Consider Jesus
Notes
Transcript
Welcome
Announcements
Hymn Sing & Dinner Tonight — 4:30-7:00 PM
Flourish - May 9th
Chinwag?
†CALL TO WORSHIP Hebrews 12:28-29
Pastor Austin Prince
Minister: Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken,
Congregation: let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God acceptable service with reverence and awe. For our God is a consuming fire.
†PRAYER OF ADORATION AND INVOCATION
O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. You are the Lord; Creator, Sustainer, and the Ruler of all things. You are our Lord, the God who gave His own Son for our salvation; who has called us out of darkness and into your marvelous light. Come, O God, inhabit the praises of your people. Send the Spirit that we may worship you in spirit and in truth. Receive our worship, as you receive our prayer.
†OPENING HYMN OF PRAISE #226
“O the Deep, Unbounded Riches”
†CONFESSION OF SIN & ASSURANCE OF PARDON
Romans 12:1-2, Ephesians 1:7-14 Craig Hoffer, Elder
Minister: Christians, we are called not to be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewal of our minds. He has given us the Holy Spirit, and, by testing, we may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Congregation: But many times, and in a variety of ways, we have failed to discern and failed to do God’s will. We have much to confess.
Pastoral Prayer of Confession
Minister: Christians, in him we have redemption through his blood.
Congregation: In him we have the forgiveness of our sins, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will. In him we have obtained an inheritance, according to the purpose of him, who works all things according to the counsel of his will. When we heard the word of truth, the gospel of our salvation, and believed in him, we were sealed with the Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it. All to the praise of his glory, amen!
CONTINUAL READING OF SCRIPTURE Numbers 11:16-35
THE OFFERING OF TITHES AND OUR GIFTS
CONGREGATIONAL PRAYERS
THE LORD’S PRAYER
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
†HYMN OF PREPARATION #478
“Jesus Loves Me, This I Know”
SERMON Hebrews 3:1-14 // Consider Jesus
PRAYER OF ILLUMINATION
O Lord, as we open now your word, we pray that the eyes of our heart may be enlightened, so that we may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that we may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
TEXT
1 Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, 2 who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God’s house. 3 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. 4 (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) 5 Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, 6 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. 7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, 9 where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. 10 Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.’ 11 As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’ ” 12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.
AFTER SCRIPTURE
Praise be to you, O Lord; teach me your decrees. I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches.
Intro:
When I was a teenager my Dad came home one day with two green sea-doos. They were awesome — really fast and nimble in the water. We used to go to the lake almost every weekend in the summer. And if you have ever ridden one, you know that they can be quite difficult to mount when they are sitting still in the water. If they are driving them in the water they are stable, but because they are so small, if you just try to jump on it while it is sitting still it tilts and leans and will usually roll over on you, dumping you into the lake.
It was always a great joy to watch my mom and my dad try to get on them, especially if they tried to ride together on one. Once they got on and got going, they looked really cool. But trying to get on them with their constrictive life-jackets and their timid little leap from the dock to the seat was always funny. One side would dip and then they would overcorrect and lean to the other side, and usually have to bail into the water at some point.
And there comes that moment with things like that when you just have to go for it. If you try to keep one foot on the dock and one foot on the sea-doo, it starts to drift apart. You have to commit and decide. Because if you don’t decide, then what you are really doing is deciding to take a swim.
It’s that dynamic —a similar commitment to choose that the author of Hebrews is presenting to his audience.
We have already remarked that the major theme of Hebrews is that Jesus is better. In chapter one we noted that Jesus the Son was a better and final word than the word of the fathers and prophets. We also saw how Jesus was better than the angels and has a better rule. And now, the text shows us the Jesus is better than Moses, and it asks us to do something with this knowledge.
The text is not trying to denigrate Moses anymore than the previous texts were trying to denigrate the prophets or the Angels. But the text is pressing us that, like the dock and the boat, we can’t straddle two different foundations. We have to choose. And if the choice is between Moses and Jesus, you must choose Jesus. Speaking to the Hebrews, this would have been quite the ask — a monumental shift of allegiance.
Look at vv.1-6 with me…
Consider Jesus
Consider Jesus
“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 God’s house. For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.” (Hebrews 3:1–6, ESV)
We, as holy brothers (remember last week), are challenged to consider Jesus.
When you hear that phrase, “consider Jesus”, it sounds like you’re trying to convince someone to simply try Jesus, like He is a better product than what you are currently trying.
