Better Than Religion - Part 5

supremacy of grace. If you're just getting caught up, the book of Hebrews is a competition. It's a competition between the old covenant and the new covenant. And in this corner, you have Moses, but Jesus is greater than Moses. And in this corner, you have the Old Testament high priests, but Jesus, our high priest, is greater than those old high priests. In this corner, you have tablets of stone and 613 commands. And in this corner, you have the new covenant of God's grace imprinted on our hearts. A better covenant founded on better promises, Jesus wins. And that's the book of Hebrews. So far, we've been invited to transition from the old to the new, which, by the way, little cheat sheet for you, little cliffs notes. If you're a Gentile, we shouldn't really need this radical transition because we were never invited to the law. If you're a Gentile, you were never invited to the Old Testament law. For you and me, it is the new covenant or nothing. And that's why the book of Ephesians explains it that way. It says that we were excluded from the commonwealth of Israel. We had no covenant, no God, no hope, no nothing. But God, those two famous words, but God intervened through Jesus and offered the Ephesians and offered the Americans and the Canadians. And all of the populations of the world offered us something new, which is our one and only. The new covenant, it's our one and only. And so, get this now for the scholars, those who fancy themselves as the religious elite today. If you're standing there publishing articles and books and preaching sermons about how we need to balance law and grace, hear this, 99% of you are Gentiles, and you were never given the law to begin with. So if we were never given the law to begin with, it is not a balance of old and new. It is the new plus nothing, Jesus plus nothing, 100% natural, no additives.

That's the book of Hebrews staring us in the face. And now we finish out Hebrews chapter four with just a few verses. Verse 13, it says this, "And there is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do." Wow. What is this talking about? Well, if you remember last week, it said the word of God is living and active. So the word of God is exposing something like a scalpel. The word of God it says is able to divide spirit and soul, man, that's deeper than the cellular level, physically. The word of God is able to make distinctions. And I'm going to say this distinction is not so far off. It's not so hard to discern. I mean, he's blasted us for chapters and chapters. Hey, guys, there's an old way and a new way. Pick the new way. It's better. And if you've ever met a Christian that's miserable, I'll promise you, a miserable Christian that is miserable because of their religiosity. It's because of a mix of old and new. They might not realize it. They might not see it. They can call it whatever they want. They can call it, "Thou shalt have your quiet time, and I haven't had it in weeks and it's killing me." You could call it, "Well, thou shalt go to church, and I haven't been to church enough, and it's killing me." You can call it whatever you want. "Oh, there's too much sin in my life. God can't hear my prayers.

His ears are stopped up." You can call it whatever you want, but it's a mix of old and new. And the truth is your sins are gone. The truth is there's no obstacle between you and God. The gospel obliterates your sins. And so there is no sin issue. There's only a Savior issue. You're going to have struggles. I struggle. You struggle. That critical thought, that lustful attitude, whatever you're wrestling with. That's real. But I'm saying, Scripture's saying God keeps no record of your wrongs. So in English, that's God keeps no record of your wrongs. Kapish, speak of the English. This is plain and simple and straightforward, and yet religion makes it cloudy and weird. And there's double talk coming out of both sides of our mouths. Yes, He forgave me, but, yes, He cleansed me, but, yes, I'm close to God and clean but. And when we bring in that butt, butt, butt, butt, butt, butt, we now have a religion of our own making, a concoction of old and new. I mean, it's like in the airport. You know, when you go through that scanner, I mean, you can do what you want. You can change your position. You can dance a jig. You can do whatever, but they're gonna see right through everything and discover if you're hiding something. You can go fast, you can go slow. They can take you through a second time. You can tell them whatever you wanna tell them,

but they're gonna see right down to your skeleton. And that's the word of God. We're laid bare. So, you know, the book of Hebrews here in the original language, this idea laid bare, it kind of conveys like, you know, an animal. When our cats at home, they're fighting, they try to go for the neck, you know? Have you ever noticed that when animals fight, they go for the neck, they go for the jugular. They know what they're doing. So every animal's trying to hide that neck. Well, in the original language, this insinuates the neck is laid bare. In other words, we're dead meat apart from the gospel. We're exposed. We are vulnerable. We could easily be judged and condemned. But God intervened. See that, isn't that cool? What an insight. And so, in verse 14, he says, "Therefore, since we have a great high priest "who has passed through the heavens, "Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession." Jesus is not a beginner. Look at this. We have a high priest. He's passed through the heavens. He's qualified.

