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Jesus – Our Superior Superhero - Hebrews 7

Today, we’ll see that Jesus is the ultimate Superhero who sacrificed Himself for us. We’ll also look at the dangers in putting anyone else in that position.

Sermon Transcript

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good morning surprise some of you all came back that was tough last week all right i'll take it easy how you doing how are you pretty good i'm awake now it took me a little while like four hours if you're new here among us my name is gene and i serve here at c3 church as your lead pastor if you are tuning in from somewhere else welcome to somewhere elseas a kid were you allowed to bring toys to church no when i was a kid we didn't have like the super hip kids ministry we didn't have ministries like that so you know you sat with your parents and you had to be quiet so sometimes they would let you bring a toy to church when you were really young and sometimes this was a really big mistake there's a story of a boy who was once allowed to bring his spider-man toy to church the preacher was preaching on revelation that jesus is coming back he's going to conquer the world the boy heard it and he couldn't resist he lifted up his spiderman toy and said spider-man would totally defeat jesus the preacher took a moment and very carefully retorted with this well it's true that jesus did let some people think that they defeated him but then he rose from the dead can spider-man do that who was your favorite superhero growing up mine was spiderman it was because i could be spider-man right so he's a skinny kid fit that bill fine right but he didn't come from another planet like superman notice the kid didn't use superman as an example because i think he actually came back from the dead but anyway batman is also very popular for the same reason because you think well i could be batman all you got to do is make a whole lot of money and maybe do some push-ups you're set right spider-man way easier way easier skinny kid like me all i gotta do is put on my underoos go outside lay down on the lawn and wait for a radioactive spider to bite me simple as that somebody some people in here read their comic books we often don't want to be the superheroes we can't be like or that we don't really want to be like today we find ourselves in hebrews chapter 7. so a quick overview as the video says jesus is superior this is the point to the whole series this is the point to this letter or sermon as we have discussed jesus is superior to the prophets to the angels he's the superior son he's superior to moses by extension now we're going to be talking about the priesthood moses brother aaron the levitical priesthood the levites i'm going to try to explain some of this stuff to you but i'm going to encourage you as always to come to bible study where we dig a little bit deeper today we find ourselves amidst some awkward chapter breaks as usual there are themes that kind of weave through out so we left off middle-ish of chapter five through the middle-ish of chapter six we've been talking about spiritual growth we're going to extend that conversation over maybe the next couple weeks just stay on that as application but here we get to the priesthood we're going to talk about this teaching about melchizedek say what it's interesting let me read you the text first we're going to reach back a little bit in hebrews 6 and then i'll pick up and explain it to you hebrews 6 16. now when people take an oath they call on someone greater than themselves to hold them to it and without any question that oath is binding god also bound himself with an oath so that those who received the promise could be perfectly sure that he would never change his mind so god has given both his promise and his oath these two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for god to lie therefore we who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us this hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls it leads us through the curtain into god's inner sanctuary jesus has already gone in there for us he has become our eternal high priest in the order of melchizedek all right so melchizedek appears in the old testament quite literally genesis chapter 14 psalm 110 makes reference to him other than that aside from this here in hebrews doesn't appear very much kind of an interesting figure so what i want to do this morning is attach him to another teaching that you probably know a story that even if you've never read the bible you probably know about you're gonna be god i'm not gonna hang on this story for a long time sodom and gomorrah you probably know about that right fire and brimstone all right that's what that's all about there you probably know details of the story maybe you know about lot a lot is rescued right by the angels you probably know that he has a wife or had what she did pillar of salt right and two daughters and that gets really messed up if you really know the story we'll talk about that when we do our next series the rest of the story so we'll just shelve that for a minute but i want to give you a frame of reference right so chapter 18 19 that all happens if you jump back to chapter 13 1 before melchizedek you get where abraham who's his uncle lot's uncle and lot separate too many of them you go your way i'll go my way so clearly law ends up in sodom abram i'm not going