hospitality
• (3)remember those who are suffering
• (4)honour marriage
• (5)be content not greedy
• (6)live godly lives as you see modelled
• (9-10)hold on to the gospel
• (11-14)endure suffering
• (15)praise God
• (16)do good
• (17)submit to your leaders

Do you notice the liberating thing about serving God? It is in the everyday, it isn’t about going to Outer Mongolia as a missionary. It is in the way we open our homes, we care for each other and forgive each other, it affects our marriages and so on and it was what Christ cleanses us and sets us apart for.

2. Christ’s blood opens up access to God
What is a covenant? A binding agreement which provides an established basis for relationship between two parties. The Old Covenant established that we are separated from God because of our sin, but Jesus blood mediates a new covenant. Just as a will comes into effect after the death of the person who made it so this new covenant comes into effect after Jesus death. And the new covenant is superior to the old, it opens up access to God, fulfilling the promise of Jeremiah; “they will all know me, from the least to the greatest.”

Under the old covenant the blood of animals purifies the tabernacles and all its implements, but Jesus blood, a better sacrifice, purifies the heavenly things. That poses a question – why would heavenly things need to be purified?

Some suggest that it’s because Satan goes before God therefore heaven is tainted by sin. But I think context give us the answer (24)Christ enters heaven to do what? “to appear for us in God’s presence.” There has to be cleansing in heaven because we are going there, Christ purifies us by his sacrifice, he opens up the way to a restored relationship with God by purifying the way to heaven for us, he goes before us trailblazing the way. Just as the tabernacle was cleansed so people could approach and worship God so by Christ’s blood heaven is made accessible to us so we can worship God.

How do we know we have access to God? Because Christ appears now in the presence of God for us, his sacrifice once for all accepted, our consciences cleansed and the covenant sealed.
There are three appearing of Christ mentioned here and each points to what he has done for us. In the past Christ appeared (11)to cleanse our conscience, now he appears before God for us(24) opening up the way so we draw near to God, and he will appear(28) again to do what? Not to bear sin because he has done that once for all through his blood but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him, those who have lived by faith.

We have cleansed consciences, re-orientated so that we live for God’s glory, we have access to God by Jesus superior ministry, in the heavenly throne room, and by his blood which is far superior to that offered in the tabernacle and which purifies us and provides forgiveness and access to God whilst we wait for Jesus return.

Live waiting, don’t abandon your faith, don’t drift back to the shadows, to the inadequate, to what can’t cleanse your conscience and open up access to God. We plead a better blood than bulls or goats, the blood of Jesus Christ who offered himself through the Spirit unblemished to God securing our ransom, redemption and sealing the new covenant by which God’s Spirit is poured out into our hearts so that we love and please him and can draw near to God without fear.

(10:19-25)So have confidence to come to God, hold to your faith, spur each other on, meet together.

Hebrews 7 Jesus: Our Eternal High Priest

With our PA desk out of action the quality of the MP3 on the church website isn't brill, so here's the notes as a rough guide.

How do you respond to pressure? There’s the subtle but pervasive pressure from the culture around us not be too passionate about our faith, or too dogmatic about the gospel, or too vocal about Jesus being the only way to be saved. There is the pressure of popularity or just maintaining friendships which means we feel there are topics we’d better stay silent on. Then there is the pressure that comes from just being different, just feeling that bit alien that is apparent in our attitude and approach to Christmas and Hallowe’en, or marriage, sex and relationships.

Pressure works in a number of ways, it can be passive or active and our response to it can be equally active or passive. The Hebrews are under pressure; they are facing pressure because they are different to society and they have been persecuted for it in the past. They just don’t fit in, they don’t follow pagan ways of worship with its polytheism, ritual and thinking but nor do they fit with Judaism its laws, religion and thinking.

They are reacting to these pressures and how they react can be dangerous, some of them are reacting passively; drifting, being lazy and the like, others come from a wrong active response; hardening their hearts, refusing to believe, not maturing in their faith. But whether the response is passive or active the outcome is the same they are losing their assurance, shrinking back, no longer confident about their relationship with God and living out their faith.

Here in the meat of the letter the pastor is calling them to recognise that they have assurance, confidence, help, hope, and they are God’s children and should persevere because of Jesus their great high priest.

Are you feeling the pressures this morning? One of the most subtle dangers is that we can be unaware of our active and passive responses; our drift is so gradual that we don’t spot it, our laziness passed off as just being laid back, or our hardening hearts excused as the result of various circumstances.

How do you spot if you are in danger of responding wrongly? The early warning sign is losing your joy in the gospel. Reading the Bible, prayer, being with other believers is becoming a habit, you don’t anticipate it, you aren’t excited by it. Look again at Jesus and rediscover your wonder in what God has done for you.

1. Jesus: Our Unique High Priest
What can you tell me about Melchizedek? In Gen 14 Abram gives him a tenth of his plunder from defeating the kings. He is then referred to in Psalm 110:4. But that’s it – he is mentioned in 4 verses besides Hebrews 5-7 in the rest of the Bible. So why is he mentioned here?

In ch5 twice we’re told Jesus is a High Priest in the order of Melchizedek, and the point of Melchizedek’s supporting appearance here isn’t that we try to work out who he is, he functions simply to show us something amazing about Jesus. He is there to provide fuel for our faith in Jesus not to confuse, befuddle or fascinate us.

(1-10)provide a summary and commentary on the Gen14 meeting of Abraham and Melchizedek. He is King of Salem (Hebrew for peace) and his name means king of righteousness, and he is priest of God Most High. What are we told in (3)? He is without father or mother.
Now here is where the debate starts, some contend that this verse is telling us that because Melchizedek is without father or mother, beginning or end and resembles the Son of God he is a pre-incarnation appearance of Jesus.

I don’t think that is right. The phrase without father or mother is clarified with the next clause which is what? “without genealogy”, in other words we don’t have his genealogy, we don’t know about his father and mother, we also don’t know about his birth or death because he only appears for 3 verses in Gen14. But the key phrase is; “resembling the Son of God”; who resembles who? Melchizedek resembles Jesus, Melchizedek is similar to Jesus. Jesus doesn’t resemble Melchizedek, instead Melchizedek has certain features which give us a picture of who Jesus is and his role is.

