Live by Faith

Please read Hebrews 10 and then listen to the message.

We, who have been made righteous in Christ, must not shrink back, but believe and obey.  We must draw near, hold fast, build up and press on.  We must live by faith.  

A New Way Through Christ's Blood

Read Hebrews 9 and then listen to the message in the player on the right or download it from itunes.

Better Than Anything Else

Read: Hebrews7:25-8:13

The author of Hebrews draws a contrast between the real, true, lasting and what is better with mere copies and fleeting shadows.  He compares and contrasts Christ with every other means of coming to God.

How does one come to God? 

One might think of ancient paganism with its sacrifices, libations, rites and ceremonies, but without any moral or ethical requirements.  One might be expected to pour out a libation to Baal to ensure a good harvest, but not to change one’s life for Baal. Or one might think of popular religion today which is kind of the opposite; in that sacrifice is generally not required since it is maintained that one only needs to be a “good person” (however that is defined).  Even modern Judaism posits good works as a substitute for sacrifice.  And so, in this line of thinking, we appease God by being nice. One could also think of Islam with its five pillars or Hinduism with its karma

In all of these, a transaction is taking place (“I offer my best goat, Baal gives me a good harvest”; “I’m a ‘good person’ so God lets me into heaven”; “I’ve done this list of good things; I haven’t done this list of bad things; I’ve performed this herculean task and so I’ve earned enough points to please God.”).  We’re very much like the ancient Egyptians who, according to their Book of the Dead, believed that one’s life was put on the scale and weighed against ma’at (truth) and if the scale tipped in your direction, you’re in.

However, the God of the Bible is different.  He requires love because he offers love because He is love.  And we love God because God first loved us.  And so, the only real transaction in Christianity is one defined by grace – it is what God has done for us through Christ. Jesus has made the way to God, and His way is better than all the other attempts at getting to God. He is the Way. 

Jesus is the better way, the only way.  He is the real, the true, the lasting.  The way to God presented in the OT was the way only because it looked forward to Christ.  And the way of the OT was good, but Jesus is better.  Jesus is superior, to the priests who served in the Temple, to the sacrifices offered in the Temple, to the Temple itself and to the entire Mosaic covenant that called the Temple into being.

Jesus is better than earthly priests.  We read, “Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. For the law appoints as high priests men who are weak; but the oath, which came after the law, appointed the Son, who has been made perfect forever.”  Jesus was perfect in and of Himself and His coming to earth to suffer on our behalf made Him the perfect Mediator – the perfect Way of salvation.

And unlike earthly priests who offered sacrifices of animals, Jesus offered Himself.  He is not only our High Priest but also our sacrifice.  And so Jesus is better than the sacrifices. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. We don’t need to offer anymore sacrifices of sheep or goats or birds or bulls because Jesus was the ultimate Sacrifice – “once for all”.  We read in 8:1, “The point of what we are saying is this: We do have such a high priest.”  We don’t have a high priest that has to offer sacrifice after sacrifice, over and over.  Jesus paid it all.  We have a Savior who paid it all for us and thereby opened the way to God.  We have a Savior who has gone before us as our forerunner.  We do have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, and who serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by man.

And Jesus serves in a better Temple.  He serves in the true, heavenly tabernacle which was set up by the Lord Himself and not constructed by human beings.  We read in vv. 3-5, “They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle: "See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain."  When Moses was on Mt. Sinai, he was not only instructed on what the tabernacle should look like and how it should be built, he was shown.  The Tabernacle that the Israelites built was a model of the heavenly dwelling of God.  And it is in that heavenly sanctuary, in the very presence of God the Father, that Jesus stands on our behalf – as our Mediator (as our advocate, our go-between) and where He, as we learned last week, holds the anchor of our hope.

And because of that, Jesus has brought about a better covenant – the new covenant.  We read (8:6), “But the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better promises. For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. But God found fault with the people and said…”  And then the author quotes Jeremiah 31:

The time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not remain faithful to my covenant, and I turned away from them, declares the Lord. This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.

