Jesus is Superior to the Law - Hebrews 8
Today Pastor Gene looks at Hebrews chapter 8 as we examine how Jesus is superior to the Law of Moses as well as our pride.
Sermon Transcript
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good morning you guys didn't get the memo you're supposed to sit on that side of the church today uh if you're new here among us my name is gene i serve here at c3 church as your lead pastor week i asked you a question when you were a kid did you ever get to bring a toy to church and if you recall in my parents case it didn't work out so well when they let me do that this week i want to ask you another question did you ever bring your favorite toy to school if you're my age or older you probably thought show and tell right we had show and tell now it's probably illegal it's probably a law against show and tell now but when i was a kid and sometimes it would be like Fridays or something like that you could wear like dungarees to school and bring your favorite toy it was all good it was really all about showing off it was like show off until maybe if you were a girl you had an American girl doll the Ferrari of all dolls yes i have a daughter i know about that stuff I'd answered my front door with a pink headband on one time it happens humiliating to be a father of a daughter it's kind of about showing off and i was thinking about it at what age does that become silly my wife was a middle school teacher for almost 10 years and so she told me the boys keep playing with toys longer than the girls i said yeah boys never stop playing with toys that doesn't happen but at what age let's say you're a girl does that look a little silly like a 12th grade girl coming in and showing her barbies like this is barbie and this is ken barbie Ferrari it'd be weird wouldn't it not too cool but at what point do we stop showing off showing our toys to everyone and bragging about it does this continue until we're much older we talked about not making much of ourselves last week in the context of leadership church leadership don't try to be a rock star or a celebrity pastor right that was very important today we'll look at how that applies that concept to everybody in the church all of us as Christians we're going to look at both sides of the religious coin this and next week so these two messages kind of go together so if there's a lot of people who are missing church i guess school is out next week so everyone's rushing out to travel but i encourage you go back watch this message and if someone new comes in next week encourage them to watch this message because it's kind of a both issue that we're going to be talking about here so we're in Hebrews chapter 8. and i want to reach back a little a little overview for you guys the whole point of Hebrews is to say that Jesus is superior to everything essentially in the old testament that's it Jesus totally supersedes it it's a sermon or a letter written to Jewish Christians probably and they might be thinking of going back to the law in the beginning before roman persecution the Jewish Christians were persecuted we see this in Thessalonian it happens there first or in these contexts first because wait a minute this is this new Jewish sector saying Jesus is god you can't say that that's blasphemy so they're getting persecuted and so probably this is the situation there and they're thinking well you know what forget Jesus we're just going to go back to the law it's easier we won't get beaten up by our own people so the author is saying Jesus is better than everything in the old testament than the prophets and the angels than Moses and Aaron than Joseph the high priests he's better than that now we're going to see saying Jesus is better than the law so we're going to talk about it a little bit today Hebrews 7 let's just reach back into the last chapter starting at verse 20. this new system was established with a solemn oath Aaron's descendants became priests without such an oath but there was an oath regarding Jesus for god said to him the lord has taken an oath and will not break his vow you are a priest forever because of this oath Jesus is the one who guarantees this better covenant with god today we're going to discuss a new and better covenant that we have with god through Jesus so Hebrews chapter 8 no chapter numbers in the originals so he continues about Jesus being the great high priest the old testament system of worship being just a copy of what was to come in Jesus just a shadow of what was to come in Jesus the real one in heaven Hebrews 8 6 but now Jesus our high priest has been given a ministry that is far superior to the old priesthood for he is the one who mediates for us a far better covenant with god based on better promises if the first covenant had been faultless there would have been no need for a second to replace it he then goes on to quote Jeremiah 31 pretty long quote so I'm just going to kind of summarize for you Jeremiah is a prophet in the old testament comes in just before Judah falls to Babylon so i told you in the past you have that kind of civil war that they experienced Israelite experience Israel in the north Judah and the south Israel falls first to Assyria and then Judah's next the Assyrian king tries doesn't work out but the Babylonians get them so Jeremiah is prophesying during the time of probably Josiah right about that period before they fall and then into their exile they're going to be taken into captivity the reason that god lets this happen is that they worship other gods they break the covenant with god and so there's a punishment for it so they're not blameless here god's not doing something mean he told them that this would happen if they didn't obey and worship only him so they're taken away but Jeremiah most all the prophets give a little bit of hope he's going to look forward to a future time okay fine you broke that covenant he likens it to a bride and a husband you broke it but there's going to be a new and better covenant not like the ones on stone tablets right but the heart of flesh and so you combine these ideas Ezekiel 36 is kind of like this too and when you combine those two you get this idea that there's going to be a new and better covenant written on our hearts hearts