Melchizedek is a man, he combines the roles of priest and king just like Jesus and he was a priest whose priesthood had no end. What is the point the pastor is making? Look at the last phrase (3) "he remains a priest forever”

Melchizedek priesthood functions as a picture of, it is similar to, Jesus High Priesthood.
He then moves on to tell the Hebrew believers that Melchizedek is greater than Abraham because Abraham gave him a tenth of the plunder(4-10), and that his priesthood isn’t like that of the Levites. Melchizedek isn’t part of a succession of priests, he isn’t a priest because of family or descent he is priest of God Most High because God appointed him to be, his priesthood is unique and greater than Levi’s. And yet this great priest greater than Abraham to whom the promises are given, greater than Levi is just a pale picture of Jesus High priesthood.

Our problem with this passage is that we can get so hung up on Melchizedek that we miss the point, he points us to Jesus. His priesthood gives us a little taste. It’s a bit like the preparations for a big meal, and you walk into the kitchen and are asked to just try a little bit of something, you taste it and it gives you a hunger for the whole meal with all its tastes and courses and splendour. Melchizedek is there to point us to Jesus, to focus on Melchizedek is to miss the point. Jesus is our Unique High Priest, that’s what the rest of the chapter focuses on, so let’s get on to the main course.

2. Jesus: Our Saviour and Security
The pastor now focuses on Jesus, he is in the order of Melchizedek not Aaron or Levi. What tribe is he from? Judah, no-one from Judah has ever been a priest, but perfection couldn’t be attained through the old covenant with its Levitical priesthood(11). The High Priests job was to intercede for the people and to make offerings for their sin, but it was a continual job, and every high priest died and someone else had to take his place and keep on interceding and offering. The whole system was a picture that pointed to the need for one to come who would bring a better hope, a way back to God, a way sin could be dealt with.

The old covenant spoke of the seriousness of sin and showed the need for a new priest who could save. Jesus is that priest and his coming shows the need for a new covenant which deals with sin.
But what evidence is there that Jesus is this new priest of the new covenant. (16)Jesus is that priest because he lived an indestructible life, he died but conquered death and now he is exalted and reigning at the right hand of God where he is our High Priest.

But secondly because (17-22)God speaks an oath, here the Pastor takes Psalm 110:4 and applies it to Jesus. Jesus is God’s priest because God said he is and God’s oaths are unbreakable, God is faithful to them. He has just referred to Abraham and the promises God gave, last week we saw the oath God made and kept with Abraham. God promises a Saviour who will be a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek, who is a priest forever, Jesus is that priest and (22) the guarantor of a better covenant. What does a guarantor do? They pay the debt if you can’t, that is what Jesus does he assumes our debt when we cannot pay it – he is the price of the new covenant.

Levitical priests were temporary Jesus priesthood is permanent, Levitical intercession was temporary Jesus’ is eternal. Levitical sacrifices were a picture of the need for forgiveness for sin and the price of atonement Jesus sacrifice is once for all time(27), Levitical priests had to offer sacrifices for their sin Jesus who was holy, blameless, pure, set apart, didn’t(27), Jesus is the perfect High Priest(28).

Jesus is the ultimate High Priest. Why does that matter amid the pressures of life amid the dangers of passively or actively responding wrongly to those pressures? Because:

• We have a better hope, that doesn’t depend on us or others but on Jesus, (23)who saves us completely – utterly and eternally.
• We have a new covenant – one which by faith in Jesus secures our future, by which we are forgiven and given the Spirit.
• We can draw near to God – does that amaze you? We can come to the almighty creator, in all his holiness, because of Jesus, we come as his loved children viewed through Jesus perfect record. That liberates us to pray doesn’t it? It’s not about a set pattern but a relational reality, dependent children coming to their loving Father.
• Jesus always lives to intercede for us, he is eternally before the Father on our behalf, interceding for us in our struggles and weaknesses because he has felt them. Because of Jesus we can approach God confidently not condemned knowing that we will find grace to help us in our time of need.

How are you respond to pressures? The Hebrews were responding passively drifting, not being too passionate, being lazy not feeding themselves or by hardening their hearts, refusing to believe, refusing to trust in God, maybe not theologically but practically.

Some of us our responding to the pressures we feel in the same ways. We are content to drift, or be lazy – look back and ask yourself have I grown in the last year, have I changed? Some of us practically are refusing to trust God but holding on to things ourselves, taking things to God but then taking them back. Some of us are looking back at the joy we once had and realise we have let it slip away. Some are battling not to let any of those things happen.

How do you get back to where you were? It’s not by effort. The Pastor doesn’t say try harder – he says see Jesus, see what he has done for you, see that he is your unique high priest of a new covenant and all the riches and treasures of relationship with God he opens up to you, be refreshed, be encouraged, see the resources that are yours in Christ because we have a high priest who truly meets our needs and intercedes for us forever.

Hebrews 4:1-13 - Jesus: the way to rest.

Here are my notes from yesterday:

Last week we looked at Israel as an example not to follow, what was their problem? Unbelief, they refused to believe God’s promise and enter the Land, and the pastor writing to the Hebrews is worried that they too may be hard hearted and lapse into unbelief.

He is continuing his exhortation to faith as he interprets, explains and applies Psalm 95, as God speaks through his word by his Spirit. There are two sides to this warning 3:7-19 are a call not to harden your hearts and here he sets before them and us the promise of entering God’s rest by persevering in faith in Jesus.

1. Rest reached by faith
What do you think of when I say rest? Sleep, lazy day by pool, doing nothing, relaxing...

The pastor wants his readers to understand the rest God promises and how to get there.
a. Promised by God (1)“Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful...” God promises his people rest, just as he promised Canaan to Israel, and God keeps his word. The bible is the story of God keeping his word – he kept his promise that if Adam and Eve ate the fruit they would die, he kept his promise that Abraham would have a son, that Israel would be freed from Egypt, and ultimately of one who would be bruised but would crush Satan – Jesus God the Son.

God is a promise keeping God and he the promise to enter his rest still stands. Believe in his word.

b. It is still open The promise still stands, the pastor exhorts his readers to enter now. But how is that possible? Psalm 95 looks back to the events of Numbers 14 when Israel are on the verge of Canaan with its end to bloodshed struggle and frustration, and its promised fruitfulness, unhampered constructive activity and security, and says God’s rest is still open because Canaan was a picture pointing back to Eden and forward to an eternal rest.

But here the pastor adds another dimension, v3-4, what new idea does he introduce? God’s rest on the 7th day. Gen 2 “Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.”

God rests on the seventh day because creation is complete, he has finished his creative work. It is the pinnacle, the climax of creation and notice it is different from the other 6 days – there is no morning and evening and thus no end to it. The Sabbath rest is not idleness but it is the ongoing state of fellowship with God in which Adam and Eve serve in the perfect garden.

