Hebrews: Jesus Is Better - Christ Exalted Over All | Hebrews 8:1-4
Brian Hedges | August 25, 2024
I want to invite you to turn in scripture today to the book of Hebrews—the New Testament letter to the Hebrews. We’re going to be in chapter 8 today and we are resuming a series that we actually began last fall and then we continued in the spring but we’ve been off now for several months. The series is called “Jesus Is Better” and we’re just slowly working our way through this letter to the Hebrews. We’ve been through the first seven chapters together and today we’re coming to chapter eight. We’re going to read verses 1-6 here in just a moment. But as we begin, just to kind of refresh you, let me remind you of some of the reasons why this letter is so important and so relevant for us today.
This letter does communicate for us one of the most urgent exhortations in scripture to cling to Christ and to hold fast the confession of our faith. And I think nothing is more urgent for us in the American church today than this exhortation to persevere and to continue in the faith and to hold fast to Christ and to not be distracted from who Jesus is and what Jesus has done.
I’ve mentioned this many times in the last several years, but we are in the midst of, perhaps, the greatest apostasy in the history of the American church as some forty million people have left the church over the last several decades. It’s just unbelievable the number of people who are leaving the church, who are leaving Christianity. There are all kinds of reasons for that. But in the midst of that apostasy and that deconstruction and the deconversion that’s happening with so many Christians today, it’s imperative for us to be faithful to Christ and to hold fast to our confession of faith. It’s urgent both for us and it’s urgent for the next generation as we are seen to disciple others and to raise children who will know and love and follow Christ. We need the exhortation of Hebrews to hold fast to Christ.
This letter also gives us the key to interpreting the Old Testament scriptures. Of course, we’ve just spent twelve weeks in the great Old Testament literature, the book of Proverbs. If you’ve ever struggled with parts of the Bible that are not like Proverbs, not as immediately relevant with practical wisdom for life—maybe you’ve struggled reading through Leviticus or Numbers or Deuteronomy or the Old Testament prophets or some of the more mysterious Psalms—well, Hebrews gives us the key to interpreting those passages. And it shows us over and over again that Christ is the ultimate fulfillment of everything that went before and we’ll see some of that again this morning.
Most importantly, the letter to the Hebrews portrays for us the stunning glory and beauty of Jesus Christ. It shows us that Jesus Christ is superior, that he is supreme, that he is better. He is better than anything that could compete for our attention, for the love and affection of our hearts. Living as we do in a world that’s full of distraction, full of competing voices vying for our attention, the letter to the Hebrews reminds us that Jesus is worth our worship; he is worthy of our devotion, of our adoration; that Jesus is better; and that in following Jesus, we will find true life and joy and satisfaction.
So, these are some of the reasons why it’s good for us to be in this letter. Now this is a difficult letter. This is not going to be as easy as Proverbs. This is not a letter that seems as immediately relevant to us because it’s dealing with a lot of this Old Testament language of priests and altars and sanctuaries and sacrifice and covenants, so we have to do a bit of hard work to understand this letter. But if we really believe that God speaks to us through all of his word and if we are devoted to working through books of the Bible as we try to do in our church, then it’s worth the effort to study through this letter to the Hebrews.
So today, we resume our study in Hebrews chapter eight. We’re going to take a short section this morning, Hebrews 8:1-6. In some ways this will be an advantage to us because this is something of a transition passage that kind of summarizes what the author has been saying up to this point, but also leads us into the next section of his letter, chapters 8-10. So some of what we’re going to be doing this morning is just kind of reorienting ourselves to this book—where we’ve been and where we’re going—but then also looking at some of the reasons why it’s applicable to our lives today.
So let’s begin by reading Hebrews 8:1-6.
“Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places [in the sanctuary], in the true tent [or tabernacle] that the Lord set up, not man. For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; thus it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law. They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, ‘See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.’ But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.”
This is God’s word.
So I don’t really have a clever outline for you today, but this is kind of a workman-like outline that will help us get through the text and understand it. I want to show you, first of all, the summary of the main point of this letter which is given to us by the author in verses 1 and 2. Then secondly, an overview of the developing argument. So it’s an overview, really, of what’s going to come, because in verses 3 through 6 the author introduces three new themes, things he’s touched on maybe just a little, not much, but three things that he is going to elaborate on and develop in chapters 8-10. And then I want to end with some applications for our lives today. So the applications are going to be mainly in the last point—the second half of the sermon—so it means you’ve got to hang in there for fifteen minutes or so as we get reoriented to the theme and the arguments of Hebrews.
