Please turn, if you would, in your copy of God's Holy Word to Hebrews chapter 3. We have been absent from the book of Hebrews since November of last year, as we have been focused on the doctrine of public worship. But as we return to Hebrews, we continue to see the superiority of Jesus Christ as God-man mediator. His superiority even over the greatest of angels and the greatest of godly men. And today we come to that great comparison of Jesus to the great man of God, Moses, who led God's people in the Exodus, even to the very cusp of the promised land. So we come now to Hebrews 3, and we'll pick up our reading at verse 1 and continue down to verse 6. These are the words of God. Let us give them our attention. Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, Consider the apostle and high priest of our profession, Christ Jesus, who was faithful to him that appointed him, as also Moses was faithful in all his house. For this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who hath built the house hath more honor than the house. For every house is built by some man, but he that built all things is God. And Moses verily was faithful in all his house as a servant for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after. But Christ as a son over his own house, whose house are we if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. Amen. May God bless the reading of his word. Let's pray now for the preaching of it. Our Father and our God, we come to another text full of the excellencies of Christ. And the minister who comes to preach the word of God now, Father, is less than Moses. He is merely a servant in the house of God. And we desire, Father, not to hear from the servant of God, but we aim to hear from the builder of the house of God. We aim to hear from Jesus. And so would you give us your Holy Spirit, give the minister the Spirit of the Lord to preach in the Spirit and in power. And we pray that the people of God here, that they would be having opened ears and hearts ready to receive Jesus Christ from out of the scriptures. Oh, Father, we pray that you would bless the preaching of the word now, for the people of God have come with one desire, which is, sir, we would see Jesus. And so would you, Father, answer their prayers that they would see Jesus Christ as he is preached. And we ask this for his sake. Amen. Well, our text exhorts us, as you have heard, to consider Jesus. Consider Jesus. This is what verse 1 says. Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, Consider the apostle and high priest of our profession, Christ Jesus. And this is really, as you have already seen, and you are going to continue to see, the exhortation of the book to fix our attention firmly on Jesus Christ. We've heard already, though we have not yet been there. In Hebrews 12, you find the great central exhortation of the book, look unto Jesus. This is the central exhortation. Why? Because the entirety of this epistle is a demonstration that Jesus alone can save you. Jesus alone can not only save you right on the moment of your conversion, that Jesus alone is the cause of your perseverance to the end. That without him, we are truly nothing. And so every competitor in view of that, even holy competitors like the angels and godly men like Moses could never save us, could never give us a sure hope of salvation. They could never be a sure anchor for our souls. You hear all that language in the book of Hebrews as we consider the excellency of Jesus. Why is it that this truth is here for us in this text? As you consider meditating on the truths of the scripture, this is the deficiency in so much preaching, but also in our own meditation on the word. When we see a truth like this, we don't ask the question, why? Our boys and girls are very good at asking that question. And somewhere along the way, we stop asking the question. Why? Why is it so important that I look only unto Jesus? Well, you must know this, friends, for many reasons. But here's one that is part of the theme of the book. You don't need to know this, friends, because you and I waver. We waver in our commitment to Jesus Christ. We are prone to forget just how glorious and complete a redeemer he is for sinners. We forget to contemplate this and consider this, that if we do not have our hope in Jesus, we have no hope at all. No one else can save us. No one else can bear the weight of our soul. And that is what the Hebrews were losing sight of when they were tempted to turn away from Jesus Christ and go back, back to the Old Testament. And perhaps that is why this book, this book, is perhaps the greatest book in the Bible when it comes to showcasing the glory of Jesus Christ in so few words. Because those who are tempted to apostatize need more than anything else to know the glory of Jesus. Consider how the book began, and it's been several months, so I want to remind you of this. God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in time past, unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds, who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high, being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they and so on. By beginning the epistle with such an impression of the glory of Jesus, Paul makes him so resplendent to your mind's eye that every competitor to Jesus is as dumb. This is the very excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, that Paul pursued. And the Holy Spirit aims to put that excellency into your mind and heart, that you would be as the apostle. Beloved, your faith will waver in this world. You will be tempted to leave Jesus. Doubts will arise as to whether you should keep following him. Or if you should follow the world, or philosophy, or atheism, or Judaism, or Islam, or something else. Today, boys and girls, you'll have to deal with this more than us. But persecution for the sake of following Christ is breaking out even in our society. And the question that God confronts us with, Jesus confronts us with is, will you also go away? And that's the question he is asking you tonight. Only, beloved, only by constantly meditating on the supreme excellency of Jesus will you hold fast your confidence and persevere to the end. Only, only when a man or woman knows the excellency of Christ will they say to Jesus, when doubts arise and the Lord is asking, will you also go away? Will you say with the godly man, Lord, to whom shall we go? To whom shall we go? To whom do you compare? Thou hast the words of eternal life. I cannot go to Moses. I cannot go to the angels. I cannot go to the world. I cannot go to my friends. I cannot go to my spouse. I cannot go to my government. Only you can save me. Then and only then will you hold fast to Jesus all your days. And that's our theme, really. which is our need to consider the excellencies of Christ to hold faster confidence in him to our last day. Because without our meditation on this excellency and a constant, constant consideration of him, we will waver and our commitment will fail. So we consider this under three headings. First is consider Christ to Moses, and then second to focus on Jesus and exhortation, and third an exhortation to persevere in Jesus. So first, Christ and Moses. And the apostle exhorts us to consider the excellency of Jesus in comparison to Moses. And boys and girls, you remember Moses, of course, the man of God in the Old Testament, the great redeemer of God's people out of Egypt, used by God to give the law of God, bringing his people through the wilderness journeys to the edge of the promised land, a prince of Egypt who gave up the riches and glory of Egypt to suffer the reproaches of Christ with God's people. He pleaded with God that God would save his people, even when his people had sinned against God. What you have to understand is he is the greatest redeemer of the Old Testament, mightily used by God. And he was greatly revered by the Jews, especially at the time of the epistle here. And what was happening is that most people, You see this, that Paul was accused of preaching contrary to Moses, right? This is what was happening is that the Jews were seeing to embrace Jesus, the apostate Jews that is, was a repudiation of Moses. And so this is becoming then a part of the conflict between the Christian community, especially the Jewish converts, and those who refused to bow down to Jesus. And so under persecution by their brethren, the Hebrews were tempted to return to Moses, Moses apart from Christ, which of course we see here that Moses was testifying to Jesus, that Moses rarely was faithful in all his house as a servant for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after. And we'll see that a little later, at the Mount of Transfiguration. But what was happening is this persecution, this temptation to go back to Moses apart from Jesus. And so what the Apostle is doing here is he's showing that Jesus is worthy of more glory than Moses, so that they would not return to the types and shadows. And so for us, a recollection of the greatness of Moses and the infinite superiority of Jesus to him, will show us that we have no hope, no hope at all, as excellent as Moses is, there's no hope for our soul unless our hope is fixed to Christ. So in verse three, We hear of Jesus, that this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses. Now the first thing to note is this, the word man is in italics in your authorized version. The word man inserted by the translators, and it's nice that the authorized version does that, where it shows you the words that are inserted. The new King James inserts instead of this man, this one. And I think that may be better to the point. For it is not really simply Christ's manhood that is worthy of more glory than Moses. But his person, his person is, he is the son of God, divine, robed in flesh, the express image of God as the apostle has already showed us in Hebrews 1. That alone shows that no matter what man there is, Jesus Christ is worthy of more glory, whoever a man might be. His very person demands it. Now what's wonderful about this text, and we can learn something from the apostle here, is that Paul actually has nothing ill to say about Moses. There's something here that we need to take note of. It's something wonderful of how he treats Moses. Paul, in other words, does not have to denigrate Moses to exalt Jesus. In fact, what he does is he reminds us that Moses was faithful. In verse two, he says that Moses was faithful in all his house. In verse five, Moses verily was faithful in all his house, but as a servant. Not a single ill word about Moses here. Does he remind you of Moses smashing the rock? Does he remind you of Moses breaking the tablets of God's law? Thing