of flesh not on stone hearts and we're going to receive his spirit which will enable us to fulfill it to live it out that's the idea here then he finishes the chapter with well it wasn't the chapter exactly but this chapter 8 13 when god speaks of a new covenant it means he has made the first one obsolete it is out of date and will soon disappear so i want to spend a little time trying to unconfuse this for a lot of people we're going to deal with the law today we're going to talk about the old testament law you might say why do we want to talk about that if it's done away with well because the bible talks a lot about it even the new testament talks a lot about it and false teachers want to bring people back into it so since we are a bible believing church we preach god's word not just mine so we're going to deal with it today and i think it's going to help you understand your bibles a little bit better perhaps your faith this religion so to speak but you got to understand covenants fancy word for agreement arrangement deal so marriage as i was saying before is a type of covenant you have an agreement maybe something's in writing it's a deal that two parties or groups or people make with each other and if you break it there are consequences we call that divorce so you can look at what happened to Israel like that they broke the covenant and it's like a divorce right but maybe they're going to get remarried now you probably know about at least two covenants in the bible even if you've never read it you know about the one with Adam and eve and god right you're not supposed to eat the fruit what do they do crunch they eat it break the covenant sin comes into the world you probably know about the one with Noah after the flood maybe even the rainbow they get off the ark and there's a covenant made I'm not going to do this again but you have to follow certain rules it's only like four to seven of them depending on how you count but don't break these rules and i won't flood the earth again the rainbow is the sign of that covenant if we keep going we get to Abraham descendant of them ahem ham and apathetic are Noah's sons and you get the covenant of circumcision that's the sign of that covenant we keep going down the line you get to Moses Moses is a descendant of Abraham and you get the law of Moses the ten commandments kind of sparks this covenant it's all part of it there's like 613 different laws kind of crazy right but the bible talks a lot about it there has to be a reason now what a lot of people don't understand it was confusing in the beginning and it's re-emerging today is that those laws don't necessarily apply to us we talked about the Sabbath being one of them and i said it's a good idea so that's why i take one one other one of the ten commandments do you want to break but there are more laws it keeps going and going and going and some of it's totally impossible for us today to follow but it can be confusing people will read things in the old testament right and they'll go oh no what's this about pigs you mean i can't eat bacon i give up i don't want to be a christian anymore no bacon I'm out right they get confused about things maybe you accidentally boiled i don't know a baby goat and it's mother's milk no goat you can't do that you know about that one there's also mold and mildew remediation specialists in the old testament it's kind of interesting you better not get mildew you can't remove from your house in there or you have to dismantle it there's all kinds of really strange things in there some of them quite practical it's complicated but a lot of people they'll read it and they'll say well okay if this is all god's word it must all be totally equal and apply to us right no the law doesn't they don't understand that it is a covenant between god and the Israelite that's what that's about there so I'm trying to confuse these ideas for you it's actually understandable that people would get confused if you don't have this understanding again of covenants really really important and it's a re-emerging heresy today it's kind of surprising we have something called the Hebrew roots movement now and so i want to guard you guys from that kind of stuff because it's all over the you tube and if you look it up there are people out there like in Paul's time trying to confuse you false teachers a lot of the new testament deals with that so we're dealing with it because the bible does here's how it happens people aren't guarding themselves with the word that's really what it is they don't understand the concept of covenants and they don't understand that there's a new and better covenant that's the important thing to understand they didn't read Hebrews chapter 8. i guess they didn't get there and they don't understand that even the old one wasn't between us and god that's between the Israelite and god now in the early church it's kind of understandable why this might happen I've told you this in the past we're going to just overview this quickly at first Christianity is a Jewish sect yes it came from there Jesus is the Jewish messiah all the early believers are Jews it takes like 10 chapters of acts for them to figure it out finally peter does he gets that vision takes him three times to get the point that the gentiles are now included who are gentiles us if we're not Jewish if you're not Jewish you guys can come on into Christianity too they're called Christians for the first time in acts 11 but even after that it's still a sect it's still seen as a Jewish sect in fact the sect of the Nazarene Jesus was from Nazareth so they're calling it this for a long long time it's a very Jewish thing and here's what we have there's a council in acts 15 one of the church first church councils to decide this Paul Barnabas Titus they go to the mother church in Jerusalem no it is not more at that time it is Jerusalem James is there James is Jesus's brother and so they discuss it some people are like yeah those gentiles they need to get circumcised and they need to follow the law of Moses in order to get in ultimate decided that no gentiles don't need to do this peter calls it a yoke a yoke is something you put over two animals next to keep them going in the same direction it's heavy it's a yoke