Jesus has brought about the New Covenant.  The old one was not bad, it’s just the new one is better.  For we are told that God found fault, not with the old covenant, but with the people who failed to obey it.  For the LORD said this about Israel to the prophet Jeremiah, “they did not listen or pay attention; instead, they followed the stubborn inclinations of their evil hearts. They went backward and not forward. From the time your forefathers left Egypt until now, day after day, again and again I sent you my servants the prophets. But they did not listen to me or pay attention. They were stiff-necked and did more evil than their forefathers.”

And so, as the apostle Paul wrote in Romans, “what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.”  What the law (the old covevant) could not do; what we could not pull off, God did through Christ.  That’s why we read in the NC the Lord saying not “you shall, you shall…” but “I will … I will …”

The New Covenant is something God has done.  Jesus referred to it during the Last Supper as “the new covenant in my blood”.  It was established in Christ’s death and resurrection and it is carried out through Christ’s intercession for us in heaven and by the presence of the Holy Spirit here on earth, in us, as our guarantee that the LORD is our God and we are His people.

The writer ends by stating, “By calling this covenant "new," he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear.”  And so, he encourages his audience to put their trust in Jesus and the New Covenant established in Him, rather than clinging to the old covenant and the old ways which are fading away because they’ve been completed in Christ.  As NT Wright says, “the whole letter [of Hebrews] is written in order to say: the ‘something more’ the ‘whole truth’ the ‘better thing’ has now arrived in Jesus; so whatever you do, don’t go back to the old things.  However good and true they were, they are now taken up in the new and better” (87).

And as NT Wright again states, “If [Jesus] was ‘better’ even than the Temple and its priesthood, how much more is he ‘better’ than the many things which so easily distract us from single-minded devotion to him.”  The priests, the sacrifices, the tabernacle, the covenant were all ways to get to God.  But they were ways to God because they looked to Jesus – the Way.  Apart from Christ, those things cannot save.

Because like the priests, people can’t save you.  The ‘heroes’ of our day who we look to; all the politicians, all the celebrities, the sports stars and rock stars, they can’t save you.  Even the people around us – one’s spouse, children, family, friends – they cannot save you.  They cannot give lasting and complete and ultimate meaning and purpose and joy to you.  They can never be all you need, cannot be everything.  Only Christ can.

Like the Temple, religious institutions can’t save you.  You can be a member of a congregation and come to worship regularly and go through the motions and still be far from God.  You can have grown up in the church and been confirmed and simply be inoculated to real Christianity.

Like with the covenant, legalistic obedience cannot save you.  Your list of rules that you do and your list of sins that you don’t do isn’t enough to save you.  Try as we might, we can’t measure up to the standard of God on our own.  We may follow a set of rules, but our hearts are far from God.

And as with the sacrifices, good works can’t save you.  The prophet Isaiah tells us that “all our righteous acts are like filthy rags” when we use them to try to earn our way to God.  How much is enough?  How good do we have to be?  We read in Ephesians 2, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from ourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

Only Jesus can save you.  He is the only way to the Father.  Is there wisdom in some other religions?  Of course.  Are there elements of truth in them?  Yes.  But they are all incomplete.  They are all insufficient.  Jesus is better.  He is the best.  We are only able to come to God completely, truthfully and eternally through Him.  He is better than anything else.

And He is what we want.  He came to earth to save us.  He lives always to intercede for us.  He is with us and that is what we need and want.  When times are hard and painful and frightening, you want a person, not a sentiment or a platitude or a feeling or an ideal or an impersonal force.  You want someone who is real and tangible and there with you.

