WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:09.540 A number of years ago, I was invited to a dinner by a friend, and he told me as we were walking 00:00:09.540 --> 00:00:18.500 ! to the dinner that he also invited quite a well-known, outspoken atheist. 00:00:18.500 --> 00:00:29.500 ! This friend of mine hosted these dinners from time to time where he would invite people that he thought would have interesting things to say and perhaps disagree. 00:00:29.500 --> 00:00:33.500 And that there could be a bit of a discussion. 00:00:33.500 --> 00:00:45.000 Now the atheist in question was quite well known as a journalist and had written an article that week in a well-known paper where he talked about the God-botherers that he knew. 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:52.000 That was Christians who were trying to share the gospel with him and how critical he was of them. 00:00:52.000 --> 00:00:56.000 And we went round the table and everybody did their introductions. 00:00:56.000 --> 00:01:02.000 And I was introduced as a Christian minister. 00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:11.000 And the atheist was across the other side of the table and at that point he looked up and his brow furrowed a little bit. 00:01:11.000 --> 00:01:25.000 And as you would expect then in this context with an atheist who was well known and a minister at the same table, it wasn't long before the inevitable happened and the conversation turned to the question of God. 00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:32.000 Now we had a good-natured exchange, but one of his questions sticks out as I remember it all. 00:01:32.000 --> 00:01:45.000 We had gone back and forth about various things, the evidence for the resurrection, the integrity of the gospel accounts of Jesus' life, those kinds of things. 00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:52.000 And then he said to me, what would it take for you to lose your faith? 00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:57.000 What would it take for you to give up on the Christian faith? 00:01:57.000 --> 00:01:59.000 Now it's interesting to me that he went down that route. 00:01:59.000 --> 00:02:04.000 He clearly thought that Christianity is simply a lifestyle decision. 00:02:04.000 --> 00:02:09.000 It's something that you do because you think it works for you in the here and now. 00:02:09.000 --> 00:02:21.000 And as soon as it stops working for you in the here and now, that is if it doesn't deliver the health or the wealth or the happiness that you want it to, well then you just pack it up and walk away. 00:02:21.000 --> 00:02:25.000 What would it take for you to lose your faith? 00:02:25.000 --> 00:02:28.000 I said to him, show me the bones of Jesus. 00:02:28.000 --> 00:02:31.000 That has to be our answer, doesn't it, as Christians? 00:02:31.000 --> 00:02:36.000 If Jesus is in the grave somewhere, if he has not been raised, we're all wasting our time. 00:02:36.000 --> 00:02:43.000 Show me those bones and I'll join you in the anti-Christian camp faster than you can say, make atheism great again. 00:02:43.000 --> 00:02:47.000 But there is something in his question, isn't there? 00:02:47.000 --> 00:02:54.000 Because as he said himself, people do walk away from the Christian faith when things get hard. 00:02:54.000 --> 00:02:59.000 Do you ever feel like giving up? 00:02:59.000 --> 00:03:05.000 Do you ever feel like it's just too much? 00:03:05.000 --> 00:03:09.000 It's perhaps the case that you've done that already in actual fact. 00:03:09.000 --> 00:03:19.000 In your heart, you have actually shut up shop and it's just a matter of time before your feet catch up with your heart. 00:03:19.000 --> 00:03:23.000 Because it is hard to live as a Christian. 00:03:23.000 --> 00:03:27.000 It is hard to live the Christian life. 00:03:27.000 --> 00:03:35.000 Taking up your cross to follow Jesus, walking the path of rejection and suffering that Jesus walked is never easy. 00:03:35.000 --> 00:03:41.000 And it's especially difficult in our time and in our place. 00:03:41.000 --> 00:03:47.000 And that's why we're turning to the book of Hebrews on Sunday evenings for the next few months. 00:03:47.000 --> 00:03:50.000 I'm going to do a bit of an introduction to the book this evening. 00:03:50.000 --> 00:03:56.000 I think it's good to do that in order to orient us within the book and understand it in context a little bit. 00:03:56.000 --> 00:03:59.000 It is one of the earliest letters in the New Testament. 00:03:59.000 --> 00:04:01.000 I say letter. 00:04:01.000 --> 00:04:06.000 It is described by the author in chapter 13 verse 22 as a word of exhortation. 