But it’s not to be taken that way. What it’s getting at is something closer to “brothers, you are to regard Jesus or measure all things by Jesus”.
Instead of measuring all things through Moses, there has been a change. You are to measure all things by the standard of Christ.
The text goes on to illustrate this, saying that Moses was indeed faithful, but Moses was merely a part of the house, while Jesus is the builder of the house. Moses is a brick in the wall, just like you and me. Moses was great — He was the giver of the law and leader of the Exodus, but Jesus is the builder of the house and the one who truly deserves the praise. Moses was a servant of God, but Jesus is the Son of God. The measurement should be easy — Jesus is better.
And if you are standing on the dock of Moses, like the Hebrews had been their whole lives and for generations, now they have to decide whether to stand there or jump out onto Christ. Hebrews says that they can’t stay where they are, they have to move. They have to consider Jesus. They have to measure their lives and their theology by Him.
And there’s a cross-reference in this text that will help us see how to apply this text as well.
In v.5 we are told that Moses was faithful in all of God’s house as a servant.
That’s a reference back to Numbers 12:7. And in that story, right after a lot of belly-aching from the Israelites in the wilderness, Miriam and Aaron, Moses’ family, spoke out against him because they were angry about his marriage to a Cushite (or Ethiopian) woman. She was now in his house and covenanted to his faith, but they didn’t like that. And Aaron and Miriam began to speak out against Moses, saying “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?
And when the Lord heard it, he came in a pillar of cloud and spoke to them: “And he said, “Hear my words: If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make myself known to him in a vision; I speak with him in a dream. Not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house. With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?” And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them, and he departed. When the cloud removed from over the tent, behold, Miriam was leprous, like snow. And Aaron turned toward Miriam, and behold, she was leprous.” (Numbers 12:6–10, ESV)
Moses is called a faithful servant because his authority was being challenged.
That story pushes our text in two ways:
Just as it was once said that the people shouldn't fight over who to follow, that Moses was the faithful leader with the clear authority from God. Now the text is echoing that story to say again that we are not to fight over who to follow, Jesus or Moses, because Jesus has the clear authority as God. Now we are to consider, to measure everything, by Jesus.
Miriam and Aaron’s frustration with Moses was his marriage to an Ethiopian woman.
This part of the story reminds us that there is often a reason for the dividing line. When we are asked to measure all things by Christ, this is the type of thing that comes up. They were frustrated that Moses had brought in this outsider and incorporated her into the covenant community. They wanted to rebel against Moses, but God told them to choose.
And that’s exactly the type of thing that created a dividing line between the followers of Moses and the followers of Jesus in the church. Jesus, too, had taken in a bride from all the nations and tribes and tongues, and that caused a riff between who to follow, are we Hebrews or Christians? This letter is to the Hebrews, after all. This was a huge issue — see also Galatians, Colossians, and Acts.
And just like that situation, there will come into our lives, as we consider and measure all things by Jesus, all kinds of scenarios that challenge us to consider who we will follow.
There is always something that is going to come and rise to the surface of your life and ask you to choose.
And in v.6, the challenge of this text is to hold fast our confidence and boasting in our hope. It’s a call choose, to consider Jesus, and to perseverance of that choice.
We are called to measure everything by Christ, to pick either the dock or the boat, and we are called to keep on doing that with confidence and hope in Jesus, over and over again.
And this is what the doctrine of perseverance looks like. It’s what it looks like practically in daily life.
There is a constant need to considerJesus with everything in our lives, to measure everything by Him.
This text is pulling us farther and farther along, that Jesus is superior, better in every way. That we are to rest in Him alone and to pay careful attention to other things that are pulling for our allegiance. Perseverance is the difference between a temporary faith and saving faith. That, as life moves on, Christ is considered and found worthy over and over again. That other things have not grown up around us to compete for our allegiance and faith and trust.
It almost seems like asking us to evaluate all things by Christ would be to love Him with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength…. Yeah, you got it.
And what that looks like practically as we consider Jesus and measure everything by Him, there are things that get simply get cut. If we are trying to follow Christ and rest one foot there, while the other foot tries to hold onto a life of sin, you need to choose.
You can’t straddle both without failing. Scripture says that you can’t serve two masters; you will have to choose. If you want to follow Christ but want to keep your secret lusts, your lies, your pride, your shifty business habits, your bitterness, your unforgiveness, he says to have to let it go. You have to measure that by Christ — are they your savior, are they Lord, are they in competition with Him? If so, run for your life.