is, friends, what we need to learn from this is, we can learn many things, but what I want to point out first and foremost is Christ is so excellent in himself, you really do not have to point out the foibles of Moses to make this point. This is something for our own witness we would do well to heed and observe, that Christ in himself is so glorious and so precious that he makes every competitor, every pretender look like dung. Mohammed, Buddha, Krishna, whatever idol there is in this world, whatever philosophy is found in the fevered mind of the philosophers, you can say, sir, let me tell you about Jesus. And suddenly, suddenly no man, nothing, no philosophy can compare. If we would reveal, as the Apostle did in Hebrews chapter 1, the beginning of this book, if we would reveal Jesus and his splendor and glory, all else is rubbish. In other words, a man ought to be very embarrassed to speak of his Mohammed after you have shown him the brightness of the glory of Jesus. Oh, it says here that Moses was worthy, counted worthy of some glory. He said that this man, this Jesus, was counted worthy of more glory than Moses. And you remember his glory, right? It was simply, what was his glory? It was simply a reflecting of the glory of God on his face whenever he met with God. That was the glory of Moses, and that was glorious for that time. What about Jesus Christ? What of the glory that is found in the face of Jesus Christ? Is it a reflected glory? It is his very own, friends. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, where? In the face, in the face of Jesus Christ. Do you see the difference there? When you think of face with glory, you think of Moses, but now you find that God himself has radiating his own glory in the face of Jesus Christ. This man is worthy of more glory. The glory of God radiates in Jesus because he is God. And that makes him infinitely worthy of more glory than Moses or anyone else. So with that intrinsic glory there before you, let's consider Moses' faithfulness, because the Bible calls him faithful in God's house as a servant, in verses two and five. Now, that is actually a reference to Numbers 12, seven through eight, where God gives his own testimony of Moses. My servant Moses is not so, listen to this, who is faithful in all mine house. That's where this language comes from. With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches, and the similitude of the Lord shall he behold. Wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses? Moses was about as faithful as any fallen man who serves the Lord could ever be. And the 11th chapter of this very book lays out his faithfulness. And you need to listen to this, as it is meant to spur us on to. By faith, Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. Why? Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured, seeing him who was invisible. Through faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn should touch them. Yes, the man was a sinner, friends, but a more faithful sinner, a more faithful man, hard to find. Really can't. You think of this. He knew things that we didn't. A man who knew the heights of what this world has to offer, the treasury of Egypt. And he said, I will forsake it all and the fleeting pleasures of sin for the reproaches I will endure for the sake of Jesus Christ. He did not fear the wrath of Pharaoh, the most powerful man on the face of the earth, because he had his eyes fixed on the invisible God. His heart cried, you remember, his wonderful cry, show me thy glory, Lord. This is the faithfulness of Moses. And you remember, his reproach he suffered was not just from Egyptians, but even the people of God. His own family, his sister who saved him long ago, rebelled with him and his own brother. against him he dealt with his people's ongoing sin and debauchery their stiff necks and stony hearts and he was faithful to them even when the Lord tested Moses by saying let us begin a new essentially and I will create a new people from you Moses what is that not one of the greatest temptations when these people have done nothing but to cause misery for you this man still would intercede before God and was faithful to be their mediator Yes, Moses was faithful, and yes, his many faults are well documented in the scripture. But as the Holy Spirit is not drawing on his faults in this text, I won't either. But instead, let us follow the lead of our text, which is to demonstrate the position of Moses compared to the position of Christ in God's house. Showing that Moses is a mere servant, but Christ is the builder of God's house. So boys and girls, I'll ask you this question. Do you know what the house referred to in this text is? Is it a physical house? No, it is the house of God, the church, which is the people of God. That's what verse six tells us. But Christ has a son over his own house, whose house are we. You see that? The people of God are the house of God. We who profess our faith in Jesus Christ are all together, this text says, the house of God. What did Paul tell Timothy about its behavior? How thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is what? The church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth, 1 Timothy 3.15. So the church is the house of God here. Now some men, notably dispensationalists, want to divide the house of God, but there are