1. The Summary
So let’s begin by noticing here a summary of the main point of this letter. And this is easy to see because the author tells us exactly what it is in verses 1 and 2. He says, “Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places and the true tent that the Lord set up, not man.”
This is the point: the point is Jesus is the superior high priest. That’s the driving theme of this letter: the priesthood of Christ introduced for us, kind of in a veiled form, in chapter 1. Then, explicitly, in chapter 2. And then the author begins an elaboration of the priesthood of Christ at the end of chapter 4, develops it in chapter 5 and especially chapter 7. That’s been the driving argument of this letter so far: that Jesus is this great high priest; that he is the superior high priest; that Jesus is the better high priest.
And you can see some of the themes that he’s developed come summarized for us in verse 1. And you can notice here three things about Jesus as the superior high priest. First of all, the author says he is, “such a high priest.” Now that is referring back to everything he has said in chapter 7. I’m tempted to go back and just read chapter 7. I’m not going to do it, but you can do it—and you should do it—or go back and listen to the sermon that was preached back in the spring on Hebrews chapter 7 that elaborates for us on this very unique priesthood of Jesus Christ—priesthood that’s based not on the order of the Levitical priests in the Old Testament, but a priesthood that is patterned after this mysterious priest-king, Melchizedek, introduced to us in Hebrews chapter 5. It recalls for us the story of Abraham who met this priest-king Melchizedek in Genesis 14, and then, kind of mysteriously drops off the scene and is only mentioned in one other passage in scripture, Psalm 110, which is a Psalm which is quoted more than any other Old Testament passage in the New Testament. Most of those quotations are in the letter to the Hebrews. Part of what this author is doing is trying to take Psalm 110 that talks about this priest-king Melchizedek and show us how Jesus is the fulfillment of this kingly priesthood. You can see that if you read Hebrews chapter 7 carefully. So he is the kingly priest.
Secondly, he is the final priest. Notice that it says that, “He is such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty on high.” And it’s just significant that this is a priest who is seated. Hebrews 10:11 I think it is, tells us that the Old Testament priests never sat down. They were always standing. And the reason they were always standing was because their work was never finished. Every morning they’d have to offer a new sacrifice. Every evening a new sacrifice. Once a year on the Day of Atonement the high priest would offer that very important sacrifice atoning for the sins of the people, but it would have to be done year after year after year. The daily sacrifices—day after day after day. Their work was never finished; it was never complete.
But Jesus’s work is finished. His sacrifice is a sacrifice that’s been offered once and for all. He has completed the work of atonement. That’s why Hebrews 1:3 says, “After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” Here is a priest who has done everything that is necessary to atone for our sins and to secure our salvation and, therefore, he is the final priest.
And that is one reason why in most Protestant and Reformed traditions we don’t call ministers priests. So I’m not a priest. I’m one of you and a member of the body with specific tasks to teach and to shepherd and to care for the flock, but I am not a priest.
Your priest is Jesus. He’s the priest. He’s the one who intercedes for you at the right hand of God. He is the one who has made a sacrifice for your sins. He is the one mediator between God and human beings as 1 Timothy says. There’s only one mediator. There’s only one person who stands between us and a Holy God and joins us together in new communion and relationship and fellowship, and that person is Jesus Christ. He is the final priest.
And then he is also the divine priest. He is seated at the throne of the Majesty in heaven. He’s seated at the right hand of God. He’s right there, one with God. In fact, Hebrews chapter 1 makes much of this, doesn’t it, when it tells us that this son is the express image of the glory of God? Here is the divine priest, the kingly priest, the final priest. He is the son of God himself. Hebrews 4:14, “Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.”
Sometimes we sing these words,
“One name is higher,
One name is stronger
Than any grave,
Than any throne,
Christ exalted over all.”
Hebrews is holding out this exalted Christ to us for our trust, for our worship, for our devotion, with the exhortation, “Let us hold fast the confession of our faith because we have this priest.” That’s the main point of this book. Jesus is better and he is, especially, the better priest.