That rest is still available says the pastor(8-9), it is still open.

c. It’s worth entering But what is it like? We have seen it is spoken of in terms of Eden, which the Promised Land looked back to, that it isn’t blissful inactivity but serving in fellowship with God in perfect security without frustration or futility. But there is more, how does he describe it(9)? “a Sabbath-rest for the people of God.”

On the surface that tell us much because we think of the Sabbath as a day for not doing much, perhaps it conjures up rules from your childhood – no ball games, no playing out etc... But the idea is of a Sabbath celebration, a festival of adoration and praise to God. There remains then a fellowship festival of joyful celebration of God for his people. It’s the hope of an exuberant, constructive, active, secure, blissful celebration of being in unfettered fellowship with God.

d. It is coming and yet is now (9-11)Just as Israel journeyed to the Promised Land so for the Hebrews and us God’s rest is in the future. When Jesus comes again we shall finally enter God’s rest and enjoy everything that goes with it.

But there is more than just hope for the future, how was the Promise of Canaan meant to impact the Israelites? They were meant to live in the light of it, it was to affect their every action, because their hope was certain, they were to draw the reality of the promise into everyday life. We see that in Joshua and Caleb – in their mind the land is theirs therefore they see and live by faith.
We rest in and on what God has done for us in Jesus our High Priest and Apostle and by faith in God’s word live in the light of our certain hope and future and the rest we will enjoy. It liberates us to live now.

e. It is entered by faith (2-3)The promised land was Israel’s for believing but they didn’t. But do you see what the pastor says “For we also have had the good news proclaimed to us...” The good news of being able to enter God’s rest because of Jesus death and resurrection for us and our being credited with his perfect record.

And we are to respond by faith to that message, we enter by faith. We are to be careful that we believe, we are not to let our hearts become hardened, we are to encourage each other so we continue to believe, and the effort (11)speaks of is not works but avoiding disobedience which is unbelief.

God promises that by faith in Jesus we will enter his rest, a rest which is worth entering, that is coming and yet we taste now, that is still open, that is certain because he promises it, and which is reached by faith. Don’t fall short, believe.

It’s easy to sit here and think there is no danger of that. But God speaks to us warning us of just that danger. We face it because we live breathing in the air of cynicism that pervades our society. And that cynicism will infect us. How will we know if we are infected? It’s in the thought ‘That’s too good to be true’, or ‘Yes, but he’s been so long in coming.’ Or in the attitude ‘If I expect nothing then if something good happens I am thankful.’

Cynicism strangles hope, it undermines the foundations and ultimately demolishes faith, because cynicism is unbelief. What is the antidote to cynicism? It is to refresh yourself in your hope and expectation and the character and cost to the one who promises you his rest through Jesus.

2. God’s speaks so we don’t fall short
But God doesn’t just tell us to believe and leave us to it, the other emphasis in ch3-4 has been that God speaks to us. 1:1 “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets...but in these last days... to us by his son...” 2:1 “We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard...” 3:1 Jesus is described as our Apostles – the ultimate envoy and messenger of God. 3:7 reminded us that God speaks to us through his word by his Spirit today! And God’s speaking runs throughout this passage (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8). And now the pastor reminds them of the nature of God’s word.

a. Alive and Active It is living, it brings life where before there was death, and it is not just 2000 year old words it is alive today. It is not like a novel or a newspaper, it still speaks with the living God’s voice and authority – that’s why the warnings from Numbers and from Psalm 95 apply ‘Today!’ because God still speaks to his people because his words are like no other.

They are active and effective to do the work God has for them to do. That is why sometimes as we read the Bible or hear someone preach, or discuss it with other believers, or are encouraged by someone it is as if we are having a 1-2-1 with God. God is infinite but he is also personal and he speaks to us through his word so that we do not fall short, so that we keep believing as we hear him speak.

b. Penetrating and Powerful What’s the image used? Double edged sword. But he says “it is sharper than any... dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow...” God’s word is so sharp, so penetrating and powerful that it can find its way into the smallest places it examines the most subtle divisions.

And (13)to be exposed to God’s word is to be exposed to and examined by God. To have our hearts, minds, fears and dreams laid bare before God himself. There is a sense in which to read the bible, to expose ourselves to God’s word is an awesome and frightening thing to do. We ought to come to it expectantly but also fearfully, we come to our loving heavenly father as his holy children, and God in his perfect love will examine us and expose us to what he sees we need not what we may want.

But God gives us his word so that by exposing ourselves to it we may not fall short, or harden our hearts, but by believing we may enter his rest.

Our problem is that we want to appear better than we are even to ourselves. In Gen3 what do Adam and Eve do after eating the fruit? They sow together fig leaves to cover their nakedness. They are afraid to stand before God laid bare so foolishly and pointlessly they try to cover it up.
We have the same problem Adam and Eve do. But just as God’s word confronts them with their nakedness before him so it will with us.

But sometimes when we read the Bible we muzzle it, or to carry on the sword analogy we keep it sheathed – never exposing ourselves to its blade. We read it but not too closely, we read it but don’t think through how it applies, or think how it applies to others – if you preach or lead home group this is something we are particularly prone to. Sometimes it doesn’t feel as if God is speaking to us because we won’t allow him to, we look only for what we want it to say and discard the rest.

We need to take the scabbard off the word of God and aim it at ourselves not others, asking God to expose our pride, lust, self worship, idolatry, anger, destructive tongues, lying lips, cynicism, hard hearts, and our unbelief. To point us away from ourselves and back to Jesus and what he has done for us.

It may not be pleasant but it will make us mourn our sin as we stand exposed before God. It will drive us back to our great High Priest who was tempted in every way as we are yet did not sin. It will ensure that our faith is in God not ourselves, that our faith is growing and doesn’t shrivel and that cynicism is replaced by a confident hope of entering God’s joyful rest which is ours in Jesus.

Hebrews 3v7-19 - So...don’t harden your hearts but encourage each other

Here are my notes from yesterday.

In Hebrews the pastor has exhorted his readers to fix their thoughts on Jesus because he is the ultimate revelation of God and their faithful high priest who has made them God’s holy people and calls them heavenwards. Now he turns to what they should do in the light of that, he does so by giving them a negative example of how not to respond, before looking at the promise of rest in chapter 4.