He's also been there, done that. Which is what we're about to see in the book of Hebrews, been there, done that. You're gonna see that about Jesus. He's a high priest who's been through what you've been through. If you were gonna scale a mountain, you know, one of those big ones, maybe Everest or something, you would wanna go with a guide who had been there. You wouldn't pick a guide, it was his first time, right? If it were her first time or his first time and you signed up for that, you're crazy. People die on that mountain. So Jesus is a guide who's already scaled the summit. He's already been there, done that. And that's what the book of Hebrews is saying. Even just like the TV ads that are so controversial, Hebrews is really saying it, he gets you. He understands you. He's been there. He's traveled that road. Since we have a great priest who's passed through the heavens, suddenly heaven and earth are bridged together through Jesus. Let us hold fast our confession. Oh my gosh, does that mean hold tight or else? You'll lose your grip and you'll lose your salvation. No, these are Hebrews. They're in transition. Remember what we've said for five chapters. Today, man, today, if you hear his voice,

don't harden your heart. Today's the day of salvation. Hold fast to this gospel. Confess that Jesus is Messiah. Or die in the desert like your forefathers. That's what he said. Remember it was just a chapter ago. He said, don't you remember granddaddy and great granddaddy in the desert? You know, with sand in their teeth? Don't you remember what happened? They didn't believe God. He said, come on into the promised land. They said, no thanks, I'll pass. And they spent 40 years with sand in their teeth, miserable in the desert. And God still took care of them, but in their unbelief. And so the book of Hebrews is saying, don't be like that. Would you learn your lesson? You guys have already been, your lineage and your heritage is littered with unbelief. Now's the time, invest in Jesus. You're gonna get a beautiful return. It's the best message on the planet. And then in verse 15, he says about Christ. He says, for we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are yet without sin.

This is a high priest, not an accountant. This is a high priest who gets you. He's got scars, not a clipboard up in heaven, counting your sins. He gets you, he understands you. He's been through it, tempted in all things. So we see the sympathy of Jesus, the heart of Jesus. I'll never forget, I was in big trouble. I went 142 miles an hour on America's highways and spent five hours in jail. I was 18 years old, first year of university. It was embarrassing, it was humiliating. I was put in handcuffs of all my friends. I went back at 6 a.m. in the morning having spent a night in jail. People passed me in the hallway and said glad you're back or how was it. Everybody knew. Everybody had heard. It wasn't front page but it was certainly all over the campus. It was humiliating. And then I thought this is bad enough. I'm going to have to go home now and tell mom and dad what happened and sure enough about it. Four days later I went home and sat at the foot of their bed and told them what happened. My mom, my dad, their first question was it was a shocker. It was not what I thought. It was are you okay? Are you okay? There was no condemnation. In fact, there was no further punishment. They saw that I was wallowing in shame and humiliation and embarrassment. They saw that the earthly consequences were pretty big in this case. There was no punishment. No condemnation. Only care. Protection. Are you all right? Concern. That's our high priest. That's Jesus. If humans can do that, how much more does Jesus do that? Especially since he took the punishment, there's no punishment left and there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Do you believe that? You don't believe that if you think God caused you to lose your job. You don't believe that if you think God took your loved one. You don't believe that if you think that God is like the one who levies Christian karma from the sky. You don't believe that. You only believe it when you realize, okay, there's earthly consequences, but they're not from