00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:08.000 And it is widely thought to be a sermon. 00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:10.000 The book of Hebrews is a sermon. 00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:18.000 And it is written or preached to people, probably predominantly Jewish converts to Christianity, who are struggling. 00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:20.000 Chapter 4 verse 16. 00:04:20.000 --> 00:04:24.000 I'm going to reference lots of texts and move around things this evening. 00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:27.000 You don't have to follow, but if you want to, you can. 00:04:27.000 --> 00:04:28.000 Chapter 4 verse 16. 00:04:28.000 --> 00:04:39.000 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. 00:04:39.000 --> 00:04:41.000 Chapter 10 verse 32. 00:04:41.000 --> 00:04:48.000 But recall the former days when after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings. 00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:53.000 Sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction. 00:04:53.000 --> 00:04:56.000 And sometimes being partners with those so treated. 00:04:56.000 --> 00:04:58.000 For you had compassion on those in prison. 00:04:58.000 --> 00:05:02.000 And you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property. 00:05:02.000 --> 00:05:07.000 Since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. 00:05:07.000 --> 00:05:13.000 Struggle, suffering, affliction, the plundering of your property because you named the name of Christ. 00:05:13.000 --> 00:05:15.000 Chapter 13 verse 3. 00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:20.000 Remember those who are in prison as though in prison with them. 00:05:20.000 --> 00:05:25.000 And those who are mistreated since you also are in the body. 00:05:25.000 --> 00:05:33.000 This is a sermon preached to Christians who are being persecuted, tortured, mistreated and abused. 00:05:33.000 --> 00:05:36.000 Because they named the name of Christ. 00:05:36.000 --> 00:05:38.000 And the writer is exhorting them. 00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:42.000 In that context, not to lose faith. 00:05:42.000 --> 00:05:44.000 Not to give up. 00:05:44.000 --> 00:05:46.000 Not to walk away. 00:05:46.000 --> 00:05:49.000 And the sermon is a combination as we'll go through. 00:05:49.000 --> 00:05:54.000 We'll see it as a combination of warning on the one hand and encouragement on the other hand. 00:05:54.000 --> 00:05:58.000 So in the context it seems that there are people who are weary. 00:05:58.000 --> 00:06:03.000 They are weary of standing up in this context and they might just give up. 00:06:03.000 --> 00:06:07.000 And he urges them not to drift away from what they've heard. 00:06:07.000 --> 00:06:08.000 Chapter 2 verse 1. 00:06:08.000 --> 00:06:15.000 Therefore, we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard lest we drift away from it. 00:06:15.000 --> 00:06:17.000 Not to neglect the message of salvation. 00:06:17.000 --> 00:06:19.000 Chapter 2 verse 3. 00:06:19.000 --> 00:06:23.000 How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? 00:06:23.000 --> 00:06:28.000 He urges them not to lose hold of their confession in chapter 4 verse 14. 00:06:28.000 --> 00:06:30.000 To continue in the faith. 00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:31.000 Chapter 6. 00:06:31.000 --> 00:06:34.000 To not, chapter 12, grow weary and lose heart. 00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:38.000 Or, chapter 13, be led away by false teaching. 00:06:38.000 --> 00:06:42.000 It goes all the way through the letter, the sermon. 00:06:42.000 --> 00:06:46.000 And when you think about those things, aren't they real dangers for us? 00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:49.000 In our day as we try and live the Christian life. 00:06:49.000 --> 00:06:54.000 At a time and in a place where you're treated with suspicion because of what you believe. 00:06:54.000 --> 00:06:56.000 And that's a good day. 00:06:56.000 --> 00:07:00.000 When you're worn down by the rejection and the marginalization. 00:07:00.000 --> 00:07:03.000 Simply because you follow Christ. 00:07:03.000 --> 00:07:07.000 Who among us doesn't feel the temptation sometimes in the face of all of this to say, 00:07:07.000 --> 00:07:09.000 I just don't want the hassle anymore? 00:07:09.000 --> 00:07:14.000 But it's not just to the weary that he's speaking. 00:07:14.000 --> 00:07:19.000 There are also warnings to those who would choose a more overt kind of rebellion. 