that not even our fathers or we could bear don't put that on the gentiles it's not necessary so they're happy yes so they get a letter and they take it around to all the different churches good thing later Paul talks about this in his letter to Galatia to the Galatians he brings it up it talks about this visit it's pretty important so i want to give you guys a little bit more homework that you're probably not going to do anyway but read Galatians this week one through six six chapters not really a long book now I've said this in the past and I've done this I've said that all you need to refute this teaching about having to follow all these laws in the law of Moses is Galatians that's all you need just read Galatians if it's not totally obvious to you you have some reading comprehension problems it's really really obvious this is why the letter is written you have to know the purpose for why some of these books are written and then you get everything right Paul is writing because there are false teachers coming in to that region to that church in that area and telling them you got to get circumcised you got to follow the law of Moses so this is what it's all about now I'm not rocking up time to read the whole thing this morning so I'm going to give you an overview of the letter so you can just quickly see it for yourself we're going to rapid fire some scriptures here and i want you to see that the point is made very very clear and then we'll get to some application so Paul opens up and he immediately says that he is an apostle not of man not appointed by any person but of god he's an apostle of Jesus Christ and this is where he got his message from from Jesus not from man it's not a manly idea he says if anybody even angels bring you any other gospel except the gospel of Jesus Christ Jesus plus the law in context that's what he's going to move to he's cursed anathema you're cursed think about that so he's saying anybody comes in a false teacher and says anything but Jesus but the gospel puts any other yoke on you that person's cursed very serious statement right out the gate he's saying this immediately very strong words he moves into chapter two he's going to be talking about the background behind his original conversion how he goes to Arabia so he doesn't go to man first again i didn't go check it out with any nope i got it right from Jesus spent three years soaking it in all right then he goes and has a talk with peter hangs out with peter in Jerusalem he saw just peter James hangs out for a little while checks it out you're good 14 years later goes back to Jerusalem and now he's talking about this acts 15 thing this council he brings Barnabas and Titus he puts Titus in there on purpose it's kind of interesting and when you think about it i was really thinking deeply about this this is really interesting Titus is a gentile he's a gentile he's really important the book Titus he trusts Titus on the island of Crete to do what to appoint more elders basically like i would have to trust someone a lot to say you go somewhere else you're in new York right and i want you to go there and you're cool you can make pastors you can go there and just just appoint pastors right so he's got to be pretty high up Paul really trusts him but Paul makes a note of saying i didn't have Titus circumcised that's huge that's really really important and if you're reading exodus you know that you have to be circumcised even to celebrate the Passover which is required by the law so they're clearly not following the law proof positive right there then there's a situation with peter peter goes to Antioch and he's behaving like a gentile he's hanging out with the non-Jewish people doing non-Jewish things maybe things that according to the law or their rules are not cool but then James friends show up the Jewish people show up and then he stops hanging out with the gentiles he starts being really really Jewish do we do this kind of thing we get click so Paul calls him out and Paul says this there's going to be some important things in here Galatians 2 starting at verse 14. when i saw that they were not following the truth of the gospel message i said to peter in front of all the others since you a Jew by birth have discarded the Jewish laws to catch that have discarded the Jewish laws and are living like a gentile why are you now trying to make these gentiles follow the Jewish traditions you and i are Jews by birth not sinners like the gentiles yet we know that a person is made right with god by faith in Jesus Christ not by obeying the law and we have believed in Christ Jesus so that we might be made right with god because of our faith in Christ not because we have obeyed the law for no one will ever be made right with god by obeying the law he continues to 18 rather i am a sinner i am a sinner if i rebuild the old system of law i already tore down when i tried to keep the law it condemned me so i died to the law i stopped trying to meet all its requirements so that i might live for god keep these things in mind because they're going to tie into our application pay close attention he's a sinner he's a sinner if he tries to do this Galatians 2 21 i do not treat the grace of god as meaningless for if keeping the law could make us right with god then there was no need for Christ to die chapter three pretty good one oh you foolish Galatians he says kind of like the get behind me Satan thing we saw last week that Jesus did to peter strong strong language you guys are fools he continues 3 3 how foolish can you be after starting your new lives in the spirit why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort do you see where he's going here Paul compares being under the law to being enslaved Sarah Hagar as examples Galatians 4 12 dear brothers and sisters i plead with you to live as i do in freedom from these things from the law for i have become like you gentiles free from those laws Galatians 5 2 listen i Paul tell you this if you are counting on circumcision to make you right with god then Christ will be of no benefit to you I'll say it again if you are trying to find favor with god by being circumcised you must obey every regulation in the whole law of Moses if you're trying to make yourselves right