[0:00] Amen. Thank y'all so much for leading us so well. It has been a wonderful weekend.! It's been a... Disciple Now has long been one of my favorite weekends of the year, having done many of them myself.
[0:16] It's kind of fun just to come and be a part of it. Josh, you did a tremendous job this weekend. You had everything well organized. Everything came together so well.
[0:28] And so, fantastic job. Okay, children, you can go too. Children, we're ready for our children's church at this time. I keep wondering, why is Evan pointing over this way?
[0:39] Children, we are ready for children's church at this time, but it has been a wonderful weekend. Today, we're going to be looking at Hebrews chapter 3, verses 1 through 6.
[0:52] And so, if you have a copy of God's Word, I want to invite you to turn with me to Hebrews chapter 3. Students, if you see a black Bible in the rack in front of you, it's going to be on page 1002 of that.
[1:07] And so, you can follow along as we read through this passage. But it says this, Hebrews chapter 3, starting in verse 1, says, Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, who was faithful to him, who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all of God's house.
[1:36] For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself.
[1:48] For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God. Now, Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant to testify to the things that were to be spoken later.
[2:02] But Christ is faithful over God's house as a son, and we are his house. If indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.
[2:16] And so, if you look at your watch, and you have heard me preach before, you might be a little worried at this point. But students, I'm asking you, give me 15 minutes right here.
[2:29] Everybody else, I'm asking, please don't get used to 15 minutes. We'll be back to normal next week. But I want us, just for the next 15 minutes, to focus in on this passage.
[2:41] And there's a few things that I want us to do. The overarching thing that I want us to do this morning is I want us to do what the Bible says here, what this passage says. I want us to consider Jesus.
[2:54] I want us to consider who he is. It says in verse 1, therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus.
[3:08] Consider Jesus. This sounds like something that we would advise someone who maybe doesn't have a relationship with Jesus to do, right? Maybe someone who is questioning their faith, who's going through a difficult time.
[3:20] And we may come to him and we say, hey, we want you to consider Jesus. And that would be great advice for us to give to someone. That would be an incredible thing. But this passage isn't written to unbelievers.
[3:35] This passage is written to believers. It's written to the church. It says, therefore, holy brothers who share in a heavenly calling. This passage is telling us as believers to consider Jesus.
[3:48] The author is telling Christians, holy brothers, consider Jesus. The word here, consider, it means something like understand or to observe well.
[4:01] I love how the International Center Version, the ISV says, it says, keep your focus on Jesus. As we consider Jesus, we must keep our focus and consider him in all that we say and do.
[4:17] And his invitation to take notice of Jesus lets us know, as well as the original audience that it was written to, lets us all know that he's about to say something significant here.
[4:31] There's going to be something of special significance that he is telling us to consider about Jesus. And so the first thing that I want us to see to consider Jesus is we must consider him as an apostle.
[4:47] It says, therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle. It's interesting that this is the only time in scripture that it refers to Jesus as an apostle.
[5:02] The title apostle denotes that it is one sent by God as his representative. And so when it is applied to the disciples, it is Jesus sending these disciples going out as apostles, as his representatives to carry this message with them.
[5:25] But now we're seeing that Jesus is sent by God with a message to proclaim. And it's clear that Jesus was sent by God not only to proclaim the forgiveness of sins, but also to make a way for forgiveness of sins to be possible.
[5:45] Listen to the most well-known verse in all of scripture probably, John 3, 16. It says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
[5:59] And a lot of times that's where we stop. But listen to that very next verse, verse 17. It says this, for God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
[6:14] And so God is sending us Jesus to proclaim this good news of the gospel. But what it also tells us is not only to consider him as the apostle who's bringing this message, but it also tells us to consider him as high priest.
[6:32] And so we're to consider him as the apostle and high priest of our confession. Now this is going to be a theme that we hit on many times as we go through the book of Hebrews.
[6:45] And we're going to hit on it in much more depth later on in some other places. But I do want us to consider the weight of this for just a moment. The confession of what Jesus is apostle and high priest is called here, it's called our confession.
[7:02] He says here, consider Jesus the apostle and high priest of our confession. The author is not referring to so much the act of confessing, but to the content of what is being confessed.
[7:19] To what we are actually saying about who Jesus is. That he's the one who brings this message, but he's also the one who makes this message possible.
[7:30] We are confessing that Jesus is both an apostle sent by God to bring good news. And at the same time confessing that Jesus is our great high priest making atonement for our sins.
[7:47] The high priest in the Old Testament were constantly making sacrifices for the people. They were constantly making sacrifices for the people's sins. It was a work that was never complete.
[7:59] In Christ as our great and final high priest, his work is done. So you remember what Jesus, one of the last things that Jesus said on the cross was.