That is why I thought the opening prayer at the memorial service for the victims of the shooting in Arizona left you feeling kind of empty.  Not because it was a Native American prayer (of sorts) and I’m a Christian, but because the divine being it addressed seemed so remote and so vague that it could not help.  In the midst of pain and grief and suffering; in the face of evil we need more than the ‘masculine energy of father sky’ and the ‘feminine energy of mother earth’ to somehow flow around us a little, we need Love – the powerful, personal, loving presence of a God who comes alongside of us; who really hears us; who understands us; who has faced our pain and grief and sorrow and suffering and has carried it for us; who has faced brokenness, death and hell and has conquered – a God who is able to love us.  THAT is the God we need and want!  And THAT is the God described in this passage!  The God who sent Himself in Jesus the Messiah.

Among the gods there is none like you, O Lord.  Jesus is better than anything else!

Anchor for the Soul

Read: Hebrews 6:12-7:25

Perhaps you know the feeling of being on a boat when the anchor won’t hold.  You toss the anchor in the water and think it’s good, but as the wind blows and the current stirs, you find yourself being pushed along – closer to shallows or the rocks you had anchored so as to avoid.  Anchors, in order to be effective, have to dig into the bottom – have to ‘bite’ or grasp the lake or sea bed. If they don’t or if the anchor point is not dependable, it won’t work. The same is true of anchors in rock climbing.  Anchors have to be sunk into dependable rock in order to hold the weight of the climber. And so, in boating and climbing, anchors are essential.  However, even more essential is what you anchor to. 

Now we all know the importance of hope.  It’s been said, “We can live for forty days without food, eight days without water, four minutes without air, but only a few seconds without hope.”  Perhaps that is why the author Hebrews refers to hope as an anchor for the soul. But, hope in and of itself is nothing.  What makes hope significant and effective is what or who one places their hope in.  Hope truly is an anchor and it must be placed in something dependable to be effective.

And so the central message of Hebrews is that our only hope is in Jesus.  He holds the anchor of our hope.  Jesus is superior to every other mediator, every other go-between, every other way to God.  Jesus is our only hope.  There is no one greater, stronger or more dependable than Him.  Therefore, our hope is to be placed in Him.  Our anchor of hope is to take hold of Him.

And this hope that we have in Christ was at the center of what was promised to Abraham when the Lord said to him, “I will surely bless you and give you many descendants.”  The apostle Paul referred to this as the Gospel being given in advance to Abraham.  And that promise of blessing and numerous descendants was fulfilled in Christ.  We find that spelled out in Galatians 3, where Paul writes (14), “He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus…” (16) “The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say "and to seeds," meaning many people, but "and to your seed," meaning one person, who is Christ.”  And in v. 29, “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.”  And so, the great promise of God’s blessing was given to Abraham, was fulfilled in Christ and we are to put our hope in it. 

And so, Christians are those who, believing the promises of God, flee for refuge, taking hold of the hope offered to us in Christ.

This hope in Christ is the anchor of our soul.  It is firm and secure because Jesus is sure and steadfast. But this anchor is deployed in an interesting place:  the Most Holy Place, the Holy of Holies in the Temple – and not the earthly temple, but the heavenly one.  That is to say that our hope finds its anchor point in the very presence of the living God. 

We know that not just anyone could enter the Most Holy Place, only the High Priest.  But we have learned that Jesus is our High Priest and He has entered into “the inner sanctuary behind the curtain” to where God is.  Jesus has gone before us.  He is our forerunner (pioneer) and He has entered the very presence of the Father on our behalf.  That is hope!  As Christians, we are in Christ and Christ is at the right hand of the Father on our behalf!  That is hope!  That is a sure and secure anchor point for our hope!

Jesus is our High Priest – in the order of Melchizedek.  We don’t know much about Melchizedek.  He only appears in Genesis 14, Psalm 110 and in Hebrews.  We do know that Melchizedek was great, for even Abraham gave a tithe to him and Melchizedek blessed him (and the lesser person is blessed by the greater).  And he remains a priest forever thereby representing and foreshadowing Christ.  For Jesus is a priest like Melchizedek.  He is in the priestly line of Melchizedek rather than Levi and Aaron.  For Jesus’ right to priesthood is not on the basis of His lineage (for He was from Judah, not Levi), but rather on the basis of the power of an indestructible life.  Jesus is High Priest not because of who His ancestors were but because of who He is. God declared, You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.