00:07:19.000 --> 00:07:22.000 If some are weary, he also warns the angry. 00:07:22.000 --> 00:07:30.000 Don't, he says, chapter 3 verse 12, have a sinful and unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 00:07:30.000 --> 00:07:35.000 Don't harden your heart in disobedience like the wilderness generation. 00:07:35.000 --> 00:07:36.000 Chapters 3 and 4. 00:07:36.000 --> 00:07:41.000 Chapter 10, don't willfully persist in sin. 00:07:41.000 --> 00:07:45.000 Chapter 12, 25, don't reject the God who speaks from heaven. 00:07:45.000 --> 00:07:54.000 Now the strength of the exhortations as the warnings in the context of the book. 00:07:54.000 --> 00:08:02.000 These pleas that the author makes suggest that there is active, hard-hearted walking away from God that's happening in the community as well. 00:08:02.000 --> 00:08:07.000 And of course we see that too in our context. 00:08:07.000 --> 00:08:13.000 People get angry when God doesn't deliver the life that they want him to give. 00:08:13.000 --> 00:08:15.000 And resentment begins to build. 00:08:15.000 --> 00:08:18.000 Bitterness begins to grow in the heart. 00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:24.000 And then unlike the weary who drift away, the angry, well they run away. 00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:31.000 In fact, they don't just run away metaphorically, they also slam the door as they leave. 00:08:31.000 --> 00:08:35.000 It's actually got a name that in our day, it's called deconstruction. 00:08:35.000 --> 00:08:40.000 There are people now who make a name on social media talking about deconstructing. 00:08:40.000 --> 00:08:46.000 And the deconstructing Christian is, or can be very often, an angry soul. 00:08:46.000 --> 00:08:55.000 So the author is saying, however people might plan to leave, don't go. 00:08:55.000 --> 00:08:56.000 Don't do it. 00:08:56.000 --> 00:09:06.000 And his warning and his encouragement, his impassioned pleading, come in the rhetorical form we'll see of an argument from the lesser to the greater. 00:09:06.000 --> 00:09:10.000 So it's a kind of, if this, well then how much more that. 00:09:10.000 --> 00:09:17.000 And what he's doing is showing off and highlighting the greater so that you can choose the greater and the better and leave behind the lesser. 00:09:17.000 --> 00:09:25.000 It's a bit like if you can swim the channel, how much better, how much more is using a boat or that kind of thing. 00:09:25.000 --> 00:09:28.000 The lesser to the greater. 00:09:28.000 --> 00:09:34.000 And the point of the comparison in the book of Hebrews is the old covenant with its forms and structures. 00:09:34.000 --> 00:09:39.000 The priests and the angels and the sacrificial system and the food laws and so on. 00:09:39.000 --> 00:09:43.000 From the lesser to the greater Christ. 00:09:43.000 --> 00:09:46.000 The old covenant and Christ. 00:09:46.000 --> 00:09:54.000 And the author is saying, here is the headline of the book of Hebrews, Jesus is better, way better. 00:09:54.000 --> 00:09:55.000 That's it. 00:09:55.000 --> 00:09:57.000 Jesus is better, way better. 00:09:57.000 --> 00:09:59.000 And that's why you don't go. 00:09:59.000 --> 00:10:04.000 Now it's important in talking like that, that I don't make that sound trite. 00:10:04.000 --> 00:10:06.000 Jesus is better, way better. 00:10:06.000 --> 00:10:09.000 You can put that on a hashtag and it's as cheesy as you like. 00:10:09.000 --> 00:10:11.000 It's important that that's not the case. 00:10:11.000 --> 00:10:21.000 Because for our Jewish hearers here in the context of the book of Hebrews, the pressure that they would have been under to go back is almost impossible to overstate. 00:10:21.000 --> 00:10:26.000 Their whole identity was wrapped up in their religious culture. 00:10:26.000 --> 00:10:29.000 The pressure to turn back would have come from all sides. 00:10:29.000 --> 00:10:33.000 Family and friends, the religious and political authorities. 00:10:33.000 --> 00:10:37.000 They would have been accused of betrayal, blanked by family in the street. 00:10:37.000 --> 00:10:42.000 They would have lost absolutely everything that was familiar to them and that was of value to them. 00:10:42.000 --> 00:10:51.000 The draw to go back, the draw to say, you know what, it's just not worth it, would have been very hard to resist. 00:10:51.000 --> 00:10:56.000 But even with all of that, this sermon pleads, don't go back. 00:10:56.000 --> 00:10:58.000 That's our first point. 00:10:58.000 --> 00:11:00.000 First headline, don't go back. 00:11:00.000 --> 00:11:02.000 The writer brings the comparisons. 00:11:02.000 --> 00:11:04.000 So we'll read through the letter as we go through. 