[SPEAKER_00]: You are listening to audio from Citizens Church located in Plano, Texas for more information about this ministry or to give to this ministry Please visit citizenschurch.com Good morning It's so good to be back here with you all And you stand up here and get to see all the faces The words we just sang
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know who needed to hear it this morning, but I just want to firm, he's better.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he's not just better for the people around, but he's better for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's really better for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: My name's Tom Marcus, if we haven't met, Dallas Texas has been my home for most of my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And just recently, God has seen fit to move me in my wife across to Rowan Oak, Virginia.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they aren't here with me today, but they send their love.
[SPEAKER_00]: and their greetings and before I jump in, I just want to extend a thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had a professor that used to say, you know, the way people can show that they love me is when they love my kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: And God says the same thing in First John, so it has to be true.
[SPEAKER_00]: And...
[SPEAKER_00]: I just, when they got to be here a little bit ago while we were out of town, many of you got to just shower them with love and hugs and I miss yous and I saw pictures and that just made their little day more than you possibly know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I told the first service before we left.
[SPEAKER_00]: as everyone's all excited for the shift in the change.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember Mathea, like the moment it hit her that we were like moving and leaving something like it wasn't school, it wasn't gymnastics, it wasn't, you know, any of that cheeky monkey or anything because they don't have those in Roanoke.
[SPEAKER_00]: But she was like, is there a citizen's church in Roanoke?
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I was like, no citizen, citizen churches here, but God has people all over the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it just, it speaks of of how much this place has just poured into and loved my family.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we greatly appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I thank you for your prayers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Keep praying them.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're working.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we need them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and just want to just affirm and many of you have some of you have gotten here updates.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you haven't, God has just been doing some really amazing work.
[SPEAKER_00]: and it's been a gift to get to step into the harvest and just see what God has been up to.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the things that has just happened as we've gone there and just tried to be faithful to what God has called us to the people.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's also just done remarkable works in us.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's one of those things you hear and you know, but experience that I've really felt God ultimately doing a lot of work in me before he's doing a work through me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I got to talk a little bit with the staff about it and I want to share it with you by way of introduction to our passage.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're going to detail it to the second Peter chapter one.
[SPEAKER_00]: I promise I won't preach two sermons, but I do want to just kind of share a little bit of what the Lord has been showing me in that, and then also where I think that how it sets us up for what is being shared with us in Hebrews chapter 3.
[SPEAKER_00]: I...
[SPEAKER_00]: We got brought to this passage, and he's just been, I've been sitting in it over the past couple months, and God has just been using it to work in my heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm just briefly sharing this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Three things from it that have stuck out, if you turn in, look at it.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a Peter writing to a group of believers.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's talking to fellow brothers and sisters who have the knowledge of Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he tells them the first thing that stuck out is, he wants them to supplement their faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: in the Greek that word supplement means supplement, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So just as you, you understand it, and he lists some things, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Our faith is a gift, Paul tells us in Ephesians the faith is something that is given to us by God.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't earn it or work forward or muster it up.
[SPEAKER_00]: He gives it to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we get to cooperate with him by supplementing it with some things.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says goodness or moral, right character.
[SPEAKER_00]: knowledge, there's some things we need to know that he chiefly has revealed to us in this book that we get to study, shout out Bible class, keep going to that self-control endurance, godliness, brotherly affection and love.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, these things we get to supplement, he says, make every effort to supplement your faith with these things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, without these things, you'll be useless and unfruitful in the knowledge of God, in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: That scared me.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a way in which we can have the knowledge of Jesus Christ and yet as His representatives on earth of the kingdom that He is bringing, be useless in the work of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: be useless in allowing all of the benefits and riches that belong to Christ experiencing and having them in our purse.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's some sort of disconnect that happens as we don't make every effort to supplement this.
[SPEAKER_00]: what may it never be, I don't want that for me, I don't want that for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: How do we stop from that?
[SPEAKER_00]: What puts us in a place where we become unfruitful and useless?
[SPEAKER_00]: And he says, when these things are lacking, we forget about our previous washing of sins, we become blind and nearsighted.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know about you, but it seems like if you're blind, near sight in this feels like I'm blind.
[SPEAKER_00]: So how am I, what does that mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: But he's talking about two different kinds of scene, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: That we become so blind to the things of the kingdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: to the spiritual realities that have been made that have been revealed to us in Jesus Christ of his ultimate plan that has revealed in this text for all of time what he's doing in humanity, what he's doing in our lives, what he desires to do in the lives of those around us.