2. The Overview
Then secondly, Hebrews 8:3-6 introduces some new themes for us that are going to be developed in the arguments in the next three chapters. Let me read Hebrews 8:3-6 again.
“For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices [underline the word sacrifices]; thus it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law. They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, [Underline tent—tent or tabernacle, or a parallel word, sanctuary. Those words will also pop up again and again in chapters 8-10.] he was instructed by God, saying, 'See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.’ But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant [underline that word] he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.”
Okay, so here are three themes that are going to be developed in these three chapters: the themes of sanctuary, sacrifice, and covenant. And you can see how this works out in this chart. It shows you the theme and then it shows you the verses in chapters 8-10 that will develop and elaborate these themes. This chart isn’t original with me, but I think it’s very helpful.
Now another way to think about this is to think about this as a symphony with three interlocking themes. Have you ever gone to one of Beethoven’s great symphonies? One of my bucket list items is to attend a live performance of all nine of Beethoven’s symphonies. I think I’ve done three or four of them so far. And it’s just amazing to listen to this symphony as a theme is introduced in the first movement and then it develops and is elaborated in more and more intricate ways through the course of the symphony.
And this is the illustration that Gareth Lee Cockerill uses in his commentary on Hebrews. He talked about these three themes. Listen to this paragraph from Cockerill. He said, “The artistry of the pastor’s presentation is like a symphony in three movements. [Then he gives you the passages with those movements.] Developing three themes: sanctuary, sacrifice, and covenant. Each movement begins with the theme of sanctuary and ends with covenant. At the center of each is the ever-expanding theme of sacrifice. When the author, as conductor, has finished his symphony, he would leave his hearers overwhelmed with the magnitude and wonder of this high priest and ready at all costs to persevere through the benefits he affords.”
Now I think that’s a beautiful picture that illustrates for us what is going to be happening in chapters 8, 9, and 10. And as we study those three chapters over the next couple of months, what we’re going to dig into are these three themes of covenant, sanctuary, and, especially, sacrifice. And we are going to look at those in detail as Hebrews develops those themes in detail.
And listen, this is one of the great reasons why Hebrews is such a treasure to us because Hebrews develops these themes with more detail than any other book in the New Testament. There’s no other place in the New Testament that develops these themes with as much detail as Hebrews does. So next week as we study the rest of Hebrews chapter 8, we’ll look in detail at the covenant, the new covenant, this better covenant, that has been enacted on better promises.
What exactly is the new covenant? We talk about it every week here at Redeemer, because when we come to the Lord’s table we read the words of institution where Jesus says, “This is the new covenant in my blood.” What does that mean? What does it mean when we talk about a new covenant? Every time you read your Bible, you’re reading a Bible that is arranged in terms of two covenants—an old covenant and a new covenant, the Old Testament and the New Testament. What makes the New (Testament) new? What makes the new better? Why is the new better than the old, but why is the old still necessary to help us understand the new? That’s what Hebrews is all about and we’ll dig into that next week. We will see why the new covenant is new and why the new covenant is better.
So sanctuary, sacrifice, and covenant—these are the themes of Hebrews 8-10 and we will see in the weeks to come why these are so important.
3. The Applications
But I want to focus the last ten to fifteen minutes or so on some applications for our lives today. Without really digging deep into the arguments, we’ve just seen this main point that Jesus is the great high priest—he is the supreme high priest—and we’ve seen kind of a preview of how this ministry of Jesus as our high priest is going to be developed according to these themes of sacrifice, sanctuary, and covenant.
But why is this important? Why is this relevant? What does this mean for our lives today? I want to give you four applications, and these are the kind of things you can be chewing on this week and thinking about the application to your life. Let me just put it in terms of four statements with an accompanying exhortation.
So here’s number one. Jesus’s atoning work is finished, so trust him. We’ve already seen that. We saw it in chapter 7 and mentioned it here as we were looking at verses 1 and 2. But I think we’ve got to spend a little time now applying that. What does it mean to trust in the finished work of Christ? This is, by the way, one of the core values of our church as seen on that banner right there. Trusting Jesus and his finished work with all of our hearts. Some of you have never seen that. You’ve been coming here for six months and you’ve never seen the banner. But it’s one of the core values of our church. It’s the main point of every sermon, right? At least we try to make it the point of every sermon. Trusting in the finished work of Jesus Christ.