00:11:04.000 --> 00:11:11.000 We'll see the word of God comes in the Old Testament through prophets and angels and Moses and the law. 00:11:11.000 --> 00:11:16.000 It comes to us now, chapter 1, verse 2, through the Son of God, through Christ. 00:11:16.000 --> 00:11:22.000 The old forms, which of course did serve their intended ends. 00:11:22.000 --> 00:11:25.000 It was still the word of God under the old covenant. 00:11:25.000 --> 00:11:28.000 But those old forms give way to that which is greater. 00:11:28.000 --> 00:11:32.000 Christ, the living word of God, the creator of heaven and earth. 00:11:34.000 --> 00:11:39.000 Angels will come up a lot, certainly in the early chapters of the book. 00:11:39.000 --> 00:11:43.000 Angels were ministering spirits, we're told, chapter 1, verse 14. 00:11:43.000 --> 00:11:46.000 Jesus is the Son of God. 00:11:46.000 --> 00:11:50.000 Moses was a servant in God's house, chapter 3. 00:11:50.000 --> 00:11:54.000 But Jesus is both the son and the builder of God's house. 00:11:54.000 --> 00:11:59.000 Joshua brought Israel into the rest of the promised land, which the people later lost. 00:11:59.000 --> 00:12:08.000 But chapter 4, Jesus entered into the heavenly rest of God that is secured in heaven for his people for all eternity. 00:12:08.000 --> 00:12:15.000 The priests, they served in the temple where they made sacrifices for their own sin and for the sin of the people, 00:12:15.000 --> 00:12:17.000 where they offered up prayers on the people's behalf. 00:12:17.000 --> 00:12:26.000 But Jesus, chapter 5, chapters 8 to 10, offered himself as a sacrifice once and for all to take away sin for all time. 00:12:26.000 --> 00:12:31.000 The old covenant, it served a purpose. 00:12:31.000 --> 00:12:39.000 It was designed to function for a time and a place, but it was always intended of a shadow of the reality that was to come. 00:12:39.000 --> 00:12:49.000 And the author to the Hebrews holds out Christ and he says, why would you go back to the shadow when you have the reality? 00:12:50.000 --> 00:12:54.000 Why would you go back to the temporary when you have the permanent, the real? 00:12:54.000 --> 00:12:59.000 There's no comparison, he's saying, don't go back. 00:12:59.000 --> 00:13:05.000 Now, let's be perfectly honest. 00:13:05.000 --> 00:13:12.000 For most of us, I doubt Israel's old covenant structures hold the sort of draw that they would have done for the first hearers of the sermon. 00:13:12.000 --> 00:13:18.000 But for our brothers and sisters who have been converted from other religions, that draw to go back is very powerful. 00:13:18.000 --> 00:13:20.000 It would be so easy to do that. 00:13:20.000 --> 00:13:23.000 Don't go back. 00:13:23.000 --> 00:13:25.000 Don't go back. 00:13:25.000 --> 00:13:26.000 Don't go back. 00:13:26.000 --> 00:13:33.000 But also for us all, the circumstances of the opposition might be different, but any opposition is tough. 00:13:33.000 --> 00:13:38.000 The rejection of friends or family because we want to follow Christ. 00:13:38.000 --> 00:13:40.000 The hostility in the workplace. 00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:44.000 These things do pressurize us to step back from Jesus. 00:13:44.000 --> 00:13:46.000 They pressurize us. 00:13:46.000 --> 00:13:53.000 If we step back into the old patterns of life, we do it very quietly and politely, we'll never come into any difficulty. 00:13:53.000 --> 00:14:03.000 In fact, what can start to be just being a bit more discreet about your faith, playing it more sensibly, being wise, being prudent. 00:14:03.000 --> 00:14:07.000 Well, actually in the end, that leads you off course completely. 00:14:07.000 --> 00:14:08.000 There is pressure. 00:14:08.000 --> 00:14:10.000 There is pressure. 00:14:10.000 --> 00:14:12.000 Pressure to go back to the old way of life. 00:14:12.000 --> 00:14:17.000 And the author to the book of, the writer to the Hebrews says, don't go back. 00:14:17.000 --> 00:14:29.000 If he says that primarily to those tempted to return to Judaism, he tells us all, point number two, don't go anywhere else. 00:14:29.000 --> 00:14:32.000 Don't go anywhere else. 00:14:32.000 --> 00:14:39.000 The first audience here were tempted to go back to their old religious identity and their old structures. 00:14:39.000 --> 00:14:43.000 And he says to us, in light of all of this, don't go anywhere else. 00:14:43.000 --> 00:14:45.000 Not those structures, nowhere else. 00:14:45.000 --> 00:14:48.000 So, are you looking for God? 00:14:48.000 --> 00:14:50.000 You find him in Jesus. 00:14:50.000 --> 00:14:56.000 Chapter one, verse three, he is the radiance of the glory of God on the exact imprint of his nature. 