God because the heavenly spiritual consequence was death. Get this. The wages of sin was death. Jesus died. There are no wages left. He's not paying you back. If he paid you back, it would hurt and then some. And so we see here this incredible sympathetic high priest. He just felt the heat. Imagine the firefighter, a sinless firefighter who goes in the building after you. He endures the flames. He feels the heat. He's got the burn marks to prove it. He carries you out and he has been through it. This is not some fake high priest with a plastic smile. He really understands more than your parents, more than your mom or dad, more than your best friend. This comfort is legit. Verse 16, "Therefore, because of everything He said, therefore, in light of all of this, the comfort and the counsel in the heart of Jesus, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace so that we may receive mercy and find help and find grace to help in time of need." There's someone in our congregation, someone near and dear to us who recently they hurt their leg pretty bad and they had to go in an emergency to the ER. And when they went to the ER, believe me, they were not apologizing. I'm sorry to get in your way. I'm sorry to be trouble. I'm bleeding all over the place. What an inconvenience. I apologize for getting in your way, doctor. How absurd, right? You go there for help. You go there for mercy and help and grace in your time of need. No apologies. Because of this grand invitation, we can say yes to the help and it's humble to do so. No apologies. Why would you apologize when he's made you perfect? Why would you apologize when he said, "Come near, but don't just come near and sit. I'm one with you. You're bonded and fused to me. I love the come near talk. It's in the Bible. Let us draw near. Come near. Come into the throne room. All of that is colorful language. Come in. At the same time, I want you to know what is in my son Gavin's ear book. And that is that you're one spirit with the Lord. You can come near to the Father. You're one with Christ. You can come and sit with Jesus in the throne room, like the holy of holies. Remember, they had temporary access. We got permanent access. But please know that even that come near, draw near, bound into the room, language, it doesn't even go far enough. It's a nice analogy, but you're one with Christ always. You're in. Vine and branches. We can teach throne room. possibly get." Wow. Now we go into Hebrews chapter 5. We start, of course, in verse 1, very short chapter, but we'll blaze through it. "For every high priest taken from among men is appointed on behalf of men in things pertaining to God in order to offer both gifts and sacrifices

for sin." So, you know, this is that comparison game again. I told you Hebrews is a book of comparisons. What's the comparison? Well, first, remember we had old verses new. We had Moses versus Jesus. We had angels. Remember that? We had angels who brought the law versus Jesus who brought grace. We have all these comparisons of old and new. And here's one again. Human priests versus heavenly priest. Priest who die versus the eternal priest. That's what we're seeing here. As I said, it's like a bridge, a bridge between heaven and earth. This priest, this Old Testament priest was the bridge. I guess you could say the problem is it was shaky. Have you ever walked across a shaky bridge? It's okay. It serves a purpose, but not the best for building confidence. And then Jesus comes along and he's stable and he's sturdy and he's eternal and he's built with a guarantee and he is the perfect eternal bridge. He'll never fail you. That's what we're seeing here. So, they need this. I get it. You and I were catching up. Hebrews looks complicated. The language looks flowery. There's all these long run-on sentences. There's dozens of expressions in the book of Hebrews that don't appear anywhere else in the New Testament. It's a challenge, but not really when you just understand it's a competition of two ideas. Two ideas, old and new. Old kind of forgiveness, new kind of forgiveness, old kind of priest, new kind of priest, old kind of mediator, new kind of mediator, so simple and straightforward. Now, this priest in the Old Testament was plucked from among men, but Jesus was not. Jesus is the son of God. He's not just a servant. He's a son. He's the son. Verse two, it says, he can deal gently with the ignorant and misguided since he himself also is beset with weakness. I was a professor and I was a student and I like professors who remember they were students. It's pretty stressful. I see some of you nodding your heads, right? Whether you've been in university or grad school or whatever or high school, I mean there's a difference between a teacher who remembers what it's like to be a student and one that is just oh my goodness out to get you, right? I mean with the rigorous requirements and the all or nothing attitude and the perfectionistic red ink all over your paper and not one smiley face. Come on, give me a little smiley face. It can be tiny, but give it to me. Find something good. And so Jesus is a teacher who remembers, get this, he remembers what it's like to be a student. If you think I'm making that up to make you feel good, we're going to see that it says he learned obedience. It's coming. Jesus learned obedience through the things he suffered. It says he's the teacher that knows what it's like to be a student. Verse three and because of it he is obligated to offer sacrifices for sins as for the people, so also for himself. What's this saying? Again, it's