What does that mean and how do we do it? Let me give you an illustration. Let me show you a picture. How many of you recognize this place? Do you know what this is? It’s the Art Institute of Chicago. How many of you have ever visited the Art Institute of Chicago? Let me see your hands. Quite a few. I’ve gone there several times. I love to visit there. It’s been a few years since I’ve gone, but every once in a while they’ll do an exhibit, you know, of one particular artist or painter or someone.
And imagine that you went to the Art Institute of Chicago to see this wonderful exhibit of Rembrandt’s paintings or of Matisse or someone else—take your favorite painter. And you go see this wonderful exhibit of all these paintings. But secretly, unbeknownst to the curators of this museum and the security guards and so on, you have tucked into your pocket a little bottle of paint with a paint brush. And your aim is to go through and to touch up the paintings and add your own strokes to the paintings. I mean, that would be ludicrous, wouldn’t it, to try to add something to a masterpiece? You wouldn’t be allowed to do it. You’d get yourself into a lot of trouble. They’re probably not going to let you bring paint into the Art Institute of Chicago. This is a silly illustration.
But listen, some of you are trying to make yourselves worthy of God by finger painting with moral resolutions and with religious duties and a lot of self-effort. You’re trying to make yourself better so that God will love you. And what you’re doing is trying to finger paint onto the masterpiece of the finished work of Jesus Christ. It’s a doomed effort. There’s nothing you can do to add to what Jesus has already done.
His work is finished. His atonement is complete. Salvation is accomplished. And the only thing that you contribute to that salvation is the sin from which you need to be saved. That’s it! Your good works add nothing to that. All of our obedience is just a grateful response of love to the God who saved us. That’s what obedience is. Your obedience is not what saves you, your obedience is your response of love to the God who saved you.
Don’t try to add to the finished work of Christ. Instead, trust his work. Rest in his work. Quit trying to save yourself. When you mess up, quit flagellating yourself. Quit punishing yourself as if you can somehow earn yourself back into God’s good graces. Instead, just get on your knees and humbly confess your sins and your need for God and his grace and then gratefully receive the grace that Christ has already purchased for you.
Man of Sorrows! what a name
For the Son of God, who came
Ruined sinners to reclaim.
Hallelujah! What a Savior!
Bearing shame and scoffing rude,
In my place condemned He stood;
Sealed my pardon with His blood.
Hallelujah! What a Savior!
Guilty, vile, and helpless we;
Spotless Lamb of God was He;
Full atonement! can it be?
Hallelujah! What a Savior!
Lifted up was He to die;
It is finished! was His cry;
Now in Heav’n exalted high.
Hallelujah! What a Savior!
That’s the message of Hebrews. And listen, friend, if you know yourself to be a sinner, and if you know that you need a savior, and if you feel like you have sinned—not just a little bit, but you’ve sinned a lot—if you feel like maybe you have sinned yourself out of the possibility of salvation because your sins have been so habitual and repeated so often and they are so dark, the things in your heart are so dark that you wouldn’t want anybody to know them, I have good news for you. God already knows and he loves you with an everlasting love and he loves you so much that he sent his son to cover those sins and there’s nothing you can do to make yourself worthy. All you can do is receive the gift. Just receive the gift that God gives, the grace that he gives. Our sins, they are many. His mercy is more than our sins. Jesus’s atoning work is finished, so trust him.
Second application: Jesus’s priestly ministry is better, so devote yourself to him. Now it’s a similar point, but a slightly different application. The theme of Hebrews is that Jesus is better. And this is developed not only in terms of the priesthood of Christ, but every other aspect of the person and work of Christ in comparison and contrast with all that went before in the Old Testament. Jesus is better than the angels, Hebrews chapters 1 and 2. Jesus is better than Moses, chapter 3. Jesus is better than Joshua and he brings a better rest, chapter 4. He is a better priest, chapters 5 and 7. He brings a better covenant, chapter 8. He offers a better sacrifice in a better sanctuary, chapters 9 and 10. And the exhortation, then, is to devote yourself to Christ.