1. God speaks to us
How does v7 begin? “So, as the Holy Spirit says...” What tense does he use? The present tense, God the Holy Spirit is speaking to the Hebrew believers. How? The pastor takes them through a worked example of how God speaks, as he quotes Psalm 95 then explains, interprets and applies it to his readers.

Psalm 95 may be over a thousand years old but God speaks to them through it just as he spoke to its original hearers. Psalm 95 is divided into two parts the first half calls Israel to worship God, the second warns them not to have hard hearts but to respond to God because that is true worship. It makes that call as it looks back to Israel in the wilderness.

In Hebrews the emphasis is on Numbers 13-14. Where after God has rescued Israel from Egypt, having eaten the Passover, experienced God’s protection, walked through the Red Sea and the desert to the edge of the Promised Land, Israel refuse to enter because the spies see big walls and strong men. Even when Caleb and Joshua encourage them “do not rebel against the LORD. And do not be afraid of the people of the land, because we will devour them. Their protection is gone, but the LORD is with us.” They refuse to take the land, in fact they begin to pick up stones to stone them. And God says “How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs I have performed among them?”

God spoke to Israel on the verge of the Promised Land, God spoke through Psalm 95 and called them to learn and not repeat the unbelief of their ancestors. God speaks through the Psalm echoing that warning and applying it to the Hebrew believers, and today God by his Spirit speaks to us using those same words.

God speaks through his word, that’s in part what the Pastor wants to teach here. God the Holy Spirit speaks to his people ‘today’ as they read his word, as we read the Old Testament, and read about his ultimate revelation Jesus. As we read the Bible we hear God speaking.

As you came along this morning was that your expectation? That God would speak to you as his word was read and then we looked at it together? Is that what you were expectantly praying? Is that how we approach the bible during the week?

You may say but when I read it I don’t feel like I hear God speak. Can I lovingly say; what you feel is irrelevant, God is speaking the question is; are we listening? We’ve been conditioned to expect instant results, we’ve listened to the lie that good things are easy to discern and quick to understand. And we carry that into our listening to God – God gets 5 minutes squeezed in between the shower and breakfast.

But what does it to look like to really listen to someone? It involves putting aside distractions, concentrating on what they are saying, discerning what they mean and a right response to it.
God is our loving heavenly father and we are his children, made holy, given Jesus perfect record and he wants to speak to us. Don’t feel guilty about what you haven’t done but recognise the wonder that God speaks to us and listen to him.

The big question for the Hebrews and us is how will we respond to God’s word? There are two responses.

2. How are we responding?
There are two possible responses to God’s words: Unbelief, and Belief

a. Unbelief
Israel are a negative example, how not to respond. Look at (12)what is the warning? Make sure you don’t have a sinful unbelieving heart that turns away from God.

Do you see the problem; unbelief, refusing to trust God’s word, and it comes from their hard hearts(8). It was Israel’s problem and it is a danger for the Hebrews and us.

As Israel stood on the verge of the Promised Land God said “Send some men to explore the land, Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites.” But as the 10 spies reported back their conclusion is that God can’t do what he has said. The problem is unbelief, it’s not the fortified cities, the giants, or the strong people but that they do not believe God will give them what he has promised, and hard hearts lead them to turn away from God.

What are the consequences of their turning away? (17-18)God is angry and they are judged for 40years, only 2 of that generation experience God’s rest.

Don’t refuse God’s word. It’s tempting to think that isn’t a problem for us, but that would be the impossible application of this passage. It’s the conclusion that is impossible to draw from this passage – unbelief was a danger for Israel on the verge of the Promised Land, for Israel centuries later, for the Hebrew believers, it is a danger for us.

And actually we do respond to God with unbelief don’t we. Often it’s when we say or think the word ‘But’. We know we are forgiven for something in our past, yet find ourselves thinking ‘I know Jesus paid for all my sin but I just don’t feel forgiven.’ Do you see what we are doing – refusing to believe.

Or when we know it is important to build on the relationship with God he has given us and to listen to his word yet we find ourselves responding with a ‘But, I don’t feel God speaking to me’ or ‘But it’s OK for him or her they find it easy’ or ‘But I haven’t got time.’ Or when we read of God’s call to us not to worry because we are his children and he knows what we need and we think ‘Yeah but I really need a husband, or a child, or whatever it is that we long for...’ Do you see how every but is the stirring of unbelief.

Some illness come with warning symptoms, a sore throat means ... When we find ourselves responding to God’s word with a ‘But’ be alarmed, it is the first sign, a warning symptom of developing ‘Israelitus’ - a hardening heart, the beginnings of unbelief.

b. Belief?
If Israel are what not to be like, so how should we respond? Specifically the pastor is making a particular link between the Israelites and the Hebrews in terms of when they live.

In Numbers 14 Israel are where? On the doorstep of the Promised Land, they have experienced God’s redemption, they are God’s people, now they are about to enter God’s promised rest.

In Psalm 95 where are Israel? They are established in the Promised Land, and yet the warning is that refusal to believe will forfeit experiencing God’s rest, so the rest it talks about must be something more than Canaan. Canaan was just a picture that looked back and echoed the garden of Eden but also looked forward to the future eternal rest God’s people would enjoy.
The Hebrew Christians and we along with them have experienced God’s redemption through Jesus, we are his people and are on a journey to his rest. We and they live in the time of tension we have been redeemed and made God’s children, called to heaven but living awaiting its coming with all the tension that brings.

The call to believe is specifically to remember our heavenly calling, to trust in God’s word of promise that (4:1)”Since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short.” Believe God’s promise in the pressure that comes as you wait for his rest, don’t doubt, believe, don’t respond with a ‘but’.

(14)You are God’s children made holy through Jesus atoning blood, called with Jesus to share in an unshakeable kingdom trust in God to get you there as you follow him, hold onto to your original conviction.

We have a temptation to be individualistic, it is our default setting, maybe you are thinking I must hold firmly, but that is not enough. Look at (13)the antidote to a sinful unbelieving heart is to “encourage one another daily”, because that stops us being hardened by sins deceitfulness.
What does encouraging one another look like? It’s what Joshua and Caleb do in Numbers 14, they call the people to trust in God’s word and his promise. It’s what the pastor is doing as he writes this letter applying the bible to his listener’s lives.

How committed are you to encouraging others? We come together on a Sunday and encourage one another as we listen to God’s word, we do it at LightHouse, in Home Groups, but we need to be doing this organically too.