[8:11] It is, okay, your father forgave him for that, yes. But he also said it is finished. It's done. It's paid for. Meaning that what he accomplished on the cross was perfect.
[8:24] It was done. It was paid for. Those sins, that atonement was complete. This is the significance of the curtain being torn in two in the temple. There was no longer a barrier between us and God because Jesus made the final atonement, the final payment, the final sacrifice for our sins.
[8:44] Each and every one of us are sinners and we need somebody to make that sacrifice for us. And Jesus, as our great and final high priest, did that for us.
[8:55] And so Jesus, as the apostle and high priest, he brings the good news and he makes the good news possible for us to hear today.
[9:06] But this leads us to the final way that I want us to consider Jesus. And the last way that I want you to consider Jesus today is this.
[9:18] Consider Jesus as the very best. Consider Jesus as the very best. The very best who brought us the greatest news, who made it possible by the greatest act of love the world has ever seen.
[9:33] Jesus is the very best. It says here, You see, this passage for us today isn't something that's difficult for us to wrap our minds around.
[10:07] It's not hard for us to see that Jesus is better than Moses. I think we can all agree with that, right? That Jesus is greater. He's better than Moses. And so that's not something that's difficult for us to wrap our minds around.
[10:20] But in the original audience, this was a significant statement. This was something that would have carried weight. This is something that would have gotten their attention. And they would have been like, Whoa, whoa, let's, let's, before you make a big statement like that, let's make sure we understand what we're saying.
[10:36] Because for the early Jews, Moses was simply the greatest. He was second only to Adam, to unfallen Adam in intimacy with God. They saw, many of them saw him as greater than the angels.
[10:49] And we've already talked about in this that the angels had carried a lot of weight. And it was significant to say that Jesus was greater than the angels. But now he's saying that Jesus is better than Moses.
[11:01] This would have gotten their attention. And not to use this lightly, but what the author is saying about Jesus was earth-shattering to them. It was something that all of a sudden, everybody comes in to pay attention.
[11:16] So the author is saying that you thought Moses was great? Well, let me tell you about the one who created and sustained Moses. Because he is far, far greater than Moses.
[11:29] So I was trying to think of a way to help us understand this this morning. My mind went to a project that at the time that I was writing this was right in the middle of my living room floor.
[11:41] Many of you students got to meet my youngest daughter this weekend, Charlotte. Charlotte, she's the one that was always trying to get in the games that you were doing, doing cartwheels everywhere.
[11:52] And Charlotte, she doesn't do anything halfway. Well, except clean her room. She does that halfway. We'd be happy with halfway. But everything else, she doesn't do anything halfway.
[12:03] She wants to go all in and do everything the best that she can. This past week, she was so excited because she brought home a school project. It was a, they were supposed to make their room at home in school.
[12:18] And they were drawing this. And she brought home this cube that she had made out of paper. She colored the inside and then folded it up. And so that it was this cube. And you had to look in through the door to look in and see her room that she had colored in there, that she had made.
[12:34] She put furniture in there. She was so proud of this. And I said, wow, Charlotte, did the teacher show y'all how to make these? And she said, nope, everybody else's is just a flat sheet of paper.
[12:46] But I made mine like this. I said, wow. And, you know, I was praising her for her creativity with this. And then all of a sudden, next thing I know, she's dragging in cardboard from the garage.
[12:56] She's cutting up pieces of paper. She's wanting to not only make a room but make our house. And then when she made our house, she decided to take it a step further. And now it's a three-story mansion that has all of these rooms everywhere.
[13:09] And she was so proud of what she had created, what she had made. And, in fact, she was terribly disappointed when we told her she couldn't take it back to school on Friday to show her teacher and all of her friends.
[13:22] But can you imagine how offended Charlotte would be if she brought this to me? And I said, wow, this is incredible. Here, give me that. You go over there.
[13:34] And, look, this thing just created itself. This thing just came together out of nowhere. And it just created itself. This is amazing. I can't believe this.
[13:45] No, Charlotte, you stay over there. You don't play with this. You don't look at this. This is just amazing. I can tell you she would be incredibly offended and wouldn't go for it whatsoever. But what the author is telling us here is that Jesus is so much greater than the creation itself.
[14:01] You see, even Charlotte at six years old recognizes that the creation is not the one to be praised, but it is the one who made the creation.
[14:13] The one who created everything. The one who built it. So, students, listen to me for just a couple more minutes right here. This past weekend, you were challenged to live a bold life.
[14:27] In fact, it says it right across your shirt here, living boldly. But I want to challenge you to think about what that means. The only way you are going to do this is to see Jesus for who he truly is.