two houses, the house of the Jews and the house of New Testament Gentiles. But this text puts that notion to death. There's always been one house of God. There's only ever been a single house of God, and there only ever will be. How do you know? There's only one house in this text that Moses is associated with as well as Christ. One house, one church in this text. For a time, the text says Moses was a servant in God's house, but Christ is son over his own house. As the son of God, he is the owner of the church. He is the one who builds this church. He is the one who builds the church universal. Moses, though, was simply a member of the house of God. He's merely a stone in the house of God, as every servant of God is. For instance, as a servant of God, I am just a part of the church as you are. Just a servant of the Lord with a different office. I'm called to be a minister of the gospel, but I'm not the builder of the church, and neither are my fellow elders here. Neither was Moses as great as he was. But what does Jesus say? I will build my, my church. It's his. Moses was not king and head of the church, the son of God is. Neither can any man claim that, right? Not the Pope in Rome, no king or queen of England. No one can claim this right. Only Jesus has this right and this honor. And so, beloved, if you think of this, if there is a house of God, which there is, there is a church in this world, we cannot turn to anybody else but the builder of the house. Our faith cannot be in Moses. Our faith is not in popes who seek to usurp Christ's reign. Our faith is not in Mary. Mary was another servant in God's house. Our faith is not in saints. Any believer, any one of us is merely a servant in God's house. Our faith is not in ministers of the gospel. And even the very best of them are less than Moses. And so our faith cannot be in them either. Boys and girls, for you, your faith cannot be in your parents, as godly as they are. Your faith must never be in men. but instead your faith must be in the son of God who builds the church and has the words of eternal life. In fact, what marks a man as faithful to the Lord, if you take this out of this text, is like Moses, he points you to Jesus. This is what makes for a faithful servant in the house of God. Moses said, you remember this? What did Moses say in Deuteronomy? The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren like unto me, unto him ye shall hearken. Deuteronomy 18.15. What is that but pointing you forward to Jesus, Jesus Christ? who Moses prophesied is greater than Moses. You remember another faithful servant, John the Baptist, the greatest, right, of the Old Testament saints, who said, I must decrease and he must increase, as he pointed to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This is what makes for a faithful servant in God's house. And really then, for the Hebrews to return to Moses and discard Christ is actually to be unfaithful to Moses. The very testimony of Moses' life is to look to Jesus, and it would be to discard the finished work of Jesus, to return to types and shadows when they had the fullness of God's revelation. And the question is, really, why, when the mediator and high priest of the house of God is revealed? That's a theme throughout the book of Hebrews. We'll return to it again, but for now, let's move on to our second heading, our need to focus on Jesus. Now, the first verse says, wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high priest of our profession, Christ Jesus. Now, before we affix our attention on Jesus, I want you to think on how the Spirit addresses you believers. You're called holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling. You are holy. That means you are separated by Jesus Christ from out of this world, as we've seen in Hebrews 2.11. For he, that is Jesus, who sanctified, that is separates us to God, and they who are sanctified are all of one. You, beloved, have been taken from out of this world and are now in union with Jesus Christ as the house of God. And your calling is to be separated from the world, for you are holy. A peculiar people separated unto God. As we heard this morning, separated from worldly people, from idolaters, and those who follow anything but Christ. You are those who are called to make resolutions unto holiness in Psalm 101 from this morning, to walk in the perfect way. You are not to be like the people of this world. Too much pop Christianity is worldly or wants to be worldly, to imbibe what is cool in the world, creating no distinctions between us and them. And you think about so many of us, our mouth is scarcely better than those of the world. We treat people the same way that the world treats. They come at us and we come at them in return. We don't love our enemies as we heard in Luke chapter six. We pursue the same interests that the world has, not spending our time on godly matters. We do not set time apart for God in our days. And we are hardly distinct from the world. But we are called here, you've heard it twice today, to be holy if you are Christ's, consecrated to him in every area, just as the same word would be used for the vessels in the temple that are set apart, sanctified to a holy use, that's what you are. You Christian are not ordained to a profane use, but a holy one. Just think of the man who wrote this, the Apostle Paul, or