[SPEAKER_00]: We become blind to the spiritual realities of that and near sighted.
[SPEAKER_00]: All we see is the flesh and bone thing in front of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we become captivated, not by Jesus, not by His work, not by His mission, we're captivated by our screens and our timelines and our news feeds and what is broken in the world with no vision of how God has already working to repair it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we become ineffective as His representatives on earth.
[SPEAKER_00]: How do we shake out of that?
[SPEAKER_00]: What I, that has, that has rocked me and brought me to the Lord in a way that has been really, really refreshing and I just hope to offer something of that to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: As y'all have been in Hebrews in Bible's class, we have been in Hebrews in our teaching series.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I thought let's just meet in Hebrews together again, that feels right for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just as Peter is right into this group of believers that seem to be tempted to look away from Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's encouraging them to look up similarly.
[SPEAKER_00]: We know that in Hebrews, he is right into a group of believers who are facing all sorts of pressure from around them, from the Jewish community, that did not believe in the resurrected Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: and also from the political regimes around them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And many of them as this pressure has caved in, this persecution has risen up, they are wondering what it not just be better for us to go back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Should we just return to our former way of life?
[SPEAKER_00]: That seemed easier.
[SPEAKER_00]: That seems like it'll have a little less friction.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe we won't run into as many problems in the Hebrew writer like Peter, like I am now, it's saying, guys, don't do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look up, behold and consider Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: As the world around us, rocks and reels and becomes more unsteady and culture presses in and it feels like it's hard to see what God might be doing in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the time for us to hold on to our faith and supplement it with goodness and supplement it with godliness and supplement it with brotherly affection and love and as we do these things we become effective and fruitful in representing Christ to the world around us.
[SPEAKER_00]: So how do we do that?
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the things Peter said we do is we forget about our formal washing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So all I want to do this morning is remind us.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just want to remind us by way of looking to the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because as we all want to see change and we all want to see our neighbors submitted to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, none of this is possible apart from him.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need to first be captured by Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Psalm 103, the Psalm says, My soul blessed the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all that is within me, bless his holy name.
[SPEAKER_00]: My soul blessed the Lord and do not forget His benefits.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let us not forget and abandon the benefits of our Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: See, as we move forward, we have to be reminded that as much as we want to see change out here, it only comes as we are in connection and right relationship and a flourishing overflow from our relationship with God.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm divine, you are the branches, the one who remains in me, I will produce much fruit because you can do nothing without me.
[SPEAKER_00]: We must be captured first with Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: So my point from the text is simple, as the Hebrew writer speaks to us, he wants to show us one thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one brings us closer to God than Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that means no one brings our neighbors closer to God than Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: If we want them to be captured by Him, we must be captured by Him and live out of that overflow.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the Hebrew writer's gonna do that in three movements.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's gonna point our attention and magnify Christ before us to see his perfect work as our mediator.
[SPEAKER_00]: His surpassing worth as our mediator and his infinite wealth as our mediator.
[SPEAKER_00]: Perfect work, surpassing worth, surpassing worth, infinite wealth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's look at the first verses, look at the verse 1 of chapter 3.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in a heavenly calling,
[SPEAKER_00]: Consider Jesus the Apostle and the High Priest of our confession.
[SPEAKER_00]: The writer of Hebrews has been making a case from the very beginning of the book.
[SPEAKER_00]: Long ago, God has spoken to man through various prophets and means, but in these latter times, He has spoken to us through His Son.
[SPEAKER_00]: He goes on to carve out and demonstrate how Jesus is far superior than any prophet or any messenger God has ever sent.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the people that are listening, they've got their combatants in their mind, they're like, yeah, sure, you know, prove it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he'd be right at, like, say less.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the first things that they want to compare Jesus to is they're like, you know, he's not, we don't want to accept that he's God, and he's the resurrected Lord, maybe he was just, he was just an angel sent to give a message.
[SPEAKER_00]: and he demonstrates through chapter one and on the two, it like, no, he's more than an angel for the scriptures declare, right, what of what angel is it declared that he would rule and that he would have aceptor and that his kingdom will be forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, there is no comparing him to angels.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's not just a messenger of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is God and bodily form.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's the very imprint, the very radiance of God on earth.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's more than an angel.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was made like us so that he could heal us.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we close out in chapter two.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now he turns and three, and he sees this other comparison that he knows is gonna come up with them in Moses.