Perseverance, over time, will often look like leaving things behind. There are some things that I simply can’t do anymore. There are some people that I can’t walk through life with anymore. There are some places that I can’t go. I don’t want to go there. As I measure all things by Christ, there is a refinement. I can’t talk like that anymore. I can’t have one foot on this life and another foot on Christ — I’m being pulled between the two. I have to choose.
And there other things that as you measure them by Christ, they simply get re-aligned. This is why the example of Moses here is so helpful. Moses isn’t being denigrated in this passage, but he is being properly placed. And if the feet of the Hebrews were trying to straddle hope in the law and their keeping of the law and one foot on Jesus, they needed to hop over to Christ. Their allegiance to Moses was fine, as long as they look beyond the servant and to the Son.
And there are many such examples of this. All sorts of things, even good things, that you mature beyond. You begin to measure them by Christ and you have to make a choice.
Daily there will be things like this, good things, that will begin to compete for your allegiance. Maybe it’s a sport or an activity? Let’s say it’s dance. You love to dance, but it starts to demand more of you, your time, and your self-worth. You maybe start to skip worship and sabbath rest, or maybe you start getting anxious, and your joy rises and falls on how well things are going at dance. The call here is the consider those things against Christ, too. It may not require you to completely cut ties with dance, but it will require you to re-align and put it in the proper place.
Other things like this would be business success or a business venture or an academic endeavor? You have an ambition to do well in this realm, and that’s good, but you also can feel it creeping in that your significance is bound up in it. And you can feel the competition between contentment in Christ and covetousness at work. I need nothing in Christ and I need more at work. Measure these things and act accordingly. What does it look like to stop straddling the dock and the boat? What action do you need to take as you jump to Christ alone. Again, maybe you don’t quit your job, but maybe you stop working such long hours trying to get ahead. Maybe you stop flattering people to get ahead. There are a host of things that get re-aligned as we consider Christ in them.
Maybe it’s an attitude and a relationship? You’ve gotten to a place where you only give to people what you think they deserve. It has subtly become ingrained in you that your love and encouragement, or a kind word, or a gracious act, must be earned for you to give.
There are many things that we must cut ties with and many other things that need to be re-aligned, but all things must be considered through Jesus — measured by Jesus.
Verse 6 called us to hold fast to our confidence and our boasting in our hope.
And measuring all things by Christ is what that looks like.
When the Bible speaks about perseverance, it isn’t saying that you have to persevere to the end and then you will be a Christian, as if it is in doubt until you persevere. It talks about perseverance proving what it was that you believed all along.
It isn’t that we look back on our prayer when we were twelve years old at VBS and try to hold fast to that confidence. It’s that we hold on to the object of our hope again and again and again over time. It’s not a confidence in ourselves, but a boast in our hope. It’s a regular choosing of Christ over and over again in all of these areas day in and day out.
And when should we do this?
Look at vv.7-11 (go straight to point)
Today
Today
“Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.’ As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’ ”” (Hebrews 3:7–11, ESV)
There is a pretty narrow window of time when you should consider Jesus — a very specific time. The text says today. As long as it’s called today, you should do that.
And that’s what perseverance really looks like in practice. A consistent refinement, a consistent re-alignment of who we are as we measure all things by Christ.
Our text is quoting Psalm 95, and it challenges us to be faithful today and not to harden our hearts.
Because that is the challenge and that is the friction. When we are called to step off the dock and onto Christ, when I am calling all things in my life to be measured by Christ, you can feel that as a loss.
You’ll think, “If I give this over to Christ, I’ll lose. If I give this over to Christ, there will be less for me.”
Notice the things that you are afraid to lose. Pay attention to those things and measure them by Christ.
The Hebrews were angry that Christ had brought in this foreign bride — they thought there would be less for them, that things were getting polluted and it hardened their hearts.
You can think that, too, but it’s a lie. It’s the deceitfulness of sin.
It’s a trickster. You can even think, Christ can be savior, He can uphold the world, but He can’t see me through if I give over my grasp on this thing at work, or this relationship, or this hobby. What will people think? What if my standard of living changes, etc. Everything needs to be considered through Christ. The large and the small.
You think that Christ is whittling you away down to nothing — taking away all of your fun, all of your joy, or your life, but what he is doing is drawing out the cancer and setting you free. You feet are coming off of the wobbly place and are now being set on the Rock. Your joy increases. Satan is a liar — a deceiver.
VV.12-14 are quick to remind us that we are to exhort and remind each other, as long as it is called today, that none of us may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
We need each other. We need to remind each other when we are being deceived by sin. We need each other to exhort and encourage and testify that Christ really is our joy and hope and life. That we have been faced with the same challenge and by God’s grace we chose Christ and He has held us.