So Jesus is superior to all.  He is the highest of high priests.  He is superior to Abraham, to Levi, to Aaron, to the priesthood - even to the Law and to the Old Covenant!   We read in 12 For when there is a change of the priesthood, there must also be a change of the law, and then in vv. 18-25 The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God. And it was not without an oath! Others became priests without any oath, but he became a priest with an oath when God said to him: "The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: 'You are a priest forever.'" Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant. Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.

Jesus is not an earthly High Priest who stands in the Temple, Jesus stands in the heavenly sanctuary before God the Father.  He is the only way to the Father.  The law and the priesthood are fulfilled in Him.  A new covenant has been made through His blood.  Jesus is then the way and means by which we draw near to God.  Jesus has brought about a “better hope” and a “better covenant”.  Therefore, Jesus is able to save completely (or to the uttermost) those who come to God through Him because He always lives to intercede for them.  We should tattoo that on our brains:  Jesus is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.  That is our hope and it is a firm and secure anchor for our soul.

The author of Hebrews wanted his readers to hear that loud and clear – to know that Jesus is their one and only Mediator. Why?  Because for some reason we look for others.  Perhaps the original recipients of Hebrews were still clinging to the fact that they were Abraham’s descendants; perhaps they were still clinging to the Law and the priesthood instead of Jesus.  In many ways, we still do that.  We cling to other mediators – Some allow the priest or the pastor to be religious for us; some bring in saints or Mary as a go-between; some set up their own good works as their means of access to God.  We do things these things to distance ourselves from Jesus (because we’re afraid of Him) and to make our own way (so we feel in control). 

But there is no way to God other than Jesus Christ. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life no one comes to the Father except through Him.  He is the One who has gone before us into the inner sanctuary - before the throne of God - on our behalf.  He is the One who lives to intercede for us. He is the One who saves to the uttermost.  Therefore, He holds the anchor of our hope.

New Life Revolution

Hebrews 5:11-6:12

Why don’t New Year’s resolutions ever work?  I think it’s because we’re not really serious about them.  Oh, we want to do them, it’s just that we want to do other things or the same old things more.  We’re serious about New Year’s resolutions, at least when we make them, we’re just not serious enough.  The same can be said of many people and discipleship.  We’re serious about wanting to grow and wanting to want more of God, we’re just not serious enough.  We allow things to slide, we make excuses, we allow busyness and pressures to crowd the Word of God in our lives. 

Jesus’ Parable of the Sower is informative [see: Matthew 13:1-23]  Jesus’ point is that the seed of the Gospel is sown and, depending upon the type of soil, it will either root and grow and bear fruit or it will not.  And that is also what we read in our passage in 6:7-8, “For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.”  And so, with these strong words, the author of Hebrews challenges his audience, including us, to take following Christ seriously.  He calls us not to a New Year’s Resolution, but to a New Life Revolution.

And, in pushing us toward that end, the author of Hebrews let’s his readers have it.  He states, “About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.”  The author recognizes that he has written about some weighty theological points and believes that his readers, by this point in their journey of discipleship, should be up to the challenge.  However, though they ought to be teachers by this point, they still need instructions on the ABC’s of faith.  They haven’t been weaned from milk yet.  They should be having filet mignon and they’re slurping a bottle.

The reason for this is not that the word is too hard for them to understand or the work too difficult for them to do, it’s because they’re being lazy.  They’ve become dull or sluggish of hearing.  Therefore, they are unskilled in the word of righteousness.  They are inexperienced and untried in the way of Christ.  They have not progressed in discipleship, not because they don’t know about the Gospel, but because they have not practiced the Gospel life.  They are trying to get by on milk instead of growing healthy and strong with solid food.  They would rather keep rehearsing their ABCs instead of forming words and grasping ideas and expressing thoughts.