two priests, the old kind and the new kind. The old kind, look at him. My goodness, the guy's got to offer an animal for his own sins. That's not a very good priest. So let me get this straight. You're going to represent me, but you're dirty. You're going to represent me in that temple or that tabernacle. You're going to offer my animal sacrifice on my behalf, but you got sin issues, ouch. That makes me a little nervous. You're like a bankrupt accountant who's advising me. You can kind of calculate the numbers, get out your calculator, make all the math work, but you can't pay a dime to help. That makes me nervous. You're my best counselor. You're my best advisor. And so, even though it was the best thing going, we got something better. Somebody that doesn't need to sacrifice for his own sins. So, we're already venturing into the territory of that new competition I was telling you about. Old forgiveness versus new forgiveness. The old forgiveness has priests that croak. That's their problem. Every one of them croaks, right? They all die. There's an expiration date on their priesthood. And you met those people. Levi and Aaron and the other guys, whoever they were, you met, you grew up in their neighborhood. I mean, come on. He lived four houses down. And he's going to put on a robe and represent me. I wish I had better. But that's all I got. That compared to God himself representing you to God. And by two unchangeable things, whoa, it's all coming together, by two unchangeable things, God and God, Jesus as high priest, and God himself, the Father, by these two unchangeable things, I'm stuck smack dab in the middle. I'm stuck with an anchor, a beautiful anchor for the soul. I'm held by God and I'm held by God. And nothing can shake that. It's unbreakable. When God is your priest and God knows that God is your priest, you're doing okay. Verse four, "And no one takes the honor to himself." That would be arrogant. But receives it when he is called by God, even as Aaron was. Now, you can see where he's going with this. He hadn't gone there yet. But I mean, even in the old, with the old kind of priest, they didn't self-nominate. They didn't say, "Good morning. I feel qualified as your representative." It's not like running for mayor, folks. I mean, then he's going to say, "Likewise, Jesus didn't campaign. He didn't get out poster board and write stump speeches." Jesus was appointed. He was crowned by the Father. And that's where this is headed. So also, Christ did not glorify himself, so as to become a high priest, but he who said to him, "Oh my goodness, you are my son. Today I have begotten you." You know what that is? That's an Old Testament quote. It's a Psalm, Psalm

2, and it's a coronation. It's a public endorsement. It's God declaring, in the old thousands of years before Jesus, He is declaring Jesus. So, you know, we enjoyed Isaiah here at this church not too long ago, a piece of Isaiah, where we were like, "Whoa, thousands of years before crucifixion is mentioned." Right? Pierced through for our transgressions, Isaiah says. If you were to study the culture of Isaiah, there's no piercing through at that time. Pierced through with a rich man and his death, the suffering, sir, we saw that foreshadowing of Jesus. It's miraculous. You talk to a rabbi, an expert in Jewish literature. They won't have an explanation. I sat next to one on a flight. I said, "Hey, tell me about Isaiah and this suffering servant. Who do you believe it is?" Because I believe it's Jesus. And he said, "Well, we don't know." And I said, "Well, what's your best guess?" He said, "Well, a servant who suffers." And I said, "But pierce through for our transgressions." Yeah, we don't know. And it was like this. We can't imagine who it could be. Blinders. We're seeing Psalms now, his Psalm chapter 2. God the Father is announcing his son, his only begotten son, and he serves as priest, and it's beautiful. Just as he says also in another passage, "You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek." Wow. All right, so we got some explaining to do here. I know all about Mel's diner, but I don't know about Melchizedek. I mean, he's a mystery man. I can barely pronounce his name. I love the Bible. I want to study the Bible. But once I get past old nine or ten letters in somebody's name, I almost give up. Abraham, he's on a lonely road. And he just finished a war, a battle, and he won. And he's got a wagon full of stuff. And as he carries along this wagon with him and his troops, I mean, they're happy about their victory. They come across a mystery man. This is straight out of Genesis. Abraham, Father Abraham, the father of faith and all of that, comes across this mystery man, we'll call him Mel for short. And Mel is standing in the middle of the road. And Abraham does something weird.