At our day away we spoke about one of our values: Real relationships are encouraged and developed as we work the gospel into one another’s lives and the community. That has to be more than just a line on a piece of paper. It is about more than just the formal settings, but about encouraging each other at every opportunity.
If we don’t encourage each other we place one another in danger.
Perhaps this morning you are saying I don’t know how. Here’s some things you can do over coffee to encourage others:
1. Ask someone how their week has been
2. Ask ‘what can I pray for you this week?’ Then pray!
3. Pray with someone
4. Share an encouragement or something God has been teaching you?
5. Commit to being with people and getting to know them.
6. Be honest in your responses to people’s questions, and ask them to pray for you.
7. Follow up when you next see that person.
8. Ring someone who hasn’t been around for a couple of weeks to see if they are OK, pray for them, and encourage them.
9. Always be ready to respond with grace and forgiveness.
10. Swallow gossip and speak in love

Look at (19)it’s a tragic reminder of the consequences of unbelief, not all Israel entered God’s promised rest, in fact they rejected God and then tried to enter in their own strength and were unable to. They didn’t encourage one another and they rejected the encouragement of others.

Do you see the warning – don’t reject God’s word, don’t respond to it with a ‘But’ believe his promise, live now looking for his rest, entrusting yourself to him who is faithful. And be encouraging others, taking as many others with you as you go.

Hebrews 3:1-6 Jesus: Fix your thoughts on him.

How would you define a Christian? Lots of people define a Christian as someone who believes in God. But actually that’s wrong, someone who believes in God is a Theist.
The essential part of the word Christian is the first 6 letters, Christ. A Christian is someone who accepts the claims Jesus made and follows him. As someone said if you take Christ out of Christian you are just left with Ian and he can’t help you.

Look at our passage, what does the pastor writing to this church urge them to do? “fix your thoughts on Jesus”. It’s an interesting phrase isn’t it? What he is calling them to do is to pay intense attention to Jesus, to thoroughly investigate and think through Jesus so that they fully understand who he is and what it means to follow him, and to keep on doing that.

It is a good definition of what it means to be a Christian. A Christian is someone who has investigated and paid careful and close attention to what Jesus claimed and by doing so believes he is who he claims and what it means to follow him.

Look at the end of the verse and we see what it is the Christian has understood about Jesus by what they confess about him. What is it? “whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest.” What does it mean to acknowledge something? To admit or recognise the truth of something or to confess it as the truth.

What makes someone a Christian is what they believe about Jesus and the importance he has in their lives. The genuine Christian fixes their thoughts on Jesus no matter what, when suffering or tempted or fearful they fix their thoughts on who Jesus is, what he has done, and the relationship he has given them.

We’re going to look at 2 questions; 1. Why is Jesus worth fixing your thoughts on? 2. What difference does it make?

1. Why is Jesus worth fixing your thoughts on?
We’ve seen that the believer confesses two things about Jesus. He is their apostle and high priest. An apostle was a messenger, an envoy or representative of someone else. In using that word the pastor is pulling together the themes of chapter 1 “in these last days he [God] has spoken to us by his Son...”, Jesus is God’s greatest, his ultimate envoy. He is God made flesh, the creator stepping into his creation, God made one of us, his words, actions responses, reactions revealing God to us like never before. That makes him worth listening to.

But actually we need more than just someone with God’s message to listen to because that message would leave us helpless. We need someone who can deal with our biggest problem. You see the message Jesus brings is that we aren’t automatically right with God, but we are automatically wrong with God. Jesus comes because there is something very wrong with our relationship with God, and that something is sin.

Sin is when we fall short of what God intends us to be. God made us to be his people, to love him and live recognising our creator. But we rebel against that in hundreds of ways every day; we worship ourselves rather than God, we say our will be done not your will be done, we worship the creation rather than the creator, we get angry, we resent others. Sin is not out there it is in here.
Often we keep a lid on it but it is seen in our reaction to trials and sufferings, they don’t force us to be something different they simply reveal who we really are.

And because God is holy and can’t stand sin we face his right judgement, every instance of injustice will be accounted for and paid for, every instance of rebellion, or self worship rather than God worship. And the penalty will be eternal separation from God. **How is hell portrayed in the media? A place of fun, it’s where the party is. That is wrong, hell is place where everything enjoyable, everything good is sucked out, even the devil does not want to go to hell, but God in his power will judge him and send him there.

Jesus comes to warn but he also comes to bring hope, he comes to seek and save the lost, he comes to be a high priest for his people.

The High priest alone went into the holy of holies to represent the people before God on the day of atonement and sprinkle the blood of the sacrificial goat on the mercy seat to pay for peoples sin.

That is exactly what Jesus does 2:17 “he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.” He becomes our high priest but more amazingly what is the offering? He is; God’s son who lives a perfect life, who never sins, he dies as the ultimate sin offering for us, in our place exhausting the just wrath of God against our sin.

That’s why here he is described as a faithful high priest, he undertakes and finished the task God appointed him to. He is faithful just as Moses was faithful but his faithfulness goes beyond that of Moses. Moses is worthy of honour for his service of God among the people of Israel, for his intercession for them, for his leading of them, but Jesus is more than a servant among the people he is the Son over the people.

St Paul’s is a magnificent building! But if you honour the building you miss the point, **who deserves the honour? The architect and builder. Creation is amazing but **who deserves the honour? God the creator. In the same way Jesus creates the people of God (house) by his death and resurrection, and he deserves honour and glory. In fact says the author Moses witnesses to Jesus coming to do just that in the future.

For the Jews Moses was a revered figure but he points you to honour Jesus, he calls us to fix our thoughts on him and his work.

Who do you say Jesus is? Have you investigated who he is and what he says? Have you made your mind up?

Are you continuing to fix your thoughts on Jesus and what he has done for you?

2. What difference does it make
Things change us don’t they. If you get married how does life change? You may change address, you change name... If you retire how does life change?

Investigating who Jesus is and confessing him as God’s ultimate revelation and your saviour changes everything and that is something the pastor wants his readers and us to grasp. It changes who they are now and it changes their future.

a. Who we are now. How does he describe them(1)? “Holy brothers and sisters...” They are holy – that means they are acceptable to God, God views them as sinless. Jesus doesn’t just take their status of sinner on himself and pay for it, he transfers to the believer the status of God’s perfect child.

Imagine for a minute you had a debt of £250,000. It would be great wouldn’t it if a wealthy millionaire came and paid your debt for you. But how much greater if that person paid off your debt and credited you with access to his bank account.

