More than a Teacher

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Transcript:

Well, go ahead and take out your Bibles and turn with me to Hebrews chapter 3. We’re going to look at verses 1 through 6 today as we continue with our series in the book of Hebrews looking at the role that Jesus plays in the new covenant. You know, after thousands of years of relating to man through these rules and these rituals that really only pointed to something greater that was to come, God finally made this new covenant in order to provide salvation as a free gift to us by grace, through faith, and without works.

But this new covenant that he made doesn’t work without Jesus. And as we read through the book of Hebrews, we’ll see Jesus on every page of this discussion of the new covenant, and it should bring us, hopefully should bring us to the realization that there’s no way for us to connect to God apart from Jesus Christ. And yet in our world, we encounter all sorts of religious teachers who seem to promise that we can connect to God or we can have peace with God or we can have a relationship with God if we’ll just follow them and what they teach. And the problem is that so many of them are teaching such different things that it leaves a lot of people confused about how to have a relationship with God at all.

And as a result, some people are left always searching. And when they fail to find that relationship with God through one teacher, they get discouraged. They move on to the next in a hopeless cycle.

Others give up altogether and they conclude that it must be impossible to have a relationship with God at all. And still others insist that all of the teachers are right, which is always puzzling to me because two contradictory statements can’t both be right the same time. You know, when my son says he had a toy first, this happened yesterday, when my son says he had the toy first and my daughter says she had the toy first, guess what?

Somebody’s wrong, right? They can’t both be right. So how are we to know which religious teacher can bring us a relationship with God?

Maybe this is a question that you’ve struggled with in the past. Someone in this room may even be struggling with that question today. And the good news is that the question is addressed here in Hebrews chapter 3. As I’ve mentioned in previous weeks, the writer here, the writer of Hebrews, was writing to a group of people who were familiar with Jesus Christ, but they were still struggling with knowing whom to follow if they wanted to have that relationship with God.

These people came from a Jewish background, and some of them had walked right up to the edge of being intellectually convinced about Jesus Christ without being spiritually converted. And some of his audience had even professed faith in Jesus Christ. They’d made professions of faith, but now they found their faith wavering as they were considering going back to the old covenant and following Moses instead. Looking back at this old covenant, they were beginning to question which way would lead them to a relationship with God, just like many people question today.

And so the writer of Hebrews sought to persuade them that Jesus is not just another religious teacher. And he used Moses, who was the greatest of all the teachers in Judaism, as his example. And he said that Jesus is superior to Moses, and by implication he’s superior to any human teacher, certainly including this one.

And building on everything that the writer had written up to this point in Hebrews about Jesus being God in human flesh, chapter 3 then explains that there’s no need to look to any mere teacher for a relationship with God, any mere human teacher for a relationship with God, when we can turn instead to God’s only begotten Son. Hebrews 3, 1 through 6 says this. It says, Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high priest of our profession, Christ Jesus, who was faithful to him that appointed him, as also Moses was faithful in all his house.

For this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who hath builded the house hath more honor than the house. For every house is built by some man, but he that built all things is God, and Moses verily was faithful in all his house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after, but Christ as a son over his own house, whose house are we if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. As we go through this, keep in mind that none of this is an attack on Moses.

None of it’s an attack on religious teachers in general. God gave Moses a position of honor, as we’ll see later on. So there’s nothing here that suggests that Moses was some false teacher that’s being called out in the book of Hebrews. The point is that while he’s a teacher, Moses was a godly teacher, Jesus is so much more.

The passage also doesn’t suggest that there’s no need for people to teach God’s word, otherwise I’d be out of a job. We just need to be clear that Christ is superior to any teacher, and that he alone holds the key to our relationship with God. It’s not me, it’s not the pastor down the street, it’s not anybody else.

Jesus Christ holds the key to our relationship with God. And in this passage, the writer wasted no time in drawing attention to what Jesus had done for God’s people. Wasted no time.

He started out here in verse 1 with the word wherefore. And that word is meant to bring our attention back to the previous chapter and everything that it says about what Jesus offers us in salvation, namely adoption and sanctification in addition to forgiveness, which we’ve talked about before. We’re adopted into the family of God because of Jesus, and we are declared holy and set apart from the world and set apart to God because of Jesus.