to get complicated we'll just call him for all you bible nerds i'm going to stick with abraham now i know i know he's abraham whatever so abraham goes his way lot goes to sodom now about this time in chapter 14 there is a battle of the kings four kings against five kings these other kings don't like what a king named kelly omer yes i practiced saying that they don't like what he was up to right so they eventually have this battle a big battle valley of the dead sea and there's tar pits and the king of sodom gets stuck so kettley omer beats him take plunder and they take lot why lot is a resident of sodom somebody gets away tells abraham about it so abraham gets 318 trained men and he goes after ketelyomer catches up with him gets locked back along with a bunch of plunder shortly thereafter we see melchizedek he arrives on the scene to bless abram or abraham he blesses him bread and wine blesses him then abraham ties he gives 10 of the spoils of war to this king he's a king and it says he's a priest of the most high god king of salem probably jerusalem and priest of the most high god so abraham gives a tithe to him now the author of hebrews the top middle-ish of chapter 7 is going to expand on this he's going to use this high priest to say that jesus is superior so here's the thing trying to make this simple for you guys later on in the law of moses we have a priesthood so we get the ten commandments exodus chapter 20 then it expands and we get a whole bunch of laws and then a whole bunch of regulations in leviticus for the priesthood and this priesthood has to come from the line of the tribe of levi so the 12 tribes of israel aaron and moses are from that tribe so aaron is the high priest at this time and so they're the only ones that can do this stuff later we find out that the israelites tithe they give a tent to the priests to support them they don't even have like their own land or anything right so you have to tithe to support the priests that's the point well the author of hebrews will say that melchizedek is before this now abraham is highly revered by the jewish people really high up there so they called heaven the bosom of abraham really important guy and so what the author does is he uses this incident to say that jesus is superior so first he says melchizedek is from a superior priesthood to that of the law of moses could be said that levi actually tithed to melchizedek a priest tithed to the priest because levi was in abraham as his descendant as a seed so it kind of stretches it there a little bit what's the point is that well this priesthood of melchizedek is superior to that of your revered law that you're talking about that's done jesus is from a priesthood not of levi he's actually from a different tribe judah separates jesus out and elevates jesus he's like the priesthood of melchizedek which has no end he has no mother kind or father mysterious figure his priesthood does not end that's the kind of priesthood jesus is a part of so complicated teaching i hope i made it easier for you to understand melchizedek is like a christophany it's a fancy word for a foreshadowing of jesus in the old testament it all points to jesus is what hebrews says everything that happened in the law it's just a shadow of the better things to come in jesus christ so the author's going to say that in a lot of different ways in chapters 4 through 10 about the law of moses and all the things surrounding it including the priesthood jesus is a superior high priest now picks up hebrews 7 23 there were many high priests under the old system the law of moses for death prevented them from remaining in office but because jesus lives forever his priesthood lasts forever therefore he is able once and for ever to save those who come to god through him he lives forever to intercede with god on their behalf he is the kind of high priest we need because he is holy and blameless unstained by sin he has been set apart from sinners and has been given the highest place of honor in heaven unlike those other high priests he does not need to offer sacrifices every day they did this for their own sins first and then for the sins of the people but jesus did this once and for all when he offered himself as the sacrifice for the people's sins the law appointed high priests who are limited by human weakness but after the law was given god appointed his son with an oath and his son has been made the perfect high priest for ever so the old priest was imperfect now to make these sacrifices for himself purify himself and then make the sacrifices for the people jesus doesn't need to do this he is spotless he is the superior high priest both high priest and sacrifice he is superior to the law its sacrifices and the priesthood he is our savior our superior superhero so to speak unlike the heroes of this world or the superheroes of fiction jesus is without flaw a hero that is a person who is admired or idealized for courage outstanding achievements or noble qualities we're going to see in hebrews chapter 11 the heroes of the faith but none of them are without flaw we'll talk more about that in our next series jesus is more than that a superhero is someone who is superior in some ways to us and often sacrifices himself or herself for the greater good but jesus is more than that he is the perfect sacrifice without flaw without to god because of all he has done for you let them be a living and holy