When God looks at those who are following Jesus he sees them through the lens of the cross, it isn’t just that he sees our sin paid for but he sees us as his perfect, holy children. And because we are made holy in Jesus we are God’s children.

But there is more just look at(6) how else are believers described? “his house” we are his people. We are brought into a community of believers, we aren’t isolated lonely individual Jesus followers we are brought into a community marked by grace.

And this change in status makes a huge difference! As we fix our thoughts on Jesus and what he has done for us we are freed from the burden of guilt, because he has paid for it all, we are freed from having to work to earn salvation because we are saved by confessing him. And we are freed from individualism because he brings us into his family and his people who relate to one another by grace, and help each other keep our thoughts fixed on Jesus.

b. Our future. How else does he describe believers(1)? “Who share in a heavenly calling”. It isn’t just that we are saved now. We are also called to something, it is a call to follow Jesus because he will lead us to glory, to be where God will be for eternity. It is a reminder that one day just as Jesus ascended he will come back and he calls believers to live in the light of that calling.

Deciding to follow Jesus changes everything it changes who you are now and it changes what you are living for. Are you fixing your thoughts on God’s faithful Son? Have you confessed him as your apostle and high priest?

If you have confessed Jesus as God’s Son the ultimate revelation of God and the one who died for your sins and makes you a child of God, then keep fixing your thoughts on him. As you live in a world where there is suffering keep your thoughts fixed on him and on what he has done for you and what he gives you.

Sometimes we can find ourselves, just like the Hebrews, living with a gospel gap. We forget what Christ has done and what he has made us and in the press of the now and the stress of the urgent we don’t fix our thoughts on Jesus, and other things fill the gospel gap – formalism, legalism, activism, and so on.

Where is the gospel gap in your life? Is it in the way you think of yourself, the guilt you labour under, the constant seeking of peoples well done and approval because you have forgotten you have God’s? Or is it that you have forgotten your future, that the world seems to matter too much, so that you are too driven by trying to achieve it all now, or by trying to earn status?

The Hebrews are in danger of filling their gospel gap with the wrong thing, with religion, with extra’s. What have we filled ours with? The remedy is to fix our thoughts on Jesus, to remember what he has done, our new identity and our future.

A challenge

We have a guest service on Sunday and I'm preaching Hebrews 3, which focuses on the superiority of Jesus faithfulness to that of Moses as a spur to believers to live faithfully. It has been a challenge to work out what questions this passage poses for the non-believer. But helpfully for both believer and non-believer it takes us to the crux of Christianity - Jesus.

There are many misunderstandings about what a Christian is but Hebrews 3:1-5 helps us see that a Christian is someone who confesses Jesus as the supreme revelation of God as as their high priest whose propitiating sacrifice makes us right with God and brings us into God's family. It also calls us all to fix our thoughts on Jesus - to have worked out who he is and for that understanding to affect our lives.

Pray that on Sunday believers would be encouraged to persevere in focusing on Jesus and that friends and family come and see the distinctiveness of Christianity, the wonder of what Jesus has done and trust in him for themselves.

Hebrews 2v1-4 So...don’t drift but listen carefully.

These are my notes from Sunday.

How good are you at listening? Everybody hears but how good are we at listening attentively. Good listening takes active involvement and concentration.

The story is told of Franklin Roosevelt, who often endured long receiving lines at the White House. He complained that no one really paid any attention to what was said. One day, during a reception, he decided to try an experiment. To each person who came down the line and shook his hand, he murmured, “I murdered my grandmother this morning.” The guests responded with phrases like, “Marvelous! Keep up the good work. We are proud of you. God bless you, sir.”
It was not till the end of the line, while greeting the ambassador from Bolivia, that his words were actually heard. Nonplussed, the ambassador leaned over and whispered, “I’m sure she had it coming.”

How well did you listen to that story? Who was it about? Where was he? What did he say to the visitors? Where was the person who listened from?

Some of us were hearing but not listening, it was just background noise which we never really tuned in to.

Hebrews 2 moves from the soaring truths about the nature and superiority of Jesus – God’s ruling reigning Son, the creator and sustainer, the ultimate revelation of God – to applying that to the lives of the readers. And the application is that given who Jesus we must pay attention to him and the revelation he brings.

1. Who to listen to (1)
We make choices all the time about who we listen to – radio 1, 2, 4, 5, talksport, trax fm. What newspaper we buy and look at the pictures or read? What websites we visit. We are constantly choosing who to pay attention to, and what weight to give their words.

The pastor tells his church who they should listen to. 1:2 “In these last days he [God] has spoken to us by his Son... We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard.” Listen to the glorious Son of God. Listen to the one who is superior to the angels, who ascended and rules , who the Old Testament points to, who saves, who is unique, who supremely reveals God because he is God. He is worth listening to.

What does Jesus reveal to them(3)? “so great a salvation”, later in the chapter he describes it like this; “But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honour because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered. Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.” (9-11)

Jesus comes to reveal God and as he does so he reveals our need of forgiveness because our sin – our hard hearts, our refusal to acknowledge our creator – means we face judgement. But Jesus revelation, his message, is that he, God’s perfect Son, has come to take our deserved punishment, to stand in our place, so that our sin is paid for and we are credited with his perfect record and become God’s holy sons and daughters and his brothers and sisters.

That is worth listening to, worth paying careful attention to, it is a message beyond anything else we will ever hear in terms of importance. Listen to Jesus, pay close attention to his words and his living. He alone reveals God, every other word you hear pales into insignificance.

I wonder what you think the most significant words you have ever heard are – ‘Will you marry me?’ the first cry of your child, I love you, we’d like to offer you the job...they all pale into insignificance compared to the message of the gospel.

Jesus is worth listening to, listen to him his words bring life.

2. Why must we pay careful attention?
The pastor anticipates the question why should we listen and he answers with a warning about the consequences of not doing so and witnesses to verify the message.

(1)gives us an instruction and (2)“For” he is going to explain why, and he uses a lesser to a great argument.

He has established that Jesus is superior to angels and that the revelation he brings is superior to theirs. So if the angels message – the law – when ignored or broken brought punishment how much more is punishment deserved if the greater revelation and message is ignored or broken. If breaking the law led to punishment of the offender how on earth shall we escape if we ignore the Son of God the ultimate revelation of God and the message of salvation he brings! The answer is we won’t.

Who is this written to? Hebrew Christians, in fact the pastor applies it even to himself as he includes himself in this warning, “how shall we escape...”