any of the other apostles. Would any man mistake them as worldly men? Would any man mistake, okay, well, I didn't, I had no idea. I spent a whole week with you. I had no idea that you were a believer, Paul. No, of course not. Their lives were lived contramundum against the world. That was how they lived. The apostles preached this, that the world must change to be conformed to Christ. They did not preach that a Christ that is conformed to the world. The Bible says they turned the world upside down. There was no friendship with the world. They were radicals, so to speak, boys and girls. Your peers will make you believe that worldliness and immorality is radical. Let me tell you, it's not. You want to be radical? Live according to this book. That is radical. You know why it is radical? Because you tell men, right? You tell men that you will believe every precept in it, and you will live life according to it, and you will tell others about the precepts of this book. Then the world will come after you. And that's how you know that you are a radical. Living according to the word is radical. Don't forget it. Then the text says, you are holy brethren. And how we need to hear this friends, we are brothers and sisters. We are all of us set apart for the Lord. We are people who are once not a people, but are now the people of God all together. And this is what, no matter your nation, tribe, or tongue, you are all one in Jesus, whether Jew or Greek, meant to dwell in harmony in the house of God. God as your father, Christ as your elder brother, and the spirit of the Lord binding you to one another, meant to dwell in harmony with no schism or divisions among you. That is your calling. And the text reminds you, yours is a heavenly calling. Oh, friends, it is heaven that calls you. It is Heaven where you are being led to day by day, not Earth. Heaven has called you. God the Father has called you from out of Heaven, has drawn you to Jesus Christ, the Spirit sent into the world, and you are inexorably being drawn to Heaven by the Spirit of the Lord. This is the great theme of Hebrews, what? You are called to fix your eyes, where? On heaven. Hebrews 11, 16, speaking of the people of God, but now they desire a better country that is unheavenly, where for God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he hath prepared for them a city. You are those who are to say, this world is not my home. I am marching towards heaven. You must say day by day, I desire a better country that is unheavenly, where God has prepared a city for me, a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. If so, what will happen? You will live life on earth, pursuing heaven here, praying constantly, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. A man or woman who desires a heavenly country, what happens? A man or woman who desires a heavenly country desires to bring that country to earth. Often when a man leaves his country, goes to another country, right, let's say an American goes to the Middle East, what he desires is to bring a little bit of home into that country. He will go and find things and buy things that remind him of home. He spends his affections on where his heart is. And so that is what the Christian life is like, except instead of the United States of America, your home is heaven itself. And that is what you are trying to bring. You are desiring to bring heaven's lack of sin, heaven's righteousness, heaven's presence of God. And when you think of that, you remember this, of Moses. He could never bring the people into the shadow of heaven, Canaan. He could only bring them to the cusp of it. And even Canaan itself was just a type due to his sin. But Jesus, superior to Moses, will take us to heaven itself. Moses could never say to a man on his dying day, today shalt thou be with me in paradise. Only Jesus can do that, and only Jesus will do that. And so, now brethren, holy brethren, partakers of heaven, you are called to consider Christ Jesus. And how fitting that is to do as you consider who you are, because he is true holiness and he is true heaven to us. And the Greek word for consider, it's not just a one and done consideration of Jesus, it signifies contemplation or meditation. Not a singular, okay, I thought on Jesus once in my life, and I'm done. But it is an ongoing fixing our attention on him, with our meditation constantly upon him, constantly pursuing that excellency of the knowledge of Christ Paul spoke of. But for today, as there is so much we could consider, what does the Holy Ghost call to your attention to in this text? Two things, he is the apostle and the high priest of our profession. First, consider him as the apostle of your profession. And this is the only time the New Testament calls Jesus directly. What does that word mean of Jesus? And that word is so misused these days. But the word apostle here means one who is sent. One who is sent. Sent of Jesus in John 3.34, for he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God. The Greek verb there, which is translated sent, when converted into a noun becomes the word apostle. And so Jesus was sent by God. And so as verse two says, he is appointed by God. And so part of our profession, part of our contemplation is this, that Jesus was sent by God himself. He did not appoint himself, but God himself did. And we listen, we hear