with god by keeping the law you have been cut off from Christ you have fallen away from god's grace Galatians 5 12. i just wish that those troublemakers the false teachers i was talking about who want to mutilate you by circumcision would mutilate themselves i hope the knife slips Galatians 6 12 those who are trying to force you to be circumcised want to look good to others they don't want to be persecuted for teaching that the cross of Christ alone can save and even those who advocate circumcision don't keep the whole law themselves they only want to be circumcised so that they can boast about it they can boast about it and claim you as their disciples that's the point that's why people even today do that it's about pride now again two sides of the same coin this and next week right there is something we do have to do we're going to talk about that next week but if you watched my message for next week alone it might get confusing it should be observable to others that we are Christians that's important works or good religious behavior is a byproduct of our faith there should be a response to what Jesus has done for us the last song we sang beautiful right if that's what heaven's like I'm in it's beautiful we should reflect on that that should permeate and then good deeds should come out of us as a response to that it's not that we shouldn't be doing it it's how how we should be doing it that's what's important we should not be doing it so we can boast about it quite the opposite it should be written on our hearts now and then just be an outpouring of what we know about Jesus this love he has for us we should reflect that so why would anyone want to return to the law of Moses give you a couple of reasons because they don't understand it they don't get it they don't get the mold remediation thing they don't get that it's a yoke it's really hard they don't get another thing you gotta follow all of it read James 2 10. it'll tell you if you break one of the commands you broke them all there's a command in there about killing people when they break commandments remember i talked about the Sabbath well natural question after the ten commandments what happens if someone breaks it says you got to kill him that's a command too so what happens if you don't kill them you broke the law think about it so if one of these Hebrews people tells you well you've got to follow the law really okay anyone in your church ever break the Sabbath yeah are they dead no they guilty you broke the law that's how it works they don't understand that also as i alluded to or said because of pride when someone says i have to do all these religious things and we have other christian denominations that do that right they say you've got to do all this good stuff or you might not get in do you hear people say that or do things you know what they're saying when they say that Christ is not enough that's what they're saying it's Jesus plus something else plus me yeah i know Jesus died on the cross you see but I'm also pretty awesome you know so i want to show everybody how awesome i am really think about it though when we do that they want to boast but Ephesians 2 8 god saved you by his grace when you believed and you can't take credit for this it is a gift from god salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done so none of us can boast about it now again another quick note immediately we see the other side of the coin so if you keep reading Ephesians 2 10 4 we are god's masterpiece he has created us anew in Christ Jesus why so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago both people have a really hard time with both we'll see the other side of this coin next week again all you need to refute this teaching is Galatians we saw this last week regarding losing interest in things of the world let's look at this verse here again in this light Galatians 6 14. Paul's writing as for me may i never 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 this the world's interest in me has also died you're not going to be too popular when you preach like Jesus Matthew 5 through 7 remember i said to do this homework you want to read that straight through the chapter breaks act as interruptions they really do Matthew 5 through 7 is the sermon on the mount is one continuous flow of Jesus talking don't interrupt him you must keep reading kind of important because he says some things that confuse people but if you keep reading he confused it for you so it would be like what listening to watching the first you know five minutes of this sermon before i got to my conclusion or my application you might say what are you talking about or drawing the conclusion just from that little period of time like one sentence in a book and saying you know what the story was all about is that how we read our bibles uh-huh so Matthew 5-7 it is one sermon so he says some things about the law i didn't come to abolish it i came to what fulfill it you ever hear of a fulfillment company what do they do they package your goods they send it out it's done it's finished it's fulfilled oh but what about that not well heaven and earth passing away thing yeah it's called an idiom but keep reading your bible Galatians is going to clarify what Jesus said it's the whole thing in it and in this context he says this Matthew 5 14 you are the light of the world like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden no one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket instead a lamp is placed on a stand where it gives light to everyone in the house most people stop there and say oh i got to get out there and show everyone what I'm doing oh my good works look at me right yeah keep reading Matthew 5 says yeah you're a light supposed to go out there and do great things but then he tells you how to do it Matthew 6 1 watch out don't do your good deeds publicly to be admired by others for you will lose your reward from your father in heaven when you give to someone in need don't do as the hypocrites do blowing trumpets in the synagogues in the streets to call attention to their acts of charity exclamation point i tell you the truth they have received all the reward they will ever get but when you give to someone need