But then he went on in verse 1 to say the same thing again by calling us his holy brethren. And he was pointing out our sanctification and our adoption into the family of God by these things, but then he also called us partakers of the heavenly calling. And if you’ve trusted in Jesus Christ as your Savior, you are a partaker in God’s heavenly calling.

God has called us to share in the grace that he offers. He’s called us to a heavenly citizenship and a heavenly inheritance. We’re called to a heavenly home and a heavenly household, as we’ll see throughout this passage, and a relationship with our heavenly Father.

We don’t have an earthly calling as Christians. Christianity is not about what we can do on this earth or what we can get on this earth. It’s about our heavenly calling.

And all of this, we have all of this because of Jesus. In the second part of verse 1, the writer of Hebrews said, Consider the apostle and high priest of our profession, Christ Jesus. Now by calling Jesus the apostle of our profession, he was identifying Jesus as the messenger who revealed the nature and the plans of God in a more complete way than they had ever been known before.

We saw that all through chapter 1. and he announced God’s new covenant of salvation with man. And by calling Jesus the high priest of our profession, he meant that Jesus was the one who did all the work of making provision for that new covenant.

And going back to this question of how we find a relationship with God, the writer of Hebrews spelled it out for you here. If you want a relationship with God, Jesus told us how and then Jesus made it possible. That’s what a hostile and high priest means.

He brought the message and he did the work. So if you want that relationship with God, Jesus told you how and Jesus made it possible. And the writer challenged in this verse, he challenged his audience to make a thorough examination of everything that Jesus had done in those roles as apostle and high priest. Because when we take it on ourselves to consider Jesus, to discover who he is and to learn what he’s done, it becomes apparent that there has never been anyone else like him.

I mean, he totally stands apart by himself in history. So to those who might have passed on Jesus because they were more inclined to follow some other teacher like Moses, the writer of Hebrews called them back and told them to give Jesus a closer look. And when we look at Jesus and compare him to even the greatest of human teachers, there are some things that set him apart, as we’re going to see in this passage.

Let’s look at verse 2. It says that Jesus was faithful to him that appointed him. Now, the one who appointed him was the father.

It’s the father. The book of Hebrews has already shown us that Jesus is God, okay, every bit as much as the father is God, and yet each of them play a distinct role in their redemptive plans, in this plan to redeem us. The father appointed the son to mediate.

He appointed him to the role of mediator in this new covenant. He was appointed to bring peace and reconciliation between God and man. And when the Father sent him here for this purpose, for that purpose, the Bible says he was faithful to do everything he was asked.

Everything the Father sent him to do, he was faithful to complete it. And this is where the comparison between Jesus and Moses really, really gets going. Because the writer also said in verse 2, as also Moses was faithful in all his house.

Now remember, he’s writing to a group of people who recognized Moses as the greatest of all the Israelites. and they considered him sort of the pinnacle of faithfulness to God. It’s about as high as you could get.

So the writer put this in terms that they would understand, and he says Jesus and Moses were both faithful to God, so that they would understand just how faithful Jesus was. And he wrote that Moses was faithful in all his house. We’re going to see several mentions of this word house throughout the passage.

And it doesn’t always mean a literal house, like a physical building. The word is oikos in Greek. which they also named yogurt after, and I don’t know why.

The word is oikos, and it can be used in this figurative sense that indicates somebody’s family or their household or even their circle of influence. And that’s how it’s being used here. The oikos or household of God in the old covenant was Israel.

And so Moses’ faithfulness stood out among all of Israel and put him in a category all by himself. And in the new covenant, Jesus’ faithfulness is comparable to Moses’ faithfulness in the old covenant, putting Jesus in that same category. So you’ve already elevated Jesus.

In this one verse, the writer of Hebrews held Moses and Jesus up as these shining examples of faithfulness to God, and he elevated them to this unique category above everybody else. But then he went even further, and he elevated Jesus even higher than Moses. Look at verse 3.