what else the scripture says in John three, for God sent, there's that verb again, for an apostle, God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world, but what? that the world through him might be saved. When we say that Jesus is the apostle of our profession, we mean that he was sent by God and sent by God to save us and save us to the uttermost. Which means then, friends, as the apostle who is sent by God, he also has the words of God, just as the apostles of the New Testament have here. And really, they are just being sent on his behalf. So, what that means is you must pay attention to what Jesus said. And now we come back to Moses once again. Because Moses himself testified to this. We heard that in Deuteronomy 18.15. There will be a prophet like unto me from the midst of thee thy brethren. Unto him ye shall hearken. What did Moses say? Listen to Jesus Christ. This is the testimony, and you just have to go to your Old Testament. Who is Moses speaking of? He is speaking of the Messiah of Jesus Christ. And now then, with that in view, now go to the Mount of Transfiguration. Now go to Matthew 17. Who was there? Who was there, boys and girls? Moses is there with Elijah. Two witnesses from the Old Testament showing us that the law, Moses, and the prophets, Elijah, testified to Jesus Christ. When the glory cloud overshadowed the mountain, then what did you hear? Behold, a voice out of the cloud which said, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. What are the words? Hear ye him. And Moses was there. And Moses being there is his assent that Jesus is the one that he prophesied of. that all Moses wrote was a testimony of this one here who was transfigured and showing us a portion of his glory. That is why on the road to Emmaus, Jesus did this beginning where at Moses, at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures, the things concerning himself, Luke 24. So in other words, to read Moses then is to read him as pointing you to Jesus Christ. That is the way you read Moses, which means, beloved, you must consider Jesus. So this is our exhortation. Consider Jesus. You must consider him when you read your Old Testament. If you can read the scripture without thinking on Jesus, you have missed the point, friend. All of it is about him from beginning to end. When Moses, remember Moses, revealed by God in the beginning, God said, let there be light. You understand that that creative voice speaking is Christ, for he is the word of God. By him, all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, Colossians 1.16. And if that is the beginning of the Scripture, what of the very end of it? It pleads what? Even so, come Lord Jesus, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all, amen. From Genesis to Revelation, it is all of it. All of it is about Jesus Christ. When we meditate on the scripture, when we consider the whole of the scripture, we consider it as all of Jesus, the law, the prophets, the book of Psalms, the book of histories, the gospels, the epistles, the apocalypse, all of it is in the light of Jesus Christ. John 5, 39, 40, search the scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of who? Me. And ye will not come to me that ye might have life. to consider Jesus as the apostle is to consider the scripture as testifying all of it in some way to Jesus himself, the one sent by God to save the world. You need to do this, friends, for your own spiritual health. Without seeing Jesus in the scripture, you miss the point of the scripture. And Jesus says that in John 5.39, if you're not finding life in two-thirds of your Bible, which is the Old Testament, it is because you are not considering Jesus when you come to it. you need to meditate on on where is Christ in this text your faith will wither your assurance will be shaken and you miss he is the fulfillment even of the law you will miss when you look at Leviticus that he is the Lamb of God that was slain for my sin that he is the vine of that gives the branch endurance. You miss his glory. You miss his beauty. You miss, as we read in Isaiah 55, that he is the one inviting all of us to come and drink of him. You miss all of that, and you will become cold and distant to the things of God. You read the commandments, and you miss the warmth of them when you miss Jesus, when he said, as you read those commandments, you remember, if you love me, keep my commandments. and the law is transformed. Here, Jesus in the scriptures, consider him through and through. But he's not only the apostle who has the message of God, he's also called our high priest. And that theme will unfold throughout Hebrews. We'll dive into it more fully in future weeks. But as our high priest, what you need to contemplate all the time is Jesus has made satisfaction for my sin. That is something Moses could never do. He could never bear my sin. What did Moses himself say, boys and girls? Do you remember the cry of the man? I am not able to bear all this people alone because it is too heavy for me. Numbers 11, 14. But Jesus could and he did. He alone could do it as God-man, who Jesus, his own self, bear our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness by whose stripes ye were healed. Who wrote this? Who wrote that? The same Peter who said, Lord, to whom shall we go? In 1 Peter 2.24. Consider your high priest Jesus when you