[SPEAKER_00]: But first he calls them right.
[SPEAKER_00]: He lists their days again.
[SPEAKER_00]: He tells them to consider Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wants them to look up.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what does he first direct their attention to about Jesus?
[SPEAKER_00]: Two titles, the apostle and the high priest of our confession.
[SPEAKER_00]: What does that mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why is that important?
[SPEAKER_00]: Apostle is a fancy word, fancy title that speaks of him being a special messenger.
[SPEAKER_00]: As it pertains to Christ, it speaks to the way in which he speaks to us on behalf of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he has not just revealed God to us with his word.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has revealed God to us with his life.
[SPEAKER_00]: As I just mentioned, he is the very radiance of the Father.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is the very substance of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has saved us with his life, but he has also demonstrated to us what it looks like to be truly human through his life.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that we know we were always meant to be and how we were meant to live.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's also called our high priest.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is another fancy word that points to the responsibility, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: That one appointed priest in the under the old covenant who was responsible for conducting the sacrifices for the forgiveness of the people sins, including himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd come in and he'd make sacrifices once a year so that the people sins might be forgiven.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as it pertains to Christ, it speaks about how he talks to God on our behalf.
[SPEAKER_00]: But not just with his words, he does this too with his life.
[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't go to present sacrifices with lambs and with goats.
[SPEAKER_00]: He sacrifices his own body.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's not for his sins, including ours.
[SPEAKER_00]: He remains sinless.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was the perfect son of God, given for sinful human beings that we might become the righteousness of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: He goes in our place.
[SPEAKER_00]: And these two functions together, speak of this place in which he stands between us and God to show us who he is, to teach us who God is, to invite us into his kingdom, and then also to intercede on our behalf before the Father speaking better words about us than we speak about ourselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: The thoughts that condemn us, the thoughts that the stirs shame and guilt of Jesus stands before the Father declaring better things, based not on your inability to be righteous, but on his perfect ability to be righteous.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's his perfect work as our mediator.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's the thing, why then does he direct our attention first to this?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why does he tell us to lift our eyes to see this?
[SPEAKER_00]: quick example.
[SPEAKER_00]: The other day I was reading Article and it was talking about art authenticators and I didn't know what that was.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I looked it up and I found a group that that do it and it's a field that is comprised heavily of art historians and forensic scientists that help verify and authenticate art.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it is a job that they take very seriously.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can make a lot of money doing this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they just take a lot of time studying with intricate detail.
[SPEAKER_00]: The way artists would paint the brush strokes.
[SPEAKER_00]: They would use what kind of brush, what kind of pigmentation they use.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they would study so much with the artists was creating.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that when four degrees would come, they could distinguish what was real and what was fake.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's how they talk about what they do.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a little lengthy, but it's
[SPEAKER_00]: it's good for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says artworks hold significance far beyond their financial value.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are irreplaceable, cultural artifacts that capture the spirit, ideas, and innovations of their time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Authenticating art goes beyond verifying golf issue.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is about preserving history and safeguarding the legacies of creative visionaries for future generations.
[SPEAKER_00]: Without this critical process, the narrative of art history,
[SPEAKER_00]: risk becoming muddled in the contributions of great artists can be overshadowed by imitations.
[SPEAKER_00]: We often work with artworks about artists whose markets are deeply affected by forgery.
[SPEAKER_00]: Without accurate authentication, their contributions to art cannot be properly understood or celebrated.
[SPEAKER_00]: By distinguishing the authentic from the imitation, we aim to restore clarity and honor to these artists' legacies and sharing their true work
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, right, those guys are committed to their cause.
[SPEAKER_00]: And do you catch why?
[SPEAKER_00]: Not just about authenticating the authorship, but preserving history for future generations.
[SPEAKER_00]: Safe guarding the true thing so that the true artists can be properly understood, celebrated, and given the honor, do their name.
[SPEAKER_00]: Friends, Jesus' work is our perfect mediator.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's worth our closest, consideration, because not only is He in the work of authenticating the image of God in us, as He does so, as He recreates us into the humans that we were always designed to be before God.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has then enlisted us into the world as His representatives to authenticate.