It throws up a question doesn’t it; can you lose your salvation? Part of our problem is that we think of salvation wrongly, we think of salvation as a past event. But in the Bible salvation is past, present and future. We have been saved when we trusted in Jesus – all our sins are paid for and we are viewed as God’s perfect children, but we are also being saved as we offer ourselves daily to God and grow in our understanding and application of salvation, and we will be saved finally when we are delivered from God’s judgement on the last day.

Be warned pay attention because you want to lay hold of your salvation not drift from it.

(3-4)It’s as if he is in a court of law calling witnesses to verify the message. In line with the Old Testament he produce 3 witnesses. The Lord announces salvation, it is confirmed by who? the apostles and other eyewitnesses, God testifies to who Jesus is and his message, how? By signs and wonders – just as he showed himself in redeeming Israel from slavery – and the Holy Spirit at work in Jesus followers is the final witness.

You can rely on the gospel and on Jesus but you must be warned not pay it careful attention is dangerous.

3. How to pay careful attention
How does the pastor encourage his readers to listen? “We must pay the most careful attention...” That word carefully means frequently, especially, or to a greater degree. It is a call to attentiveness to active listening, to a listening that is keen, willing and active in application.
They must listen or they will drift. Life is not a pond which is still and in which you can stay still, it’s a river and if you are not making progress you are driven backwards, swept away. And notice that they aren’t in danger of outright rejection of the gospel, but of gradual, incremental, imperceptible drift.

We have to take this warning very seriously, so how can we spot if we are drifting?
There are two ways in the passage:
1. Not paying careful attention - Do we take time each day to dwell on our great salvation? Do we fix our thoughts on it, do we seek to apply it afresh to our lives every day? Do we delve into the bible longing to understand more of our great saviour and what he has saved us for or do we content ourselves with what we know? Do we take it for granted!

2. Ignoring our great salvation – That word ignore also carries with it the idea of neglecting something, not giving it the attention it deserves. There is the danger of distraction, we would never say we are ignoring the gospel, but we become taken up with other things they may be good things but they distract and draw us away effectively making us ignore the gospel; things like angels, or traditions, or ministry, or family, or money, or career.

Hebrews also contains some other signs of drifting:
1. Being hard hearted and not taking God’s warnings seriously
2. Not living looking for God’s promised rest
3. Not growing in our understanding and application of the gospel
4. Not spurring one another on
5. Giving up meeting together
6. Living by sight not by faith
7. Not fixing our eyes on Jesus and following his example
8. Forgetting the wonder of our salvation
9. Losing our joy
10. Grumbling

As you honestly evaluate your life and your heart do you see any of those symptoms? Are you in danger of drifting?

What is the antidote? How do we ensure we do not drift?

We pay careful attention to what we have heard. We turn back again to the gospel, the good news of Jesus. We don’t content ourselves with a cursory reading but we study it, we delve deeper into it, we do what the pastor does here; we seek to understand the wonder of who Jesus was and all he does, the full horror of our sin and the true wonder of our rescue and future. Because it is the gospel that is the fuel that fires our faith.

What happens if you put the wrong fuel in an engine? It may run ok for a short while but eventually as the mix of right fuel and wrong fuel works its way through the engine it coughs and splutters until it totally cuts out. You may be thinking I’ll redouble my effort, I’ll try harder, I’ll set aside longer for my readings, I’ll not get up until I have spent 20 minutes on my knees in prayer and so on... That will last for so long, but it is like the wrong fuel you will eventually cough and splutter and run out, because that is dependent on your own efforts.

By contrast Hebrews would call us to look at Jesus, refresh yourself in the gospel of grace and as you do that change will flow from your heart – don’t redouble your efforts but listen carefully, attentively to the gospel. That may mean we do some of those things we have just said – prioritise reading the bible, home group etc – but that will be because we are seeking to know Jesus rather than as an end in itself.

Be where you can hear the gospel, but don’t settle for just hearing it but work out what changes it is calling for in your life and put them into action, get others to help you do so. Take the time to build relationships where you can work the gospel into each others lives.

Don’t drift – are you drifting? Do you see some of the symptoms? Be amazed at who Jesus is and what he has done for us and pay it careful attention!

Hebrews 2 - DANGER!!!

Hebrews contains some soaring theological truths which stir our hearts and minds, but the author is a pastor and as all good pastors do he applies his theology closely to his congregation.

In chapter 2:1-4 he moves on to apply the truths he has been expounding about Jesus the Son through whom God has spoken to us uniquely and supremely. If Jesus is the ultimate revelation of God, as the pastor has convinced us he is, then we must take seriously his word precisely because it is the ultimate revelation of God.

The danger here seems not to be outright rejection of Jesus and the salvation he brings but a gradual drift from it. Like a child in a dinghy on the sea the danger is that currents will gradually, unwittingly, unnoticed pull him or her away from Christ as surely as the tide pulls him/her away from the beach. That drift manifests itself in neglecting or ignoring salvation or in not paying it careful enough attention.

It poses question of our thinking. Do we take time each day to dwell on our great salvation? Do we fix our thoughts on it, do we seek to apply it afresh to our lives every day? Do we delve into the scriptures longing to understand more of our great saviour and what he has saved us for or do we content ourselves with what we know?

Do other things pull us away from paying the gospel of our salvation, bought to us and secured for us by the very Son who is God, who creates, sustains, rule and reigns and is worshipped by the angels, the attention it deserves, from having it front and centre in our lives?

Hebrews 1:5-14 Jesus: Above all

These are my notes from this mornings second talk on Hebrews 1.

**What can you tell me about angels? Messengers...
It’s popular to be spiritual, it is even popular to be into angels. Over the last few years there has been an explosion in books on angels – ‘how to’ books from people who promise your angels are the key to extraordinary things, others who will show you how to hear your guardian angel and the like.

I wonder how would you engage in a discussion about angels with a friend? I sent a quick text out to a few people this week asking them ‘What do you know about angels?’ and in summary the answer was not a lot. So I guess if the topic came up we wouldn’t know how to answer our friends.

In contrast to us, this church knew plenty about angels, to Jews angels were significant as God’s messengers, as mediators, deliverers of the law, as God’s servants engaged in his service. The Pastor gives the first 2 chapters to address the issue of angels, some people argue it is because they were in danger of worshipping angels, but that doesn’t seem to be the problem and certainly Jews would not worship angels.

The danger is not worshipping angels but drifting from the gospel, of adding things to it, or shifting their focus off Jesus so that what they believe becomes deformed.