sacrifice the kind he will find acceptable this is truly the way to worship him so paul is writing here talked about him a lot and he's saying this is worship it's being a living sacrifice like jesus we should be living sacrificially but jesus is the perfect sacrifice so i was asked a question at bible study that i should have been more prepared for i don't think about it a lot but those of you who know me will excuse me because you'll know how i normally think about these things someone a bible study asked me what my favorite verse was in the bible now i've talked about the verse of the day and the problems with the verse of the day right often times they're very much out of context they just pull a verse of the day out the other thing i don't like about it is that's how people read the bible that was brought to my attention at staff meeting they had to like remind me that most people they just pick up the verse of the day they read the verse of the day they turn it off and then i read the bible today and i'm like no you didn't so you know because we wouldn't read any other book like that right right like you know moby dick or something like that and we just picked like one sentence on page 99. you know and then i read moby dick you know no you didn't and we wouldn't go around reading randomly would we it wouldn't make any sense we probably wouldn't know anything about the story right we couldn't connect those random dots that's the problem but i realized i was thinking through this in the moment and this week i was like wait a minute i post little verses of the day too but the difference is i give the context i'll tell you like what's going on in the background that's what i like to do in my sermons why take so long anyway my answer was well i don't really have a favorite verse and that's true because there are so many good verses i cannot pick one and usually i have a favorite verse for the circumstance the moment what's going on in my life right so oh yeah that's a good verse for this but i said i have a favorite book of the bible i like to read the whole book the whole thing all right so we have a whole bunch of books 66 if you're a protestant believer different books of the bible my favorite is philippians i love philippians it is one of paul's letters it's a prison epistle prison letter he writes from prison with much joy but there's a reason i like it because of about sevenish verses in chapter two i think it's great theology it's an early creedal statement they had these things if you grew up like i did grew up in a traditional church sometimes you'd say like the apostles creed or something like that to me if we said this every sunday it wouldn't be enough because it tells you about the nature and the character of jesus it's a little gospel poem they say it's a very early creedal statement so what's going on here is this is like the center of that letter and the rest of the letter radiates outwardly paul starts by saying look this is what i'm doing you can follow my example let me get the gospel poem and then this is what timothy is doing be like him this is what epaphroditus is doing he almost died all right to get the gift to me and this letter back to you be like him live sacrificially so he starts saying at the beginning of chapter two don't just look out for your own interests but look out for the interests of others as well make your own attitude that of christ jesus who existing in the form of god did not regard equality with god as something to be used for his own advantage instead he emptied himself assuming the form of a slave taking on the likeness of man and when he had come as a man in his external form he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death even to death on a cross for this reason god highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name so that at the name of jesus every knee will bow those in heaven on earth and below the earth and every tongue should confess that jesus christ is lord to the glory of god the father that's my favorite bible verse jesus sacrificed himself wrap your mind around that i know those verses very well and they blow my mind every time i think about them god whom we can't even really contemplate it's impossible came here as a man and sacrificed himself for us for you for you for you for you what that's our superhero amazing we could just sit here and just think about that for a half hour it wouldn't be enough we could say those verses every week he is a super human sacrifice i talked about wanting to be a superhero as a kid right we have the desire to be the hero of the story ever since we're a kid right but christianity says you're not that's kind of crazy see jesus is the hero of the story you're not so i want to take a few minutes and relate back to the false teaching we were talking about last week this prosperity gospel it attaches you see the prosperity gospel the half gospel as i was saying makes us the idols it's what it does but we're not the heroes of the story we want to be like jesus but we're not him we're not without blemish it's the whole point only he is talked about philippians and some of those examples check this out philippians 3 17 dear brothers and sisters is paul writing from prison keep that in mind pattern your lives after mine and learn from those who follow our example well what was paul's example quite remarkable actually philippians 2 16 hold firmly to