Here’s a great summary statement from N.T. Wright, a little devotional commentary on Hebrews. This is good. He says, “The old temple was good; the new, real one, is better. The old priests were good; the new priest was better. The old covenant was good; the new one was better established [verse 6] on better promises. As we look back to those early days and put ourselves in the shoes and the hearts of our forbearers in the Christian faith, we do well to ask ourselves whether our own devotion to Jesus, our own celebration of all that he is and has done, is as powerful and essential to our lives as the writer wanted him to be for his readers. If he was better, even than the temple and its priesthood, how much more is he better than the many things which so easily distract us from single-minded devotion to him.”Jesus is better. Therefore, devote yourself to him.
Let me ask you this morning, what is distracting you from single-minded devotion to Jesus? What’s distracting you? It may be difficulties or trials that you are facing. But Jesus is so much better than anything this world can offer that he will far outweigh in the joy and the life that he gives. He’ll far outweigh any difficulty, any suffering, you can ever face.
It may be some worldly ambition, some selfish desire, some desire of the flesh. You’re pursuing comfort. You’re pursuing satisfaction, but you’re looking for it in all the wrong places and you still haven’t found what you’re looking for. Yes, I did just allude to both a country-western song and YouTube. The world, itself, tells us that we can’t find what we’re looking for. Jesus says, “If you come to me you’ll find life.” You’ll find satisfaction. You’ll find what your heart most deeply desires. Don’t be distracted by this other stuff. Jesus is better.
And for most of us, we are just distracted by the incessant and pervasive presence of technology in our lives. You are distracted by your phone. You’re distracted by the internet. You’re distracted by social media. You’re distracted by the dings and texts and notifications that are coming across your path a couple hundred times a day, probably for some people, but certainly dozens for many of us. And it can so unhinge the way your brain is wired to work that it makes it really hard to be focused on Jesus. And in a world of many, many distractions, Hebrews calls us to consider Jesus, Hebrews 3:1. That is, set your mind and your heart and your attention on Jesus Christ. Put down the phone for a while. Be devoted to Jesus.
Third application: Jesus is the reality of which the old covenant system—or the old covenant rites and rituals—were copies, so treasure him. As some of you know, perhaps, one of my little hobbies is that I’m a watch enthusiast. I love great watches. And this is a beautiful watch. It is a Seiko SKX. It’s a beautiful watch—not a luxury watch. This isn’t like a Rolex, it isn’t thousands of dollars. That’s a nice watch. And about a year ago I saw that someone was selling a Seiko in Facebook Marketplace. It was a really good price. So I messaged, “Is this still available?” “Yes, it’s available.” It looks a lot like this, except the bezel was black and red instead of blue and red. And I got the watch. I bought it for a great price. Great watch! But what I discovered is that even though it says Seiko, it’s actually not a real Seiko. It’s why it was so cheap. It’s a copy. It’s a knockoff Seiko. Now, it’s still kind of a cool looking watch, it doesn’t look bad. It still keeps time. It works. It’s functional. It serves a purpose, but it’s not as valuable as a real Seiko would be. An original is always going to be more valuable than a copy. You want the real thing.
And what the letter to the Hebrews is telling us is that everything that’s in the Old Testament, that’s not the original, that’s the copy. It’s not that that’s the original that Jesus copied, it’s actually the other way around. You see this in verses 4 and 5, where it says that the priest who offered gifts according to the law, served a copy and a shadow of the heavenly things. And then he quotes from Exodus 25 and he says, “For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, ‘See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.’” Now we don’t know exactly what that means. There’s different theories from different commentators, but what it seems to mean—what the best commentaries seem to say—is that in some way, when Moses was up there on Mount Sinai, God not only gave him the law—the ten commandments—he also gave him the gospel. He showed him the pattern—the pattern of salvation that all of the Old Testament system of priests and sanctuary and sacrifices and rites and rituals, tabernacle and all that stuff, was a copy that is based off of a greater reality, the reality of which Jesus is the original. Jesus is the fulfillment. And just as a real Seiko or a real Rolex is more valuable than a knockoff or a copy, so Jesus is more valuable than the copies because he is the original and what he does is the substantial thing that the Old Testament was just hinting at. It was just looking for, waiting for, but we’ve got the real thing and therefore, we should treasure him. We should value him, we should worship him.