It says, for this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses. Now, don’t get hung up on the verse calling Jesus a man. And the word man is not even found in the Greek text.

You’ll probably see it in italics in some of your Bibles. That’s because there’s not always a one-to-one translation available between languages. And sometimes words have to be inserted to clarify things that are implied in the Greek.

And because they’re being honest, they’ll put them in italics or brackets so you know, hey, that was added just to make things clearer. But even if it did call Jesus a man in the Greek, we’ve already seen in Hebrews that Jesus has always been God. He never stopped being God, but he became a man as well.

And so nothing in here contradicts his godhood. The point about this verse is not to say anything about Jesus’ humanity. It’s pointing out that he’s worthy of more glory than Moses or any mere man ever could be.

And the phrase counted worthy means that he’s entitled to it. He’s entitled to it. Jesus deserves even more glory than Moses.

The writer said this to a group of people who, again, don’t forget, they thought Moses was just about as close to God as any human being could get. They really saw Moses as God’s right-hand man. And they thought if anybody could bring them closer to God, it would be Moses.

If anybody deserved glory among God’s people, it was Moses. and they weren’t necessarily wrong in admiring Moses. Numbers chapter 12 shows us how God felt about Moses.

In that story, some of Moses’ family members were criticizing him and God put a stop to it. And he told them in Numbers 12, verses six through eight, if there be a prophet among you, I, the Lord, will make myself known unto him in a vision and I will speak unto him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine house, like it said here.

With him will I speak mouth to mouth. So God said that even though he would speak to all the other prophets sort of indirectly through visions, he talked to Moses in person. Gives you some idea of how God felt about Moses.

Moses had this relationship with God that was unparalleled among mankind. And yet Hebrews says that Jesus is even more glorious than Moses. And verse 3 tells us why.

It says, This verse means that the builder should receive more glory than the building itself. We get this backwards sometimes. If we were to see the great pyramid at Giza or the Taj Mahal, I’d love to see either of those.

We’d stand there and we’d marvel at how impressive the buildings themselves are and never give a second thought to the builder, even though these buildings would be nothing more than just piles of materials if it hadn’t been for the efforts of the builders, right? So it’s really the builders who deserve the credit. As impressed as we are with the building, we should be even more impressed with the builder who made it all possible.

So what this is saying about the comparison between Jesus and Moses is that Moses was part of the household of God. He was even a servant or a steward in the house, but he was still a part of the house. And while Moses was part of that house, in contrast, Jesus built the house.

He built the household of God. Verse 4 says, For every house is built by some man. In other words, every house has a builder.

The same verse says, But he that built all things is God. Now we already know from way back in chapter 1 that the one who built all things is Jesus Christ. He was the co-creator with the Father. And this verse is telling us that just as a human builder is needed to build a physical house, God is needed to build the household of God.

And that’s precisely what Jesus did. And while Jesus was busy building the household of God, Moses was a mere servant in the household. Verse 5 tells us that Moses verily was faithful in all his house as a servant.

He was part of the household of God, and as a servant in the household of God, he was faithful in everything that God gave him to do. We should all aspire to be as faithful to God as Moses was. But the point here is that as faithful as Moses was and as glorious as Moses was, Jesus is greater than Moses.

And verse 5 continues, saying that all of Moses’ faithful service was for a testimony of the things which were to be spoken after. Here’s another mark of the superiority of Jesus Christ. Everything God called Moses to do, all of these things that Moses was so faithful in, they were ultimately meant to point people to Jesus Christ. Moses’ whole ministry was about Jesus Christ. Here’s some examples. The law of Moses was designed to point people to Jesus.

Galatians 3. 24 says the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ. The law’s entire function was to set a bar so high that we could not possibly reach it so that we would understand our sinful condition before a holy God. As Romans 3.

20 says, by the law is the knowledge of sin. The law was just there so that we’d know we were sinners, so that we would realize we needed Jesus Christ. Then we’ve got the sacrifices. The sacrifices that Moses instituted were designed to point people to Jesus.

Hebrews 10. 4 says that it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. The sacrifices of the old covenant didn’t really take away sins anyway.