the word of life then on the day of christ's return i will be proud that i did not run the race in vain and that my work was not useless but i will rejoice even if i lose my life pouring it out like a liquid offering to god is a living sacrifice just like your faithful service is an offering to god and i want all of you to share that joy yes you should rejoice and i will share your joy think about it for a minute one point in this letter he says ah you know what might die i hope not but for me dying is better get to go home and be with jesus but for your sake maybe i'll just stay alive interesting paul is a living sacrifice we looked at second timothy last week another letter from paul also from prison probably going to die pretty soon second timothy 4 starting at verse 6 as for me my life has already been poured out as an offering to god see the theme here the time of my death is near i fought the good fight i finished the race and i've remained faithful and now the prize awaits me the crown of righteousness which the lord the righteous judge will give me on the day of his return and the prize is not just for me but for all who eagerly look forward to his appearing he is a living sacrifice waiting on his reward where there doesn't sound anything like that prosperity gospel stuff does it it's in heaven not here and we are to follow his example and in philippians we find out why philippians 3 10 he says i want to know christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead i want to suffer with him sharing in his death so that one way or another i will experience the resurrection from the dead that's the goal kind of gotta die to do it we are to follow jesus example but we are not the hero of the story in fact it misses the whole point doesn't it right if we were the heroes jesus wouldn't have had to die for us think about it when we make ourselves the heroes we make ourselves idols when we make people heroes sometimes we idolize them don't we we mustn't let other people become things that we idolize but our society teaches us that that's a good thing we even have shows called american idol think about it we try to impose that on the church sometimes we can't make others or ourselves the idols especially in church so who have we idolized who have we put up there maybe a little bit higher than jesus i want to tie some more of what we talked about last week into today's sermon especially because this is kind of interesting i had some of these ideas in the can so to speak well before i heard about this but this week i heard a story of yet another celebrity pastor falling from grace and so i want to address it because some of you may have heard it too and so let's talk about it we'll see as the author of hebrews does he weaves certain themes throughout the text and so should we in church this attaches quite well so we talked about that prosperity gospel which is looking at the bible through a cultural lens instead of looking at the culture through a biblical lens make sense here's the problem christianity is counter cultural and in today's culture i think that's a good thing are you tired of everything that's going on in the world i am good if you are because we have something better for you here last week we saw that jesus didn't say what our culture tells us he said the bible doesn't read like most people preach in our culture we have the problem of prosperity other cultures we spoke about in bible study last week they're praying for us ed was letting me know i didn't know this do you know that in some of these countries they send missionaries here they send they send missionaries here they say it's expensive complain about it they send missionaries here because we don't get it we have the problem of prosperity and with that prosperity gospel comes prosperity teachers the bible talks a lot about it you don't hear a lot about in church though do you there are celebrity pastors and this is a problem beginning in the early church we did a series on the book books of first and second corinthians it was a while back so some of you may be new i'll summarize this for you they were crazy these crazy corinthians right but are we any different that's what i challenged you guys with we saw probably not but first corinthians there's a whole bunch of issues paul's got to get to 16 chapters full of them but the first one is the problem of pastor worship that's what they're doing they're saying things like i'm with peter i'm with apollos no i'm with paul apollos is a better speaker paul not so much so it's a problem they begin worshiping the pastors and paul does not like it he spends four chapters reaming them out he gets this report from chloe's household that they're doing this and he says i'm glad i baptize none of you except christmas gaius and stefano's whole household but anyway aside from those guys i'm glad i baptized none of you otherwise you might say that you were baptized in the name of paul instead of jesus he's really upset he's like yeah you know i planted apollos watered but god caused the growth should i come to you with a stick and tightens them i want you guys to read this stuff check my work it's crazy he was not out to be a celebrity pastor and when they started doing that not only did he not accept it he rejected it flatly he rebuked them and called them babies actually babies they're a bunch of babies worshiping the pastors wow can you imagine