[SPEAKER_00]: that when the forgeries come up we have become so enamored and captured and well studied in the real thing that when the imitations come up and they seek to take away the honor and the glory that is due the real artists we would be able to point out what is true from what is alive that we would have discernment to distinguish the two over what happens when our eyes are taken away from Jesus
[SPEAKER_00]: when we become blind to the spiritual things and so near-sighted that we only see what's in front of us, where the four juries and the true thing become muddled together.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we, those who are sent out to be the representatives cannot discern what is true and what is good, we become unfruitful.
[SPEAKER_00]: in the knowledge of Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Jesus so committed to his cause and to us, he comes down in the body.
[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't just send an angel.
[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't just send the prophet, the word of God, the image of God, himself comes to renew in us what we can't do on our own.
[SPEAKER_00]: Listen to what the church Father Athanasia says about God's commitment to the human project.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, what then was God to do?
[SPEAKER_00]: What else could he possibly do being God but renew his image in mankind?
[SPEAKER_00]: So that through it, men might want some more come to know him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And how could this be done, saved by the coming of the very image himself?
[SPEAKER_00]: Our savior, Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Men could not have done it for they are only made after the image.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nor could angels have done it for they are not the images of God at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Word of God came in His own person because it was He alone, the image of the Father, who could recreate man, made after that image.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one brings us closer to God than Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one is better situated to heal what is broken in us than Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one gives us a better blueprint for how we are to serve and love and give ourselves to the community around us than Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Before we can move out as representatives, we must be captured.
[SPEAKER_00]: by Jesus Himself so that He can change and heal and recreate and direct so that we could have discerning us so that we could have His love and His heart and that we will put that on display as we go about our lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Jesus' perfect work is our mediator between God and man, is worth our most earnest consideration because no one else could do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one else is more committed to the cause.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no other name under heaven by which a man can be saved than through him.
[SPEAKER_00]: We do good to consider him, to look to him daily, over and over again, being found at his feet until his aroma oozes from our lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he's revealed the father to us with his life, he's rescued us with his life, he intercedes for us with his life, his work as mediator, is perfect.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it also is a surpassing worth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at verse two.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was faithful to the one who appointed him just as Moses was in all God's household.
[SPEAKER_00]: For Jesus' considered worthy of more glory than Moses, just as the builder has more honor than the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now every house is built by someone, but the one who built everything is God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Moses was faithful as a servant in all God's household, as a testimony of what would be said in the future, but Christ was faithful as a son over his household.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, it makes sense that Moses would come to mind considering the role that he played in the history of the people of Israel, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: This book of Hebrews, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: These are the descendants of Abraham.
[SPEAKER_00]: They would have been well acquainted with these stories.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Moses would have been high on their mind and not for no reason, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Moses was the boy who lived, who became a prince,
[SPEAKER_00]: I hear those fans, they called it.
[SPEAKER_00]: He became the Prince of Egypt, called by God through a burning bush to go speak to Pharaoh to let his people go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Leeds them through the wilderness scales, the mountain where God is, they know other Israelite dare trade.
[SPEAKER_00]: God is like, bring the people up to me and they hear the shaking in the thunder and they're like, we're good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Moses, you go up, see what he says and come back.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't want to get that close.
[SPEAKER_00]: He goes and he speaks and he meets with God.
[SPEAKER_00]: He gets the tink of manments and brings them down.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is this unique figure in the Scriptures.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, matter of fact, it's not just their own estimation of Moses themselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's even good reason in the Scriptures of why they would think so highly of Moses.
[SPEAKER_00]: In numbers of chapter 12, you have this occurrence where Moses is, he marries this
[SPEAKER_00]: and God notices.
[SPEAKER_00]: He pulls them to the side and listen to what God says.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, listen to what I say.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a prophet among you from the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: I make myself known to him in a vision, or I speak with him in a dream, not so with my servant Moses.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is faithful in all
[SPEAKER_00]: I speak with Him directly, openly, and not in riddles.
[SPEAKER_00]: He sees the form of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_00]: Talk about intimacy with God.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what they would have known immediately of Moses of like, man, what are you, like are you sure that's a hefty claim?
[SPEAKER_00]: But as sure as we can know, they had good reason to esteem Moses.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Scriptures also give us good reason to esteem Jesus higher.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you turn them out through 17, there's a story where Jesus takes his three closest disciples up on the mountain very similar to this kind of occurrence.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it says in an instance, Jesus was transfigured.
[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, his glory was showing.