Part of that seems to be a return to Jewish tradition concerning the important role of angels as mediators or messengers, possibly even seeing them as on a par with Jesus. That’s why the pastor is explaining again that Jesus is the ultimate revelation of God, why he is the one the Old Testament points to and specifically why he is superior to angels. Here he reminds his readers of what God said about his Son and that testimony is found in the Old Testament, as he gives evidence to prove his claims (1-4).

You may be thinking ah but angels aren’t my problem but it will help us engage with the angel fascination in the culture around us because it reminds us that to focus on angels is to miss the ultimate revelation of God. It will also remind us of the wonder of who our Saviour is.

1. The Son has a unique relationship to the Father(5-6)
You all know me, I have a relationship with you, but I have a very different relationship with my boys. **How is it different?

In explaining how Jesus is superior to the angels the pastor asks questions, the first comes in(5-6) **what is it? Did God ever say this about the angels?

He gives two quotations, one from Psalm 2:7 which is part of God’s decree that he will install his king in Zion but more than that he will call him “my son”. The second is from 2 Samuel 7 where God makes a promise to David that one of his descendants will be his forever king and be God’s son. Israel’s kings as they ascended to the throne became God’s representative and because their actions were to be like God’s in effect they were God’s son by character. But none of the kings did so perfectly and so Israel was left looking for the perfect Son.

Both quotations look forward to the coming of a God anointed Messiah but significantly here both highlight that God will call him his son and he is not a representative son in that he acts like the Father like all the other kings he is perfectly God’s son because he is God’s Son.

Neither of those statements are made of angels, but of Jesus alone. At his baptism those words from Psalm 2 and 2 Samuel resound from the heavens “This is my Son, whom I love...” and again at his transfiguration when Peter, James and John glimpse the glory and radiance of God in Jesus and God testifies “This my son, whom I have chosen, listen to him.”

God testifies that Jesus is the promised messiah from David’s line and that he uniquely is his Son. (6)Presses home that contrast with angels **what do the angels do when God’s firstborn son comes into the world? They worship him. The angels worship someone greater than them, in fact they worship God alone, and their worship of Jesus reveals to us who he is. They may be described in the Old Testament as sons of God but this is THE SON OF GOD.

The Son is above the angels, superior in the revelation of God which he brings because he alone is the Son of God.

The angels worship Jesus because he is greater than them, he is the Son of God. It was what distinguished Christianity from Judaism or from the emperor cults, Jesus alone is to be worshipped. It is what marks out our faith today from the Jehovah’s Witnesses who say Jesus is just an archangel. Take them to Hebrews – Jesus is the Son of God and alone is to be worshipped.

2. The Son is eternal and unchanging (7-12)
There is more to Jesus’ superiority than his relationship to the Father, he is not great because of his Father but because he is in very nature God, and that is brought out in the next contrast.

Whilst there is a fascination in spiritual circles with angels we only tend to think about them at Christmas, and then we think of cute fairy like creatures. That is not what the Bible tells us about angels. In the Bible angels are terrifying, they are awesome warriors of light, people’s first response isn’t ‘ahhh!’ but terror.

**What is the job description of the angels(7)? They are God’s servants, his ministers, messengers is what the word angel means in both Greek and Hebrew. But awesome though they are they pale into insignificance when compared to the Son.

Just look at what at what (8)actually says, God identifies his Son as God “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever...”. The Son is God who rules as God forever, he rules with God’s authority and as God would rule with righteousness and hatred of wickedness, and God has exalted him, he is the creator and is eternal and unchanging, he is the one who will roll up creation at the end of time.

Angels would astound us if we saw one but how much more astounding is the Son who is God in all his glory and majesty, who is the exact representation of God. Even angels are created beings, created by the Son, and they worship the Son because he is God.

Imagine that you had a phone call from the Queen’s personal secretary, I guess once you made sure it wasn’t someone playing a practical joke you’d be pretty amazed and you would listen. But how much more amazed would you be if there was a knock at the door and the Queen herself had come to see you.

Do you see the encouragement that there is here, it is an encouragement to listen to the Son of God, to listen to his words and listening is more than just hearing it is thinking his words through and living in the light of them.

Sometimes we meet people and in the course of a conversation they will say something like this: ‘Well, I would believe in God if he sent an angel to me,’ but we need to say to them God has sent someone far greater than an angel, God sent his Son listen to him.

3. The Son, your Saviour, reigns and rules(13-14)
Again the pastor poses another question, **what is it? “To which of the angels did God ever say...?” they would sit enthroned at his right hand until he would utterly defeat their enemies? The answer is none, and yet in Psalm 110, a Psalm Jesus applies to himself, David promises that God will do this for his Son. Jesus is greater than angels because he was resurrected and he rules and reigns enthroned at God’s right hand now and one day his rule will be recognised by all, even his enemies.

The angels are not sat at God’s right hand, they minister, in fact they serve the very gospel of salvation that the son brings into existence, they serve those who are saved by the Son.

Think back to the quiet hill side outside Bethlehem **what do the angels do? They declare the news of the saviour’s birth and send the shepherds to see him, or after Jesus’ temptation in the desert angels attend to him, at the empty tomb they declare his resurrection, or in Acts they free Peter from prison to spread the gospel. Angels serve God, the gospel of the Son and those who believe in his name.

Jesus is better than angels. But what does this have to say to us?

Firstly – it is a reminder not to be distracted from Jesus. Angels may not be the thing which would distract us but there may be other things, things which are good, just as angels are, but which we must not put in the place of, or on a par with, Jesus Christ. We are saved by Jesus Christ alone.

Secondly – We live in a world increasingly concerned with the spiritual and angels are a big part of that. And we need to be calling people to see the true nature of angels – they are messengers from God sent to point us to the gospel of Jesus. To focus on angels is to miss the Son and to miss out on salvation.

Thirdly – Passages like this help us in sharing the gospel with Muslim friends. Muslims are very impressed by angels, dreams and visions. To a Muslim worldview such occurrences authenticate the message, it is an angel who revealed the Quran to Mohammad. So if I want to share the gospel with a Muslim friend I would start in the first few chapters of Matthew or Luke and show them that the Angels and the dreams all point to one thing the wonderful and astounding news that God the Son becomes man to save us.

Or when the JW or Mormon knocks on the door, similarly I would want to be talking about what they consider the role of angels to be compared to the superiority of Jesus the Son.

Be encouraged - Jesus is superior even to angels, he is God’s Son, he is God in nature and your Saviour rules and reigns, listen to him.