Charge:
You can’t serve two masters.
Like the treasure in the field or pearl of great price parable. Faith requires decisive action — it’s a chance of a lifetime, but you must give yourself over to it and capitalize on it.
Perseverance is like that. It’s the daily act of looking to Christ, measuring all things in life by Him, and seizing on Him by faith.
So, today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. Look to Christ. Consider Him.
THE MINISTRY OF THE LORD’S SUPPER
Leader: Lift up your hearts!
Congregation: We lift them up to the Lord.
Leader: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
Congregation: It is right for us to give thanks and praise!
CONFESSION OF FAITH -
The Apostles’ Creed (p.851)
INVITATION TO THE LORD’S TABLE
Beloved in the Lord Jesus, the meal which we are about to celebrate is a feast of remembrance, communion, and hope.
We come to remember that Jesus was sent into the world to assume our flesh and blood, to become God with us, that we might be redeemed. We come to have communion with this same Christ who has promised to be with us even to the end of the world.
We come in hope, believing that this bread and this cup are a pledge and a foretaste of a new heaven and a new earth, where we shall behold God.
In his earthly ministry Jesus praised those who provided for him, saying, I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink. Now here, for us, is the bread of life given; let all who hunger come and eat. Here is the fruit of the vine, poured out for us. It is for all who belong to Christ through repentance, faith, baptism, and continuing union with his church. Let all who thirst come and drink.
Let’s pray together:
PRAYER
Congregation: Most righteous God, we remember in this meal the perfect sacrifice offered once on the cross by our Lord Jesus Christ for the sin of the whole world. United with Christ in his suffering, strengthened by the Holy Spirit, trusting in the power of God to triumph over evil, we wait in joyful hope for the fullness of God’s reign. Send your Holy Spirit upon us, we pray, that the bread which we break and the cup which we bless may be to us the communion of the body and blood of Christ.
Grant that, being joined together in him, we may attain to the unity of the faith and grow up in all things into Christ our Lord. And as this grain has been gathered from many fields into one loaf, and these grapes from many hills into one cup, grant, O Lord, that your whole Church may soon be gathered from the ends of the earth into your kingdom. Even so, come, Lord Jesus! Amen.
Congregation is seated.
THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE ELEMENTS
THE WORDS OF INSTITUTION AND SHARING OF THE SUPPER
“Eat and drink.”
Mark 14:22-25
And as they were eating, he took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly, I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”
†OUR RESPONSE #572
“Gloria Patri”
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.
†BENEDICTION: GOD’S BLESSING FOR HIS PEOPLE
Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.
1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 s
Grace Notes Reflection
We are constantly faced with the need to choose where our hope rests. And so there comes a need to measure all things in our lives by Christ—to “consider Jesus”.
Do we trust in Jesus for hope, or do we trust in something else? Are we trusting in Jesus in a particular situation, or is our hope placed in a few different areas, Jesus being only some part of it?
The truth is, there is almost always some temptation in our lives that are presenting themselves with their usual deceitfulness, promising to make us a little more whole or happy. Whether it is the temptation to go back to Egypt’s bread as the ancient Israelites wandered the dessert, or the pull to position yourself at work, in a hobby, or in a relationship to gain more significance and self-worth, we must look at the gambit of what is pulling at us and measure it by Christ.
This is also what the doctrine of perseverance looks like in real-time. Though perseverance is measured over a long seasons, what it looks like in time is faithfulness “today”, as long as it is called “today”. Our text takes away some of the insecurity when we talk about perseverance — that it is something that can’t be known until proven at a later date, and brings it into focus right now. What saving faith looks like is a real-time evaluation of loyalties and allegiances measure by Christ day in and day out. It’s a daily challenge to the lies that tell us that we aren’t fully secure in Christ, that we need something else that He can’t give and that we must seize. It’s a daily challenge to see the truth over the nicely-packaged lie. Perseverance is to come away time and time again having chosen Christ, finding that He was always more than sufficient to hold all of our hope. Endurance through this wilderness is a refining grace of God, but in that grace we also need each other to play an encouraging role, to testify of victories won and of Christ’s daily faithfulness that our hearts don’t grow hard with callousness, complaint, and doubt.
What things in your life simply need to be cut out as they are considered against Christ?
Like Moses in our text, what things or beliefs in your life, though good, need to be re-aligned to take their proper place?