[SPEAKER_00]: For the anime fans, Dragon Ball Z, he went super sane, right in front of him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And next thing you know, Moses and Elijah, two great prophets of old, come to speak with Jesus, face to face.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Peter, the disciple who always says the quiet thing out loud, he's like, man, it's good that we see this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Should we make tents for all three of you?
[SPEAKER_00]: And a cloud covers them and it's loud and they fall to their feet.
[SPEAKER_00]: And a voice from the cloud speaks out.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is my beloved son with whom I am pleased listen to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: and the disciples, open their eyes, and the dust is settled in Jesus alone, and standing before them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Moses and Elijah were great servants in the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is the son of God over the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: Moses got to talk to God face to face and see the form of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is the very form of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is God.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one gets to the Father except through Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one has a close relationship with the Father.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one is more sharing of the substance of the Father than Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, to be mediated by Moses is cool, but to have mediation through Jesus is greater.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is more worthy of our affection, it is more worthy of our attention, it is surpassing far beyond anything that came before.
[SPEAKER_00]: So how could we turn back?
[SPEAKER_00]: How could they turn back?
[SPEAKER_00]: You see, this picture that we get to see of Jesus exalted and lifted up before God, the access that we have there,
[SPEAKER_00]: to come to God, to know that He is, He has tethered Himself to our cause.
[SPEAKER_00]: It oughta remind us, it oughta remind us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Unlike what He said in 2nd Peter, where we forget our former Washington, where we remember that we were estranged from God because of our sins.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we have been brought that close.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do someone who has even greater access than Moses, Jesus Christ himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's the thing, not only is His work perfect, and it's His worth surpassing, but the wealth that is found when we tether ourselves to Jesus our mediator, is far greater, it's infinite.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look back at verse six, says, but Christ was faithful as a son over His household.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we are that household.
[SPEAKER_00]: If we hold to our confidence in the hope in which we boast righteousness and relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: Righteousness being made or righteous by Christ being put in right relationship with the Father, these become immense, infinite gifts of ours as we are found in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is transferred from His account into ours
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is a work that Moses couldn't do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you remember at the end of Moses's tenure, the best that he could offer the people was, listen, if you do good, you'll be blessed.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you do bad, you'll be cursed.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's as far as he could go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Matter of fact, he wasn't even able to lobby before God, his own entrance into the Promised Land.
[SPEAKER_00]: He could only point them to a place that he wasn't able to go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus stands in the courts with God.
[SPEAKER_00]: and he invites us in.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is ruler over the house, as Paul says in Colossians 15 through 16, he's the image of the invisible God, first born over all of creation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything that was created by him and heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, rather thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through him and for him.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we just saying, there is one key that we serve.
[SPEAKER_00]: And everything that exists was created by Jesus and it belongs to Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as we are found in Him, as we become His household, His wealth becomes our wealth.
[SPEAKER_00]: If we hold fast to the confidence that we have in Him,
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to drive it home this way, that the kind of exit, why he's taking the time to show us this access to God and why we must consider it as so important.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would like him to, let's say you had a friend of a friend who had tickets to your favorite team's sporting events.
[SPEAKER_00]: And every now and then, we praise God for the friend of the friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every now and then, you get to go to the game.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's great, but your access is limited in some ways.
[SPEAKER_00]: You only really can get in if that ticket gets available.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't sit wherever you want.
[SPEAKER_00]: You got a certain seat that has been secured.
[SPEAKER_00]: And depending upon how that relationship goes with the friend of the friend, if they lose access,
[SPEAKER_00]: You lose access, so you're trying to mediate between them, so that the access keeps flowing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, there's a level of, there's a narrow road.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's just narrow road of access.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not the kind of access we have to guide.
[SPEAKER_00]: What if you are a son or daughter of the owner of the team?
[SPEAKER_00]: What access to the event do you not have?
[SPEAKER_00]: You could go to the locker room, you could go to the booth, you could probably watch it from a helicopter or something.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like you just got, you could travel with the team.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your access through the owner, far surpasses just a ticket holder by leagues.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's the thing, that's good.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the situation is even more dire.
[SPEAKER_00]: and even sweeter than tickets to your favorite sporting event.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because we've sinned against the Holy God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we stand in a courtroom guilty before God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's no, just like Moses, there's nothing we can say or there's no way for us to mediate for ourselves to remove the debt that we've incurred before Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's a mediator in Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: who's not only our lawyer, he's our brother.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's great to have that kind of relationship with the one who lobbies for you, who contends for you, but he's not just the lawyer, and he's not just our brother, he's the judge.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's the judge of all the earth.