00:14:56.000 --> 00:15:00.000 And he upholds the universe by the word of his power. 00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:04.000 Do you want to hear God speak? 00:15:04.000 --> 00:15:09.000 Do you want to hear the voice of the living God? 00:15:09.000 --> 00:15:13.000 Will you hear his voice in the words of Jesus? 00:15:13.000 --> 00:15:19.000 Chapter one, verse two, long ago and many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. 00:15:19.000 --> 00:15:22.000 But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son. 00:15:22.000 --> 00:15:28.000 If you're looking for God, you find him in Jesus. 00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:32.000 If you want to hear God speak, you hear him speak in Jesus. 00:15:32.000 --> 00:15:37.000 Do you want a relationship that connects you with the very source of reality? 00:15:37.000 --> 00:15:42.000 So much of what we pursue in life is born out of a quest for meaning and significance. 00:15:42.000 --> 00:15:44.000 And a quest for that which is real. 00:15:44.000 --> 00:15:47.000 That which won't just slip through our fingers in life. 00:15:47.000 --> 00:15:51.000 Who are you? 00:15:51.000 --> 00:15:52.000 What are you? 00:15:52.000 --> 00:15:56.000 Are you just a warm skin bag of protoplasm? 00:15:56.000 --> 00:15:59.000 Or are you something else? 00:15:59.000 --> 00:16:09.000 Well, the relationship that actually establishes your identity and defines your reality is found only in the Lord Jesus. 00:16:09.000 --> 00:16:10.000 Chapter one, verse eight. 00:16:10.000 --> 00:16:14.000 But the son of the son, he says, your throne, O God, is forever and ever. 00:16:14.000 --> 00:16:19.000 The scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. 00:16:19.000 --> 00:16:20.000 And then one, verse 10. 00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:23.000 You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning. 00:16:23.000 --> 00:16:25.000 And the heavens are the work of your hands. 00:16:25.000 --> 00:16:27.000 They will perish, but you remain. 00:16:27.000 --> 00:16:29.000 They will all wear out like a garment. 00:16:29.000 --> 00:16:31.000 Like a robe, you will roll them up. 00:16:31.000 --> 00:16:32.000 Like a garment, they will be changed. 00:16:32.000 --> 00:16:35.000 But you are the same and your years will have no end. 00:16:35.000 --> 00:16:40.000 The one at the center of reality is the Lord Jesus Christ. 00:16:40.000 --> 00:16:44.000 He is the eternal sovereign God. 00:16:44.000 --> 00:16:49.000 He defines all reality. 00:16:49.000 --> 00:16:57.000 And where else can you go to resolve the problem at the center of who you are? 00:16:57.000 --> 00:17:03.000 That problem that exists in all of us, the problem of sin. 00:17:03.000 --> 00:17:13.000 That issue that we just can't seem to shake off, the issue of guilt, the issue of shame. 00:17:13.000 --> 00:17:20.000 We know, all of us, that even on our best days, we say and do things that we regret. 00:17:20.000 --> 00:17:27.000 And we try all kinds of things to suppress the shame that that brings up. 00:17:27.000 --> 00:17:34.000 But sadly, like one of those beach balls, when you get into the swimming pool and you take the beach ball and you push it under the water, 00:17:34.000 --> 00:17:40.000 you hold it there, it always finds a way to break out and get back onto the surface again. 00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:43.000 It just keeps resurfacing. 00:17:43.000 --> 00:17:49.000 Your sin and your guilt, whatever you try to do to suppress them, can only be dealt with in one place. 00:17:49.000 --> 00:17:52.000 And that is in Jesus. 00:17:52.000 --> 00:17:55.000 Chapter 10, verse 12. 00:17:55.000 --> 00:17:56.000 And verse 12. 00:17:56.000 --> 00:18:01.000 But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, 00:18:01.000 --> 00:18:05.000 waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. 00:18:05.000 --> 00:18:16.000 For by a single offering, he has perfected, perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. 00:18:16.000 --> 00:18:18.000 And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us. 00:18:18.000 --> 00:18:22.000 For after saying, this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord, 00:18:22.000 --> 00:18:25.000 I will put my laws on their hearts and write them on their minds. 00:18:25.000 --> 00:18:34.000 Then he adds, I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more. 00:18:34.000 --> 00:18:37.000 No more. 00:18:37.000 --> 00:18:38.000 You can know God. 00:18:38.000 --> 00:18:41.000 You can hear his voice. 