He stops. And he practically worships Mel. I mean, he reaches back in his wagon and he grabs 10% of his loot, you know, the spoils of war. He grabs that loot and he tosses it at Mel's feet. And basically says, you are worthy. And this was a common practice. I'm not going to say that Abraham made this up. It's pretty well known that in the Middle East, if you had a battle and you were victorious, you give 10% of your spoils of war one time. It's not a tithing thing. It's not a Jewish law at this point. There is no law. Moses hasn't been born. No, this is just a Middle Eastern tradition. But here's the weird part. The weird part is why does Father Abraham even recognize this Mel? And why does he give away his stuff to this Mel? Well, the book of Genesis says Mel is a mystery man. He has no father, no mother, no genealogy. You can't trace his origin. So scholars think one of two things. It's an early appearance of Jesus, which is great. Or it's a representation of Jesus being eternal with no lineage or heritage that is traceable beyond God himself. Either way, whether it's Christ or a type of Christ, get this. Father Abraham, are you kidding me? The father of the faith, so to speak. He is practically bowing down to Mel. Now, here's where it gets even crazier.

Inside of Abraham, inside of his lineage, inside of his DNA, inside of his family line is a man named Levi. Levi is going to be an Old Testament priest. Jesus, of course, is a New Testament priest, the one and only. Now, did you see how Abe was bowing down to Mel? Levi is inside of Abe, his lineage, his heritage. Jesus is inside of the line of Mel. So now you've got Abraham. Don't miss it. You've got Abraham bowing down to Melchizedek. And in that sense, you've got Levi bowing down to Jesus. And in that sense, you've got the Old bowing down to the New. You see it? The book of Hebrews, incredible contrast. A competition. And so you are a priest forever, but it's not according to Aaron, and it's not according to Levi, it's not according to that tribe. Does anybody remember their history? What tribe was Jesus born into? The tribe of Judah or David, you can say either one. But get this, not the tribe of Levi. So, I've got a controversial statement for you. Jesus is not qualified as priest under the law. The law requires, if you're a priest, you're of the tribe of Levi, but God did it differently. He brought Jesus with a different passport, different paperwork, different lineage, different heritage, nothing to do with Levi, everything to do with a whole new priestly line that is eternal. Whoa, I just delivered to you through Hebrews chapter five and six and seven, which we'll see. I just delivered to you what I believe is the strongest argument for holding on to grace

and letting go of law, you cannot say that Jesus is your high priest and then go back to get you some Moses. Flirting with Moses is cheating on Jesus. You call upon a table turner. You call upon the order of Melchizedek. You call upon a new priest, and the law says he can't serve. It's building. The argument is swelling. It's coming together. It's going to be powerful. In the days of Jesus' flesh, he offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears. That is messy and that is not well adjusted. To the one able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his piety. I think we kind of in Sunday school, you know, we get this idea that Jesus is kind of suffering, but he's kind of floating through his suffering. He barely has a physical body. He's just kind of floating through his suffering, and then he gets to the cross and then bam, resurrection. But oh, it was pretty much a breeze, you know, because he's God and stuff. Look at this language. Loud crying. I'm sure you've experienced that. I know I have. Crying that reaches incredible volumes, but this is torture. This is worse than any of us. And tears to the one who could save him from death. And I don't know if you remember this, but Jesus got a little bit honest with the Father. Don't forget this part. Hey, Dad, if there's another way, I'll take it. That's what he said. If I could get out of this, I'm all ears. If you got a plan B, I'm in. That was part of his prayer. There was the loud tears and the crying and the wailing and the, oh my goodness, I'm about to die and my body is freaking out and I'm sweating blood and tears are streaming down my face and I'm going into shock, probably, physical shock. And I'm saying things like, is there a plan B? Could we possibly rethink this? And then at the end, not my will, but your will be done. That is freaking amazing. That is love. That's how much he deeply adores you. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from the things which he suffered. Jesus learned obedience elsewhere. It says he grew in wisdom and stature. Come on, Jesus, you're not allowed to grow like you're Jesus. Come on, Jesus, you can't learn like you're God. I love this because it challenges us because yes, you can come to the point where you say, okay, Jesus, fully God, fully man. So he learned he had a human brain. He learned. Oh, yes, Jesus learned and isn't that great. He's humble and he learned. Okay, don't stop there. That's nice and biblical. Get this. You learn and yet you're righteous. You learn and yet you're completely