[SPEAKER_00]: All that has been made belongs to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He rules over it all.
[SPEAKER_00]: One day, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is king of kings and lord of lords.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he will judge the living and the dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that one continues for you as you're mediatable for God.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's not ashamed to call you brothers and sisters.
[SPEAKER_00]: That kind of access before God.
[SPEAKER_00]: If we are captured by that as the Hebrew writers, if we consider that and we are taken by that, oh, what that does to the human heart, the way we think about ourselves, the way we think about what God has done for us and is doing in us, and how that moves us and gives us eyes to see what He desires to do through us in the lives of those around us.
[SPEAKER_00]: but we can't put the cart before the horse.
[SPEAKER_00]: If we move forward out of just out of self, we get lost in the muddy middle, we get lost in the imitations, we get lost in the forgeries, but when we are taken by the true thing, the true image of God himself, and he's first become ruler and lord in our hearts and every aspect of our lives and then we offer ourselves a living sacrifice.
[SPEAKER_00]: far from being near sight that we have have eyes to see.
[SPEAKER_00]: As he says, we become his household, as we hold fast to our confidence.
[SPEAKER_00]: How do we know what does that look like to hold fast to our confidence?
[SPEAKER_00]: It is the opposite of the blinded near-sightedness.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is rather as the world presses in, a suffering presses in, as the forgery's pressing, as persecution pressing, as other things try to lob their name and as other things try to lob and continue for Jesus' place in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in our hearts, rather than being caught up in those things,
[SPEAKER_00]: rather than being distracted by those things.
[SPEAKER_00]: We remember Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: We remember the story that he has taught us about how all things are working out for the good of those who love him, that we remember the crosses before the crown, that we're not surprised when the suffering comes, that we remember that he has gone before us to prepare a place for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Later in Hebrews in 11, it talks about how the people of old who had faith in God, they knew that there was a city being prepared for them.
[SPEAKER_00]: by God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so what they did in the present, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Their faith was the substance of things hoped for.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not just an idea that we hold in our mind, but it becomes evident in our lives that as all of these things try to block our vision and it becomes hard to see while following Jesus is the right thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: We remember the greatest story.
[SPEAKER_00]: We remember Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: We remember our watching from our former sins and our former ways.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we say, I don't see it right now, but I love you and I trust you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so even we'll, I don't see it, I'm gonna continue to supplement my faith with goodness.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even though the world around me tells me to curse my neighbor, I'm going to bless those who persecute me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even though those around me tell me that I need to move aside and maybe I isolate myself from others.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to show brotherly affection and love, and I'm going to sink myself in this word, and others may not trust it, but this is life for me, and so I'm going to supplement my faith with knowledge, and as I give myself to the things of God, even when I can't see it clearly trusting in what I know is going to come.
[SPEAKER_00]: God does something in me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as he does something in us, the world around us gets a foretaste of this hope that we speak about, that we sing about, that we long for.
[SPEAKER_00]: It becomes evident in our lives, and just maybe by the power of the Spirit and them, God would call others to Him, because we've discerned the real thing from the broken thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've discerned the real thing from the imitation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're holding fast to our confidence, even though it doesn't look like it's going to pay off.
[SPEAKER_00]: We trust that it will, and so we live with obedience now, and so become his household, and so reap the benefits of being found in Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: May we be those who consider Jesus the apostle and high priest of our faith, and hold fast to the confidence that is in Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let us pray.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, there is no other name, under heaven, given the man that we might be saved.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is through you and you alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: We preach Christ crucified, and Lord, not only do we desire to preach your truth, we
[SPEAKER_00]: Lord God, what we be found, faithful, useful, fruitful vessels for you to have your way with our life, Lord God.
[SPEAKER_00]: That as we are captured by you.
[SPEAKER_00]: As we trust in your way of being in the world, even when it looks to be the weak way, even when it seems to be the foolish way, Lord God, we told to our confidence in you and so allow you to move us towards those around us, with compassion and with grace and with love.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, God, we want to see more of your spirit poured out in our communities, in our schools, in our neighborhoods, and your plan A is to do it through us.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no plan B.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, God, what we consider Jesus this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: where we look to Him, where we come boldly, confessing sin, soft and moldable, and the hand of the part of it, that we might become who you've called us to, and that those around us will get a foretaste of the glory and the riches of Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where we love you, we trust you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Would you do these things in Jesus name?
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.