00:18:41.000 --> 00:18:45.000 You can be forgiven every sin and reconciled to God. 00:18:45.000 --> 00:18:50.000 The relationship that you were created to enjoy, but it is only possible in one place. 00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:51.000 Through one man. 00:18:51.000 --> 00:18:54.000 In and through the Lord Jesus Christ. 00:18:54.000 --> 00:18:58.000 Jesus is supreme and sufficient for these things. 00:18:58.000 --> 00:19:00.000 So don't go anywhere else. 00:19:03.000 --> 00:19:06.000 That's the heart of the argument of the book of Hebrews. 00:19:06.000 --> 00:19:13.000 But as we study it over the coming months, my hope is that the way that the preacher frames this argument, 00:19:13.000 --> 00:19:18.000 this exhortation will also help us in three other really important ways. 00:19:18.000 --> 00:19:24.000 So first of all, this book I hope will help us to better read our Bibles. 00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:25.000 Better read our Bibles. 00:19:25.000 --> 00:19:29.000 The Old Testament I want to say is something of a closed book to many Christians. 00:19:29.000 --> 00:19:33.000 But the book of Hebrews quotes the Old Testament in almost every chapter. 00:19:33.000 --> 00:19:41.000 He takes extensive Old Testament quotes and shows us how Jesus fulfills them and how they were speaking about Jesus. 00:19:41.000 --> 00:19:48.000 Hebrews will help us understand the way different elements of the Old Testament foreshadow or point to things in the New. 00:19:48.000 --> 00:19:51.000 Something that theologians call typology. 00:19:51.000 --> 00:19:56.000 So for example, chapter 3, verse 7 and following. 00:19:56.000 --> 00:19:57.000 Turn over to chapter 3. 00:19:57.000 --> 00:20:00.000 You'll see there verse 7 and following. 00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:03.000 There's this extended quote from Psalm 95. 00:20:03.000 --> 00:20:06.000 Now why is it that he is quoting there Psalm 95? 00:20:06.000 --> 00:20:09.000 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, 00:20:09.000 --> 00:20:16.000 Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts in the rebellion, on the day of testing, in the wilderness, and so on. 00:20:16.000 --> 00:20:22.000 This text is speaking about the children of Israel and how they hardened their hearts during their years in the wilderness. 00:20:22.000 --> 00:20:24.000 And how God rebuked them for this. 00:20:24.000 --> 00:20:29.000 And our writer then applies this to his hearers in their situation. 00:20:29.000 --> 00:20:31.000 Chapter 4, verse 3. 00:20:31.000 --> 00:20:34.000 For we who have believed enter that rest as he has said, 00:20:34.000 --> 00:20:37.000 As I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter their rest. 00:20:37.000 --> 00:20:38.000 And what's he doing? 00:20:38.000 --> 00:20:45.000 Well, what he's doing there is he's telling us that the Old Testament people in the wilderness are a type of the church. 00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:52.000 And the warnings not to walk away, as many of them did, still apply. 00:20:52.000 --> 00:20:57.000 The warnings to them apply to us. 00:20:57.000 --> 00:20:59.000 Because they are a type of the church. 00:20:59.000 --> 00:21:01.000 The tabernacle is another example. 00:21:01.000 --> 00:21:07.000 Chapter 9 tells us about this earthly place of holiness. 00:21:07.000 --> 00:21:09.000 Where God's presence was experienced. 00:21:09.000 --> 00:21:12.000 And where atonement for sin was made. 00:21:12.000 --> 00:21:19.000 And we're told that this structure, this tabernacle structure in the Old Testament was symbolic for its time. 00:21:19.000 --> 00:21:22.000 That is, it was a type of Christ. 00:21:22.000 --> 00:21:30.000 The true and better holy place where God, we meet with God and through whom our sins are dealt with. 00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:34.000 Interestingly, chapter 10, 24 tells us that it's also a type of heaven. 00:21:34.000 --> 00:21:36.000 But we'll deal with that when we get there. 00:21:36.000 --> 00:21:41.000 Now, it's important to say this isn't a strange code that we need to crack. 00:21:41.000 --> 00:21:43.000 It is just regular biblical terrain. 00:21:43.000 --> 00:21:46.000 It is reading the Bible the way the Bible is supposed to be read. 00:21:46.000 --> 00:21:48.000 But it is unfamiliar to many of us. 00:21:48.000 --> 00:21:50.000 For a couple of reasons. 00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:52.000 And one of those is that we normally start the book. 00:21:52.000 --> 00:21:54.000 When we come to the Bible, we start the book in the wrong place. 