And Hebrews 10. 3 says that the sacrifices were to help man remember, this is a paraphrase, they were there to help man remember the gravity of his own sin until we could be, in the words of Hebrews 10. 10, sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

All those little sacrifices were meant to point to one big and all-sufficient and everlasting sacrifice that Jesus made for us. And we’ve got the tabernacle. The tabernacle that Moses built was designed to point people to Jesus.

It was made to be a place where man could commune with God, where God’s people could commune with him. But Hebrews 9. 11 calls Jesus a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands.

So the tabernacle where people communed with God was a picture of the Savior who would make it possible for us to commune with God without a physical tabernacle. And you’ve got all the festivals and feasts of the Old Testament. The festivals that Moses observed were designed also to point people to Christ. Colossians 2.

17 calls all of the feasts and all of the observances a shadow of things to come. Even the Sabbath was a picture of the Savior who offered to be our Sabbath rest when he said in Matthew 11. 28, come unto me all ye who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. He offered to be our Sabbath rest. The Passover too was a picture of Jesus.

1 Corinthians 5. 7 says, our Passover lamb is sacrificed for us. He is the lamb, Jesus is the lamb, who was slain for us, and whose blood marks us and secures us so that eternal death passes over us.

I realize I’m throwing a lot of scripture at you, that’s why I’ve given them to you in your notes, so that you can go back and look them up later, make sure that I’m telling you what they say, and telling you what they say in context. So we look at all of this, and Moses’ entire ministry was about Jesus. Moses didn’t come set up a religious system that was going to bring people into a lasting relationship with God through the observance of rules.

No, the ministry of Moses, this old covenant that Moses taught was a temporary arrangement that sort of served as a giant one-way sign pointing people to Jesus Christ. And in verse 6, we see that while Moses was a servant in the house, Jesus is the son who rules over the house. We see this in the phrase Christ as a son over his own house. The son who rules over the house is naturally going to outrank the servant who works there, right?

But then the writer of Hebrews included us in the discussion when he wrote whose house are we. And when you take that in the context of the phrases around it, that’s a statement saying that you and I as believers in Jesus Christ are the household of God. We are the oikos, the household of God in the new covenant.

And Ephesians chapter 2 describes how Jesus broke down the wall of separation and how he reconciled us to God. And verse 19 of Ephesians chapter 2 says he brought us into God’s household. It says, now therefore ye are no longer, no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God.

And that word there is related to the word oikos, household. This tells us that Jesus brought together the Jews and the Gentiles and he purchased our forgiveness at the cross. He reconciled us both to the Father through his shed blood.

He gave us access to the Father by the same Holy Spirit and he built us all together as a whole new oikos of God. You and I are as much part of the household of God, the family of God in the new covenant as Israel was the household and family of God in the old covenant. We’re part of God’s household.

Then the final part of Hebrews 3. 6 says that we’re part of the household if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. Now, our being part of the household is tied to our enduring to the end.

The writer of Hebrews is not, he wasn’t writing to warn us about falling away from the new covenant. He was doing the opposite when he said this. If we’re part of Jesus’ new covenant, he will empower us to endure to the end.

He’ll keep us secure. This is one of the signs. This is part of the evidence of our belonging to the household of God in the first place.

After all, throughout the study that we’ve done of the book of Hebrews, we’ve seen repeatedly how Jesus enabled our adoption into the family of God and how God sanctifies us, how he makes us holy. Now, God doesn’t adopt us into his household, into his family, just to put us out as soon as we make a mistake. He adopts us.

He covers our sins with the blood of Jesus’ perfect sacrifice. And he transforms us from the inside out to make us to be more like Jesus. And with God doing the heavy lifting of saving us and keeping us, I don’t believe we can ever be lost from his household.

Now throughout this passage, we see the superiority of Jesus to Moses. And again, by implication, the superiority of Jesus over every other religious leader or teacher. And again, this is not an attack on Moses or teachers in general. Moses was a faithful man who served God throughout his entire life.

And God calls and equips some of us to teach his word so that we can point people to Jesus, so that we can train people to serve him better. But a couple of facts still remain. Some teachers are false teachers, number one.