someone doing that today whoa if you know me a little bit about my background but if you know me really well you know that i've met a lot of really famous people and this is because i was in the music industry when i was much younger someone tried to guess my age today and just feeling pretty good about that the holy spirit was just letting that out there anyway i'm older than some think this is a long time ago back in the 80s and early 90s and so i met a bunch of famous people that most of you guys don't know anyway about it was a good experience met a lot of really famous people if you know me you know i come from a business background i was dragged into the pastoral ministry kicking and screaming and in that background this martial arts background i got to meet a lot of really famous people ufc fighters if you know what that is ufc fighters a lot of them some of my students went on to go into the ufc in competitions like that as a byproduct of all those things i made a lot of money so we had a website jiu-jitsu.net had millions and millions of hits really big websites so we made money we had big martial arts schools so as far as rich and famous is concerned i've been there done that i really don't care i'm not impressed when i meet famous people like some of you all meet famous people it's embarrassing it's like like really you know come on i just leave them alone right it does not impress me and they like that so give you a little tip just leave them all they're normal people they have flaws right but anyway been there done that so clearly i left those industries and when i got to church and they dragged me up on the worship stage like oh you can play guitar and sing harmony you know so that's it i don't care what you're doing on saturday night you're on the worship team you know i'm totally hungover i got there i was like oh this is the earliest and soberest i've ever had to play a gig guys you know so it took a while for me to really you know do this you know and get in so anyway flawed clearly so i decided that because i could write songs we'd make a cd on the purpose of the cd was not to get famous we didn't send it to any record companies right so we recorded it i did it in my office and it was just some original songs but the purpose was my thinking was if me or the other bandmates who had friends in the secular industry heard some of it they'd hear about jesus that was it it was as simple as that really really simple you're gonna laugh because you're the one who said it so we did a little concert i think for the cd release i think that's what it was it was either that or there was like a um a recovery concert we had a recovery wing it's either one of those i don't know so he did it and someone who didn't know me too well came up to me and said wow now you're going to be famous and you were right behind her and you said something like he's been there done that she knew it wasn't the reason i was doing it i wasn't trying to make much of myself been there done that you see after being introduced to jesus the real superhero i lost my interest eventually in making much of myself if you're doing it right that's what happens just naturally paul said it like this galatians 6 14. as for me may i never boast about anything except the cross of our lord jesus christ because of that cross my interest in this world has been crucified and the world's interest in me has also died paul had made much of himself as a pharisee but after meeting jesus he lost that interest in himself he stopped making much of himself and so should we so in my case it's kind of a good thing to have experienced that stuff and gotten over it not here to get rich or famous if you know me now i try to use my previous influence in the old industries try to so i used to write books about martial arts now i write books about jesus hoping that some of them won't pick it up and it's happened it's kind of cool but i'm not so popular anymore it's kind of what happens when we follow paul's example what's paul say galatians 1 10 if i were here to please man i wouldn't be a servant of christ going after fame or money is actually a disqualifying factor according to the bible did you know that first timothy writing to timothy one of paul's elders giving him instructions how to appoint more elders first timothy 3 1 this is a trustworthy saying if someone aspires to be a church leader he desires an honorable position so a church leader must be a man whose life is above reproach he must be faithful to his wife he must exercise self-control live wisely and have a good reputation he must enjoy having guests in his home and he must be able to teach he must not be a heavy drinker or be violent he must be gentle not quarrelsome and not love money someone who's not humble is going after money is disqualified hear stories about celebrity pastors falling away from the faith having affairs but the bible says they were disqualified before that i submit to you that he shouldn't have been in that position in the first place he was already having an affair with the world james writes about this jesus's brother he's talking about praying for selfish reasons he says you adulteresses feminine you adulteresses don't you know that friendship friendship with the world causes you to be an enemy of god i will say it again says it twice no mistake about it says it two times james 4 4 look it up check my work you see paul