[14:43] The church that was made up of former Jews, the author is writing to here in the book of Hebrews, needed to be reminded that Jesus is better than all kinds of things.
[14:54] He's already told them that Jesus is better than angels. He's told them that Jesus is better than Moses, the high priest. Melchizedek's coming up. That's going to be a fun one in a few weeks. They need to be reminded that Jesus was better than all of the things they thought so highly of.
[15:12] The question now comes is, what do we need to be reminded that Jesus is better than? A sport? A grade?
[15:23] A friend group? A boyfriend or a girlfriend? What about the rest of us? A career? Money? A certain car? A house? A spouse? Whatever the case may be?
[15:35] You see, you will follow, you will go after, you will treasure, you will focus on whatever it is that is most valuable to you.
[15:46] And so if other things other than Jesus are more valuable to you, you won't be able to live boldly for him. Because you're going to be living boldly for whatever it is that you treasure.
[15:58] For whatever it is that is most important to you. And so as believers, we must consider Jesus. We must keep our eyes fixed and be reminded constantly that Jesus is better.
[16:13] David Platt wrote a book years ago that caused quite a stir called Radical. And in that book, he made this hard to hear but true statement. He said this.
[16:23] He said Jesus didn't die so we could play church. He didn't die to be our source of serenity in a busy life. He didn't die to, he didn't endure the cross so we could huddle together in small groups and bemoan the deterioration of our culture.
[16:43] He died to turn us into white hot worshipers and world transformers. Jesus is not a safety net, a relief valve, an assistant, or a divine butler.
[16:56] He's a God whose glory and love deserve our utmost allegiance. The cross demands that we either offer our lives to him totally, without restrictions, or that we walk away from him in disgust.
[17:13] Dismissing him as history's biggest fool. You see, these are only two options. Jesus isn't an add-on to our life.
[17:24] He is our life. He's not just something that we sprinkle on and give a little flavor in our life. He is our life if we place our trust in him.
[17:35] You can't call yourself a follower of Jesus if there's something else that you're following. He goes on to say, he says, Jesus is worthy of more than church attendance and casual association.
[17:49] He is worthy of total abandonment and supreme adoration. Is your life a worthy response to the gospel? Does what you are doing with your life warrant the magnitude of his sacrifice?
[18:04] Is what you are living for worth him dying for? You see, Jesus is better. Period. Nothing else comes close.
[18:17] He is better than Moses. He's better than the angels. He's better than the sport. He's better than money. He's better than safety. He's better than a comfortable lifestyle. He's better than retirement.
[18:28] He's better than America itself. Jesus is better. And so as we come to a close, I want you to think about what you are giving your life to.
[18:40] And I want you to consider Jesus. Turn your attention and focus on Jesus. Do you see him as your greatest treasure?
[18:51] Do you see him as your savior? Have you given your life to him? If not, then let me encourage you, let today be the day. In just a few moments from now, we're going to be releasing from here.
[19:04] But I want to encourage you, if you haven't given your life to Jesus, if that's something that you've been thinking about this weekend, please don't go down there to pick up your luggage first. Find one of these college leaders.
[19:17] Let them know that you're ready to give your life to Jesus. Find myself. Find Josh. Find any of the staff. Find your host home. Let them know, I want to give my life to Jesus.
[19:30] And students, maybe this was a decision that you made this past weekend. And I encourage you to take that next step of obedience and do what Jesus has called us all to do once we are saved.
[19:42] And that is to be baptized. On that note, maybe this is something that needs to speak to some of us in here. Maybe we need to consider Jesus and giving our life to Jesus in every area.
[19:53] Maybe that's something that we did 10, 15, 20, 30 years ago. But we haven't followed through in that believer's baptism. Once we gave our life to Jesus and then we're baptized and showing the world that we've been, we're putting to death the old self and being raised to walk in newness of life.
[20:11] Let us consider Jesus. Let us give our life to him. For the rest of us, may we fix our eyes on Jesus each and every day.
[20:23] May we clearly see who he is and see that he is greater than anything and everything. And let us live boldly for him.
[20:36] Father, we thank you so very much for this weekend. We thank you for these students. We thank you for all that you accomplished in and through these college leaders, host homes, the discussion around the message as we opened up your word.
[20:51] Lord, we thank you for that. And Lord, I pray that you be with these students tomorrow. As they step foot back into their school, help them to live boldly for you.
[21:02] But Lord, I pray that this is not just something that starts with the students this weekend. But Lord, I pray that you encourage each and every one of us to live boldly for you in all that we say and do.
[21:15] We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. We're going to close now with a song of invitation. And you're singing hymn number 362. Jesus, strong and kind.
[21:27] If God is speaking to you this morning, won't you respond as we stand together and sing? Amen. Thank you.