And it’s something—when you read about worship in the Old Testament, there’s a lot of reverence in that worship. There’s a lot of trembling and fear in that worship. There’s also a lot of joy in that worship. You may read the Psalms and you may sometimes feel like, “I don’t know if I know personally and with personal experience the exuberance that these Hebrew believers knew. I don’t know if I know that in my worship.” But listen, we’ve got far more reason for joy in worship. Far more reason to treasure Christ. Far more reason to value him and to lift up our voices in mighty song to God when we consider what he’s done.
Does your worship reflect that reality? Do you realize the treasure you have? Are you treasuring Christ in your life? When you realize what he’s done, the only reasonable rational response of our hearts is joyful worship of God. Let’s let that be reflected in our corporate worship, brothers and sisters. Let’s worship our God with great joy.
Finally, number four: Jesus is the sum and substance of the scriptures, so seek to know him. Again, I may give you the same point in four different ways with four different applications, but if Jesus is the superior priest, he’s offered the final sacrifice, if he’s better than everything that went before, if he is the original and not the copy, if he is the sum and the substance of the Old Testament scriptures, then it means that a part of our discipleship as followers of Jesus is to learn everything we can about Jesus and to learn about Jesus from the whole of the Bible, and Hebrews helps us do that. It gives us what we might call, to use a technical term, the hermeneutical key to unlocking every door of scriptures. Hermeneutics—it’s the science of interpretation. Do you want to know how to interpret the Bible? The Bible’s not an easy book; it’s a difficult book. How do you interpret the Bible? Hebrews shows you how, and the key is Christ. Christ is who unlocks every door.
And I just want to end by reading this wonderful quotation from John Calvin, the reformer. This is from his preface to his cousin, Olivetan’s, translation of the New Testament. Calvin wrote the preface to it, and he said,
“Jesus is Isaac, the beloved Son of the Father, who was offered as a sacrifice, but nevertheless, did not succumb to the power of death. He is Jacob, the watchful shepherd, who has such great care for the sheep which he guards. He is the good and compassionate brother Joseph, who in his glory was not ashamed to acknowledge his brothers however lowly and abject their condition. He is the great sacrificer and bishop Melchizedek, who has offered an eternal sacrifice, once for all. He is the sovereign law-giver Moses, writing his law on the tables of our hearts by his Spirit. He is the faithful captain and guide Joshua, to lead us to the promised land. He is the victorious and noble king David, bringing by his hand all rebellious powers to subjection. He is the magnificent and triumphant king Solomon, governing his kingdom in peace and prosperity. He is the strong and powerful Samson, who by his death has overwhelmed all his enemies.
This is what we should, in short, seek in the whole of scripture. Truly, to know Jesus Christ, and the infinite riches that are comprised in him and are offered to us by him from God the Father, if one were to sift thoroughly the Law and the Prophets, he would not find a single word which would not draw and bring us to him. Therefore, rightly does Saint Paul say in another passage that he would know nothing except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.”
Brothers and sisters, this is what we’re called to do as disciples of Jesus, as learners of Jesus, as we cultivate a devotional life—a life in which we are students of the scriptures. We’re not just seeking to know the scriptures for personal wisdom, as important as that is. We’re not just seeking to know the scriptures so that we can be good theologians and we can debate our theology against someone else who holds a different view. No, what we are seeking is to know Christ and to know Christ in all the scriptures. To know him as the one who fulfills everything written about him in the Law and the Prophets.
Let me encourage you then in your devotional life to study the Bible. Study the Old Testament and New Testament. Study Hebrews together with us as a church over the next few months and in your study, grow to know Jesus Christ and him crucified.
Let’s pray together.
Gracious Father, we thank you this morning for your word. We thank you for this wonderful letter, the letter to the Hebrews. We thank you for its testimony to the glory and the majesty of Jesus Christ, your son. Lord, we ask you to give us hearts to love him, to devote ourselves to him, to treasure him, to seek him, and to know him. And we pray, Lord, that you would use your word by your Spirit to accomplish those things in our lives.
As we come now to the Lord’s table, would you give us a heart to love Christ just as we have seen and savored Christ in the word. May we taste and see that Jesus Christ, our Lord and our Savior, is good. So be with us now in our continuing worship. We pray in Jesus’s name and for his sake, amen.
Brian G. Hedges