don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing give your gifts in private and your father who sees everything will reward you keep reading have you ever heard the phrase idle hands make the devil's work it's one of those incomplete catchy phrases we've been talking about lately it's kind of like half right while the devil gets us when we're alone he likes that he actually also depending on who we are likes to keep us busy the devil loves busy work especially in ministry absolutely loves it when we are doing busy work we aren't praying we are in the word we aren't developing our relationship with god and the devil loves that loves it the devil doesn't want us taking time to just sit and listen pray stop be with him he doesn't want us praying he wants us playing god that's what the devil wants but we need to do more praying and less playing the world trains us to be human doings but we are human beings is about being with god the devil also loves busy work because it's often fueling our pride right feeling pretty good about what we did he wants us to work instead of worship now the two they're not mutually exclusive we're going to see that again next week we'll take a look at that too but sometimes the ministry becomes the idol you ever see this happen in church we worship the worship sometimes sometimes it's more about letting everybody know what you're doing posting on social media do we do that all the time look at me look at what my right hand is doing or telling the whole world about it instead of Jesus that's it Leonard raven hill you think I'm tough listen to him said no man is greater than his prayer life the pastor who is not praying is playing the people who are not praying or straying the pulpit can be a shop window to display one's talents the prayer closet allows no showing off prayer helps us greatly with our pride so we do things like the law so we can play god it's about our pride again from last week we are not the heroes of this story it's about Jesus Jesus is the great high priest and perfect sacrifice it gets no better than that the toy is just a copy of the real superhero we have in Jesus when you grow up you don't need show and tell anymore you mature in the face in relationship you have the real deal and you're content to boast in him you get up for show-and-tell there's no toy in your hand let me tell you about Jesus that's it almost every Sunday i won't lie to you guys almost every Sunday i get invited to show and tell by my favorite two-year-old Benjamin he's two right it doesn't matter who I'm talking to anyone yet he doesn't care he's like the persistent widow is on Luke 18. she gets what she wants because she's really pretty he'll come right up to me and show him tell them sometimes with his guitar his little toy guitar he's good at it he'll come up to me and he doesn't care for the middle of a conversation he's like let's go and he reaches out and grabs my finger that's how little he is and he takes me to a back room we have in the church as if i don't know where that is and so he brings me back there to show me my guitars right so there's guitars back there on the wall so it's like a room for the worship team they call it like a green room if you've ever done like any kind of show business stuff there are guitars back there they can hang out pray get away from you guys while they concentrate maybe they're gonna practice a little bit he takes me back there it's cool room and he shows me the guitars as we go through the colors and stuff like that he strums them it's okay it's kind of fun right so he's showing me all these things it's interesting to learn from Benjamin very interesting he's got the toy right what does he want he wants a real thing that's what he's looking forward to right see he knows this is good for now it's all good i think you've had to drive places to go back and get it when he forgot it he shows everybody so he loves it now it's okay it's good for now but that that's what I'm looking forward to imagine if Benjamin matured he grew up and he still asked still held on to the replica the copy of the good thing that was to come well kind of crazy he's looking forward to the real deal not the replica comes in with his toy but he's that the way he wants the white one he's pretty persistent he's probably gonna end up with it I'm telling you watch that's gonna happen testimony like 20 years from now but that's what he's looking forward to so i hope that when Benjamin grows up he'll graduate to the one on the wall that's the hope for him correct also if he learns how to play he's real good he's not going to need to boast about it it'll be evident that he's really good he won't need to let his left hand know what his right hand is doing all right it'll speak for its itself he'll fulfill the proverb 27 to let someone else praise you not your own mouth a stranger and not your own lips Galatians 3 23 before the way of faith in Christ was available to us we were placed under guard by the law we were kept in protective custody so to speak until the way of faith was revealed let me put it another way the law was our guardian pedagogue like a babysitter someone who looked after the kids took him to school until Christ came it protected us until we could be made right with god through faith and now that the way of faith has come we no longer need the law as our pedagogue babysitter guardian for you are all children of god through faith in Christ Jesus Hebrews 6 remember that let us mature in the faith let's move on in the faith into maturity into Christ Jesus again as we see in Hebrews 8 the old things this is the point the old things are just a copy a shadow of what is to come in Jesus Christ and so it is with everything in our lives everything we're looking forward to one thing Jesus that's it in heaven Hebrews teaches us that Jesus is superior to everything in the old and in our lives when you try to return to it or to the things of the world if you've come to faith you're saying that Jesus is not enough but Jesus is enough he is all we need he is the great high priest and perfect sacrifice 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 with 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
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