And they are contrasted with the mature believer who has his or her powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.  For one develops in knowledge and character from training and constant practice. That is true intellectually, occupationally and physically.  Growth requires solid food, training and constant practice.

“Therefore,” the author states, “let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity.” What is the elementary doctrine of Christ?  He says, “not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God … instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.”  Now, please recognize that the writer here is not putting these things down – they are not bad, they’re just basic.  They are foundational and a foundation is meant to be built upon.  You don’t lay a foundation for the heck of it.  It’s meant to hold up a structure.  You can’t have a livable house if you never add anything to the foundation.

The author encourages us to be carried on to maturity so that we will be like “land that drinks in the rain” and produces a crop rather than land that is worthless and bears only thorns and thistles. That kind of land he describes in vv4-6 and so warns his readers once again against falling away.

These are difficult verses to understand.  Much discussion and debate surrounds them. For those from a Reformed perspective, the question is:  what does this passage say about our belief in the gracious calling of God in our lives and god’s gracious sustaining of that calling?  In other words, can we lose our salvation?

Some read these verses and say ‘yes’ – that this clearly refers to a Christian believer who has turned away from Christ to his or her own destruction.  Others read these verses and say ‘no’ – that anyone who persistently rejects Christ proves that they were never a true believer to begin with.

And whatever one’s interpretation of this is, we see that there are people who regularly attend church, participate in worship, they may even have made a public confession, been baptized and taken communion and yet do not really believe nor have they truly submitted themselves to Christ in repentance, faith and obedience; there are people who have been inoculated by a little Christianity so as to become immune to the real thing; there are people, like the Israelite spies who entered the Promised Land, saw its goodness and tasted its fruit and yet refused to enter in because of stubborn unbelief.  For these people, who stubbornly and persistently reject Christ, repentance is impossible because they refuse to repent. Their hearts are hardened so that they refuse to receive the grace offered. They are like land that received rain, but then produces only thorns and thistles; soil that receives the seed, but does nothing with it (so the birds eat it) or is to shallow for it to take root or allows weeds to come in and choke it out.

Now to understand these verses I believe we must hold in tension the fact that we are saved and sustained by grace AND that we are called to strive to enter God’s rest and therefore to train and practice and be diligent and earnest. God carries us to maturity – that’s a reality.  But we have to strive, hold fast and run with perseverance – that’s our experience.  We have to hold those two perspectives together and trust God’s grace while at the same time take our responsibility and culpability very seriously.  That’s why the author gives such a harsh warning.  We show that we are disciples by our fruit.

And so the author feels sure that his readers are in the fruitful and blessed category rather than the thorns and thistles category, for he himself has seen their work and their love for god and others expressed in their serving the saints (their brothers and sisters in Christ).  They have produced fruit – good works and love – that ‘belongs to’ or ‘accompanies’ salvation – that springs from grace. 

He therefore encourages them to continue in that – “to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end.”  For it is that persevering, continuing grace-rooted love and grace-inspired works which reveals one is a true disciple of Jesus.  (Jesus himself said, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”)  Enduring love and obedient action give us then assurance and hope.  They reveal that we are alive and growing and moving into solid food.

And so, the author of Hebrews challenges us, once again, to take following Christ seriously.  He calls us not to a New Year’s Resolution, but to a New Life Revolution.  Not plodding along; not discipleship in fits and starts and starting all over; not being dull of hearing and lazily unskilled in the way of Christ, but rather training ourselves through constant practice to discern good from evil and to growing in the good – in the Way of Christ; to show diligence to the very end in order to make our hope sure.  He calls us to allow Christ to revolutionize our lives now to the very end.  He calls us to be people like Eugene Peterson describes, “people who spend our lives apprenticed to our master, Jesus Christ…[who] are in a growing-learning relationship always… people who spend our lives going someplace, going to God, and whose path for getting there is the way, Jesus Christ” (A Long Obedience).

May our prayer this new year be for God to carry out a new life revolution in each of us.