00:21:54.000 --> 00:21:57.000 We start it at the beginning of the New Testament. 00:21:57.000 --> 00:22:03.000 There's this big bit to the left that we kind of, we find the New Testament difficult to properly understand. 00:22:03.000 --> 00:22:05.000 Because there's this big bit to the left that we haven't read. 00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:07.000 One author says, 00:22:07.000 --> 00:22:11.000 Far too many Christians think that the New Testament is a course that has no prerequisites. 00:22:11.000 --> 00:22:18.000 When in fact, jumping into New Testament studies without Old Testament grounding is like going straight from nursery to graduate physics. 00:22:18.000 --> 00:22:25.000 In order to get a grasp of our New Testaments, we need to understand better the Old Testament. 00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:29.000 And Hebrews will help us like very few other New Testament books to do that. 00:22:29.000 --> 00:22:35.000 One of the other big problems is that we come to the New Testament with our own ideas. 00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:45.000 We approach it from the perspective of a modern mind and a framework that is shaped by the modern mind. 00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:50.000 Which means when we come to bits of the New Testament that we don't understand or we don't particularly like. 00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:54.000 Well, we kind of reject them and we try and find a way to work around them. 00:22:54.000 --> 00:22:56.000 Hebrews will help us with this terrain. 00:22:56.000 --> 00:23:03.000 We want to better know our Bibles. 00:23:03.000 --> 00:23:05.000 But, we want to better know our Bibles. 00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:07.000 Not as an end in itself. 00:23:07.000 --> 00:23:10.000 But secondly, to better know the Christ of our Bibles. 00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:20.000 We talked a lot during the Advent season about the miracle of the virgin conception and the deity of the Son of God born at Christmas. 00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:24.000 But what is actually the significance of this? 00:23:24.000 --> 00:23:28.000 Do we really know the Christ that we profess? 00:23:28.000 --> 00:23:32.000 Hebrews tells us, chapter 1 verse 3. 00:23:32.000 --> 00:23:41.000 He is, the Son of God is, the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature. 00:23:41.000 --> 00:23:44.000 And He upholds the universe by the word of His power. 00:23:44.000 --> 00:23:49.000 After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. 00:23:49.000 --> 00:23:56.000 Having become as much superior to angels as the name He has inherited is more excellent than theirs. 00:23:58.000 --> 00:24:01.000 Jesus the Son is very God of very God. 00:24:01.000 --> 00:24:06.000 All of God is in Jesus, although Jesus is not all of God. 00:24:06.000 --> 00:24:08.000 He is supremely sovereign. 00:24:08.000 --> 00:24:09.000 He rules and He reigns. 00:24:09.000 --> 00:24:12.000 He is glorious and exalted above all things. 00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:19.000 After 2 verse 9, we are able to see Jesus at the center of the world, at the heart of the promises of God, at the pinnacle of all that is. 00:24:19.000 --> 00:24:21.000 He is the Lord of all. 00:24:21.000 --> 00:24:25.000 He is Lord of every square inch of the created order. 00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:31.000 The distance from where we are this evening to the sun is 93 million miles. 00:24:31.000 --> 00:24:36.000 The distance to the farthest planet, Neptune, is nearly 3 billion miles. 00:24:36.000 --> 00:24:42.000 Do you remember the NASA ultimate fool discovery back in 2019? 00:24:42.000 --> 00:24:47.000 A small icy world, 6.5 billion kilometers from the earth. 00:24:47.000 --> 00:24:50.000 Jesus is Lord over it all. 00:24:54.000 --> 00:24:57.000 Do you have a big enough Christ? 00:24:57.000 --> 00:25:07.000 Do you have a Christ who is Jesus, the sun, the air, the one who is fully human, but who at the same time is supremely glorious in power and wonder? 00:25:07.000 --> 00:25:10.000 Do you have a Christ that you can actually fear? 00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:14.000 A Christ who brings you to your knees in worship. 00:25:14.000 --> 00:25:21.000 And therefore, a Christ that you can actually trust in and through the hardest and the darkest times. 00:25:21.000 --> 00:25:27.000 A Christ that you can lean on and know that you are safe when the opposition comes. 