warns about false teachers first timothy 6 5 continuing on these people the false teachers always cause trouble their minds are corrupt and they have turned their backs on the truth to them the show of godliness is just a way to become wealthy yet true godliness with contentment is itself great wealth after all we brought nothing with us when we came into the world and we can't take anything with us when we leave it was the last time you saw that pop up as the verse of the day so if we have enough food and clothing let us be content so if we have a 16 000 square foot mansion let us be content no food and clothes that's it he continues but people who long to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction for the love of money is the root of all kinds greek says all evil and some people craving money have wandered away from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows but you timothy are men of god so run from all these evil things pursue righteousness and a godly life along with faith love perseverance and gentleness the fruit of the spirit so people will say it's such a tragedy it's so sad to see these pastors having these affairs but i say it was already sad it was already a tragedy to see someone claiming they loved jesus preaching jesus living nothing nothing like him they were already a horrible example they were already committing adultery against god with the world it was already said their arrogance and greed had already disqualified them so in this recent incident i will not mention any names it was interesting very revealing because the person who had fallen away was interviewed or whatever and they always make some excuses and stuff like that but a part of it he said i've ruined the most important relationship in my life with my wife well that told me everything that i needed to know because if the most important relationship in this individual's life was with jesus he never would have had the affair now some will say it's not for us to judge if a pastor wants to be rich that's his business huh i'm sure they told you that but did you do your homework last week did you read matthew 5-7 don't worry i won't rebuke you yet if you read chapter 7 and you kept reading you know that that's not true it says don't judge right circle that scribble out the rest no we are supposed to judge prophets and by extension pastors and teachers it's what it says we're supposed to judge them i just read you the standards for them you get judged james 3 1 dear brothers and sisters not many of you should become teachers in the church for we who teach will be judged more strictly i encourage you to you should now the context here is church leaders you might be saying what about the other people in the church can i have money yes you can have money don't worry it's okay we see and james 2 there are wealthy people in the church and he's telling him how to behave so when i was not in leadership but one of maybe what you might call the wealthy people in the church i use my money to help out that's what i did and i worked in the business world that was how i helped out before i came into ministry we saw in our roman series that phoebe she was probably a benefactor to paul you kind of need them if you're going to get some stuff done this is what paul also tells timothy first timothy 6 17 teach those who are rich in this world not to be proud and not to trust in their money which is so unreliable their trust should be in god who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment tell them to use their money to do good they should be rich in good works and generous to those in need always being ready to share with others tell the rich people to help the church out it's a good thing but church leaders shouldn't care about that stuff being a pastor it's not a career choice it's a vocation that chooses you and it requires humility and sacrifice i went into church leadership a lot of that stuff had to go i knew i needed to become an example i needed to become more humble and care less about i needed to decrease so that jesus would increase pastors can have some nice things i kept some nice things from my past it's okay but when a pastor is living many times above the average person in the church and he's letting people worship him elevating himself so far above where anybody should be that person has made himself an idol a false god we must be focused on christ and christ alone the superior high priest jesus is superior to the old priesthood as we see here in hebrews he's superior to the new one too and we have to keep this in mind i am just a finger pointing to him that's it bruce lee uses an old chinese proverb it's like a finger pointing to the moon if you focus on the finger you miss the moon and all its heavenly glory amen i'm going to encourage you keep guarding yourself with the word this is how you don't fool for stuff or fall for stuff like that there are too many churches who do not preach those verses i want the word deeply rooted in you guarded and protected by it jesus is our hero jesus is our hope jesus is enough now may the god of peace who brought up from the dead our lord jesus the great shepherd of the sheep and ratified an eternal covenant with his blood may he equip you for all you need for doing his will may he produce in you through the power of jesus christ every good thing that is pleasing to him all glory to him forever and ever amen.