And number two, even godly teachers are at best servants in the household of God. We cannot compare to Jesus. Don’t miss that point, okay?

Even godly teachers are at best servants in the household of God. And as one who’s been called to this ministry of teaching and preaching, I can point people to Jesus Christ. I can proclaim God’s word and help you discover how to apply it in your life. I can even encourage you and equip you maybe to be more faithful servants of Jesus Christ, but understand this.

Understand this. It’s a mistake. It is a huge mistake to think that your adherence to any teacher, myself included, will ever put you in a right relationship with God.

You don’t get to God through me or any other teacher. Moses couldn’t give people a lasting relationship with God. And if Moses couldn’t do it, no other human religious teacher could do it.

And I know I certainly can’t. If you want a relationship with the Father, you don’t go through the servants. You can go through the Son.

Unlike Moses, Jesus actually could bring people into a relationship with the Father. Throughout this passage, it says that Moses is just a servant in the house, while Jesus is the one who built the house. And when you understand what it means that you and I are the house, that we are the household of God, when you understand what that means, then for Jesus to build the house means that he and he alone brought us into a relationship with God all by himself, one by one.

And so going back to the question from the beginning of the message, how are we to know which religious teacher can bring us a relationship with God? The answer is none of them. None of us can do it.

If you want a relationship with the father, again, you don’t go through the servants. If you want a relationship with the father, you go through the son. After all, Moses was the greatest of all the teachers in the old covenant, and even he couldn’t come close to Jesus Christ. In this passage, we see that in contrast to Moses, who merely gave us a set of earthly rules, Jesus gave us a heavenly calling.

In contrast to Moses, who was a mere servant in the household, Jesus is the son who rules over all that belongs to the father. In contrast to Moses, who was part of the household himself. Jesus is the one who built the household of God and is still building it, still adding to it out of every nation, tribe, and tongue on the face of the earth.

He’s still adding to the household of God today and can add you to the household of God today if you’re not already part of God’s family. In contrast to Moses, whose law served to show us how our sin had kept us out of the household, out of the family of God to begin with, Jesus brought us into the household, into the family of God, and he provided for our adoption as sons and daughters of God and his own joint heirs through his blood sacrifice. In contrast to Moses, who explained the system whereby we would either be temporarily punished or eternally lost, eternally condemned for any act of disobedience.

Jesus holds us and keeps us secure so that we can never be lost, and he’ll make sure that we persevere in the household of God. And this morning, there may be some of you in this room who’ve been wondering which way is the right way. Maybe you’ve been wondering which teacher or set of teachings might finally bring you into a right relationship with God.

But the Bible’s pretty clear that no matter how else we may benefit you, no mere human teacher is capable of bringing you into a relationship with God. If you want a relationship with the Father this morning, don’t go through the servants, go through the Son. Every sin, every disobedient word or thought or action has separated you from the holy God and excluded you from entering into a relationship with him.

But his son, not all these teachers, not me, not Moses, but his son came and lived a sinless life. And he came and with no sin of his own, he took responsibility for your sins. And he paid the penalty that you owed and received all the punishment that you deserved.

and when he shed his blood and he died on the cross, his blood was to cleanse you from your sin and to clothe you with his righteousness. See, we’re not righteous enough to come into the presence of God or be in his family, but Christ gives us his righteousness, which is more than enough. You can’t get rid of your sin by good works or religious rituals.

You can’t stand complete before a holy God because you followed a particular religious teacher or a particular religion. Only through the sacrifice of Christ, which cleanses us from sin and imparts his righteousness to us, can we have a relationship with God. Jesus died for you and he rose again so that he could forgive your sins and bring you into the household of God and give you a relationship with the Father and eternal life with him in heaven.

To receive those gifts, you don’t work for it. All that you have to do is admit that you’ve sinned and that you need a savior because you can’t save yourself. Believe that Jesus died to pay for your sins in full so that you could be saved and ask him to forgive you and be your savior.

Folks, again, mere servants can’t give you a relationship with the Father. Only the Son can save you and bring you into God’s household.

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