consider him, contemplate him constantly in that way, and you ask yourself, who else could bear the burden of my soul's guilt before God? You need to ask the question constantly, who is bearing my soul right now? The answer is only Jesus. And when you waver and are tempted to leave him, you need to ask yourself, ask the question, who else could bear my soul? The Bible through and through shows that the mediation of Moses had grave limits. God once told his people, and this is a stunning thing, though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people. Cast them out of my sight and let them go forth, Jeremiah 15.1. That is the limit of the mediation of Moses. But would God ever say that of Christ? If Jesus ever stood before God, would God ever say, yet my mind could not be toward this people, cast them out of my sight, even if you were before me, Jesus? Of course not. Friends, with Christ as your advocate, how confident this book says you are to come before God. Hebrews 4, 15, 16, for we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. What a wonderful truth that is. but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come, how, to the throne of grace, boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. And not only has he, so that is showing, right, that not only did he atone for my sin at the cross, but that he is constantly now interceding for me. This too is part of his high priestly duty before God. Moses is dead. He intercedes for no one. But what of Jesus? What does the Bible say in these glorious words? Wherefore he is able also to save them to how much? To the uttermost, them that come unto God by him. Why? Seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. May you consider this constantly, child of God. My Savior lives. And why, what is he doing now? He is interceding for me, the sinner. And that is why Hebrews 7 says, you are saved to how much? The uttermost. Because at no point are you left on your own, child of God. At no point has Jesus said, okay, I will do enough on the cross just to get them a clean slate, and then I am done with this people. I can now enjoy my time in heaven away from these people that are so wicked. No, he is ever living to make intercession for you. And beloved, as a sinner who constantly sins, Your need then is to constantly consider Jesus. Daily, constantly. Every time sin troubles your heart, your need is to consider Jesus. Every failing of mine must make me look to Jesus. And I need to consider that Jesus is the prescription for all that ails me. To ever consider Jesus, his qualities, his glory, his work, that is what causes you to persevere. That is what causes you to live holy and heavenly lives. It is considering Jesus in the 12th chapter that enables you to do this and how we need this to lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. What comes next? Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. That is the message of the entirety of the book of Hebrews. We constantly look to Jesus, and he is the one that we profess, in verse one. We profess Jesus Christ. You remember Rabbi Duncan, as he's called, the free church minister, he said, I am many things, but I am first and foremost a Christian. And then he comes through with the list, and ending up, you know, paedo-baptism and everything else. But we profess Jesus Christ. First and foremost, that is who we profess. Our profession is not Moses, our profession is not Calvin, we only profess Jesus. And not any old Jesus, not the Jesus of the Mormons or the Jehovah's Witnesses, but Jesus as revealed by the Holy Scriptures. We search all the scriptures, and our confession of faith that we hold to is good insofar as it leads us to the Jesus of the Bible. But our commitment must be any place where it might be contrary to who Jesus is, we would rather ditch it than ditch Jesus. Well, that then will conclude, and this will be the briefer exhortation, a call to persevere in Jesus. Verse 6. but Christ as a son over his own house, whose house are we if we hold fast the confidence and rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. Throughout Hebrews, I've already mentioned this, you find a great need to persevere. You are called to hold fast the confidence you have in Jesus and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. And so this book puts to death that devilish doctrine called once saved, always saved. That devilish perversion of the true doctrine, which is perseverance, which is what this is. Perseverance of the saints. Once saved always saves, teaches. If you've ever said that you've believed on Jesus, then you are saved. Say the sinner's prayer or something like it. Ask Jesus into your heart, and now you have a ticket to heaven. Even if you abandon the faith and apostatize, you are going to be found in heaven. You can live a totally reprobate life, and you will still be saved. It's an awful, wretched thing that has caused countless men to come before the judgment seat to hear this. Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity. The book of Hebrews, you think of this, would not even exist if apostasy were not a real thing. Hebrews 10 says, if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them that draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. Them that draw back, those who abandon Christ in His ways, even if they once professed Him, they draw back where? To perdition, to hell, lost to hell forever. Meaning that they were never born again in the first place. They were not elect, but deluded. But the true doctrine of perseverance teaches that those who are born again are those that shall endure unto the end. The same shall be saved, Matthew 24, 13. You are in need of such endurance, friends. You are called to hold fast your confidence in Jesus, and how will you hold fast your confidence in Jesus? The only way, the prescription here is to constantly consider him, to constantly know his excellency, to constantly know that he alone can uphold you, and that you must constantly go to him for endurance. When you are not in the habit, I want you to think of this, when you're not in the habit of considering Jesus, when you're in the habit of considering yourself, or the trials you face in this world, or your sin or whatever, that is when your temptation to waver, your temptation to lose hope, and your temptation to draw back and return to the world begins. But the more you consider Him, the more you open your Bible to see Jesus, the more confident you are in Him, and the more then you begin to pray to Him, the more you consecrate yourself to Him, and your confidence grows as you consider more and more in the Scripture by faith, and you say, if this Jesus is my Savior, then how surely saved I am. And that is how he will cause you to endure to the end through such grace. And this is exactly why those sinful organizations and churches that try to rob assurance from God's people want to rob the Bible from you. So you cannot get a good look at the real Jesus. Notice too, the apostle prescribes for you a maintaining the rejoicing of our hope. You say this, rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. Believer, I want you to think on this. On the day you first believe, think of how greatly you rejoiced in the hope that was set before you. You saw your sin, even as Luther did, asking, how can a righteous God admit me, the sinner, to heaven? And you started to tremble and quake. But then you rejoiced, right, when the Lord pulled the scales off your eyes, and you saw that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. And what joy was found in your heart when you saw Jesus Christ revealed in the gospel for the first time. That is the rejoicing of your hope that you are called to maintain for all of your days, firm to the end. Now, children, You may not have an experience like that because some of you have known Jesus your whole life, but all of you, all of you who believe at some point have rejoiced that Jesus has taken away your sins. All of you, boys, girls, all the saints. We all rejoiced at some time in our Christian experience over as far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. and you are called to hold fast to the rejoicing of your hope until your last day, beloved. Never, never to outgrow it, to always marvel it as you consider Jesus. This one has taken my sins and has given me his own righteousness. This is my beloved and I am his and he is mine. That is how you endure with that rejoicing. Has the Lord become cold and distant to you? It's not his fault, beloved. It is yours. Ask God to maintain the joy of his salvation. David cried, restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. What has stopped you from rejoicing in the truth of Christ? What has caused the songs of praise to cease? It is because, beloved, this is first and foremost, you spend your days considering something besides Jesus. Whether it is your flesh, whether it is your sin, whether it is this present age, your idols, your anxieties, whatever, you are considering that thing more than Jesus. But what is the prescription in the 61st Psalm? When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher than I. What is that, but let us consider Jesus. So beloved, never stop considering Jesus. This is the exhortation here, the apostle and high priest of our profession. We'll conclude with that exhortation and pick up there next time. But for now, please rise for prayer, if able. O Lord, our God, we are truly a people who are slow, slow to pick up on such plain things in the word of God. And so our flesh denies everything that was said just now. And so we ask that your spirit would do a work through the word preached, that you would help all of us, each of us from minister to youngest covenant child, even those that might be in the womb, Father, that you would have us all consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our profession. O Lord, cause any here who do not know this Jesus to marvel at how excellent he is compared to all other things in this world. May they submit to him. May they be made willing, Father, in the day of Christ's power to come to Jesus now. Draw those who do not know Jesus. Draw them sovereignly to the Lord Jesus Christ, that they may come to him, that they may submit to him. and that they may have eternal life. And Father, we pray for all of us who know Jesus, restore to us the joy of thy salvation, and cause us to rejoice daily, constantly, that we have such a great hope in Christ. We pray that you would remove all pretenders to Christ, whether it be Moses, Mohammed, Buddha, whatever. We pray that Christ would be exalted throughout all the lands, and we ask this in his name, amen.