holy. You learn and you're never less a son. You're always a son or daughter of the king. Your nature never changes even as you learn and grow and life is messy. Righteousness is not perfect knowledge. Righteousness is perfect nature. Righteousness is not perfect knowledge. It's your perfect nature because of what Christ has done, born again, born of the Spirit. You can be righteous but growing, righteous but learning. Jesus is going to break open the sky and he's going to come back to rescue us and you will not be 71% righteous. You will be 100% righteous and yet learning, learning obedience, maybe from the things which you suffer. We'll finish with this, the final verse of the day. I love it. And having been made perfect, he became to all those who obey him the source of eternal salvation. Now on purpose, I elevated my volume when I said obey because I want you to wrestle with this because if you don't wrestle with this, then you haven't been listening for five chapters. What was the disobedience in the desert? It was unbelief. Why didn't they enter his rest? It was unbelief. What was their problem? An evil, unbelieving heart. Unbelief. What is the only sin mentioned for five chapters? The sin of unbelief. How is disobedience defined here? It is looking at the message of God and saying, no thanks all pass. That's the disobedience. When it speaks of disobeying Him, it is unbelief or rejection of Him. This is the Hebrew disobedience. They are not sure He's Messiah. And so they won't enter in. They won't enter into the Promised Land. They won't enter into salvation. They won't enter God's rest because they refuse to believe Jesus is who He says He is. But get this, if you have called upon the Lord to be saved, you believe Jesus is Lord. You believe He died for your sins. You believe He rose from the dead. You're looking to Him so you have obeyed Him and look at what kind of salvation He gave you. It's staring you in the face.

It's one word. It begins with an E. It's right here in this passage. What kind of salvation does Jesus give only one kind? Eternal salvation. This is not some sort of trial membership. This is not some sort of conditional love where you do your best. This is not the accountant in the sky. This is, I believe the gospel. I obey the gospel by putting my faith in Christ. Paul calls it the obedience of faith. And when I do that, holy smokes. I get eternal salvation, never ending, never stopping. If you could lose it, it wouldn't be eternal. Let's thank our God. Father, we, I mean, Hebrews, wow, written a long time ago, a couple thousand years ago, and an ancient document, but wow, a living document. We see you. We see Christ. We see our high priest. We see a profound document, proclaiming a profound truth. Eternal salvation, a better priesthood, a better covenant, better promises, a better kind of forgiveness. I'm not going to fall for it anymore. I don't want religion. I want better than religion. I'm not going to fall for it. I'm not going for the guilt trip anymore. I'm not going to be manipulated.

I'm not going to be guilted. I want Jesus. Father, teach us Jesus. Show us what it means to be the righteousness of God. We're still trying to get cleansed. And we've been cleansed once for all. Show us what it means that we're the righteousness of God. The word of righteousness, we want it. We want to chew on it. It's meat. It's good food. We thank you for it. And as we continue our journey, we're looking to you, Daddy Father. Thank you. In your name, we pray. Amen. You