00:25:27.000 --> 00:25:32.000 When the hostility for naming His name comes your way. 00:25:32.000 --> 00:25:37.000 Hebrews will help us better know Him. 00:25:37.000 --> 00:25:43.000 And then thirdly, and finally I hope, the plan is that if we get Hebrews into our bloodstream, 00:25:43.000 --> 00:25:47.000 it will help us better persevere in good faith. 00:25:47.000 --> 00:25:49.000 Better persevere in faith. 00:25:49.000 --> 00:25:55.000 So as I've already pointed out, the goal of this word of exhortation is to keep us going with Jesus. 00:25:55.000 --> 00:26:02.000 To know that in the face of trials and temptations, in the face of the overwhelming desire that sometimes creeps in to give up. 00:26:02.000 --> 00:26:11.000 Jesus is the bearer of a greater hope than any other that is out there because He is the high priest of a greater covenant. 00:26:11.000 --> 00:26:16.000 And He wants this knowledge to spur us on. 00:26:16.000 --> 00:26:22.000 Look, you might have stumbled into the new year, spiritually speaking. 00:26:22.000 --> 00:26:23.000 You might have pulled up. 00:26:23.000 --> 00:26:25.000 You might have stopped running altogether. 00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:32.000 You've only come to church tonight because you haven't yet worked out how you're going to tell people that you've given up, but you've given up. 00:26:32.000 --> 00:26:36.000 The book of Hebrews calls you to start running again. 00:26:36.000 --> 00:26:38.000 To start running again. 00:26:38.000 --> 00:26:41.000 The preacher uses exactly that metaphor actually in chapter 12. 00:26:41.000 --> 00:26:44.000 There is a great cloud of witnesses who have gone ahead of us. 00:26:44.000 --> 00:26:49.000 The church in every age that has gone ahead of us, and they are willing us on. 00:26:49.000 --> 00:26:51.000 They are saying to us, Jesus has gone ahead of you. 00:26:51.000 --> 00:26:55.000 He has finished the race that is marked out for you, and He is summoning you. 00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:57.000 So run with endurance. 00:26:57.000 --> 00:26:59.000 The race marked out. 00:26:59.000 --> 00:27:00.000 Keep going. 00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:02.000 Don't give up. 00:27:02.000 --> 00:27:05.000 Don't go anywhere else. 00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:10.000 Hebrews, the book will reframe our suffering. 00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:12.000 You don't give up for no reason. 00:27:12.000 --> 00:27:13.000 You give up because it's tough. 00:27:13.000 --> 00:27:16.000 Well, the trials that you are suffering aren't meaningless. 00:27:16.000 --> 00:27:20.000 They are the Father's loving discipline. 00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:26.000 And actually, He has given them to you as part of the means by which He deems that you will get to glory. 00:27:26.000 --> 00:27:37.000 In His infinite wisdom, He has decided that your struggles, whatever they are, are part of what is required for you to get to heaven. 00:27:37.000 --> 00:27:42.000 That's really difficult for us to accept unless we do so by faith. 00:27:42.000 --> 00:27:49.000 And whatever you are enduring, whatever it is that you are struggling with this evening, 00:27:49.000 --> 00:27:53.000 Hebrews 13, 14 reminds us that it is only for now. 00:27:53.000 --> 00:27:57.000 It is on the clock, and it will one day come to an end. 00:27:57.000 --> 00:28:00.000 Here, we have no lasting city. 00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:04.000 If we want to make heaven in the present, we can't do it. 00:28:04.000 --> 00:28:06.000 There is no lasting city here. 00:28:06.000 --> 00:28:10.000 Suffering, sadness, pain, even death. 00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:15.000 They belong in the now, in the city that doesn't last. 00:28:17.000 --> 00:28:19.000 And so we seek the city that is to come. 00:28:19.000 --> 00:28:28.000 We persevere so that just as we suffered with Jesus here, we will triumph with Jesus there. 00:28:28.000 --> 00:28:29.000 That's why we keep going. 00:28:29.000 --> 00:28:34.000 Just as we suffer with Him here, we will triumph with Him there. 00:28:34.000 --> 00:28:39.000 So, it was a bit of a Bible study this evening. 00:28:39.000 --> 00:28:41.000 It was a bit of an overview. 00:28:41.000 --> 00:28:43.000 We jumped around a bit. 00:28:44.000 --> 00:28:45.000 The bottom line is this. 00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:47.000 Don't go anywhere else. 00:28:47.000 --> 00:28:50.000 Because Jesus is better. 00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:52.000 Way better. 00:28:52.000 --> 00:28:53.000 Let's pray together.