Well, as I said, we'll, we'll look at the first five verses, first six verses of chapter three in Hebrews and under the title of our session, I suppose a good title would be consider Jesus. Consider Jesus. And I'm reading from the New American Standard. I want to read these six verses, and whatever your translation is, we can put it all together. He begins chapter 3, verse 1, Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the author and high priest of our confession. He was faithful to him who appointed him as Moses also was in all his house. For he has been counted worthy of much glory. Excuse me, he has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses. By just so much as the builder of the house has more honor than the house. For every house is built by someone. But the builder of all things is God. Now Moses was faithful in all his house as a servant for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken later. But Christ was faithful as a son over his house, whose house we are, if we hold fast our confession and the boast of our hope firm until the end. He's been going through chapter 1 and chapter 2. He's mostly been concentrating on the superiority of Christ. That pretty well takes up the completeness of both chapters except if you remember in chapter 2 verse 1 through 4 where he Parenthetically adds a section which is an invitation or an appeal How shall we escape if we neglect our such a great salvation. And then he spends a lot of time, and I'll go into this, because we've already talked about it, about showing that Christ superior is superior to angels. And we kind of remember those sessions and what that all means. Then he summed up chapter 2 that we looked at last week, Speaking of our Lord, therefore he had to be made like his brethren in all things, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation, or peace, or justice, or excuse me, or peace for the sins of the people. In other words, God couldn't come and die as the eternal God. Although Christ is the eternal God, he had to be a human. He had to be a man. It had to be an experience as a human in order to redeem humans. He had to give himself as a human. And in verse 18, for since he himself was tempted in that which he has suffered, he is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted. And so, this magnificent verse 18, it gives us assurance and as we face temptation every day and every one of us do it every day of our lives and it's not something that we really want to talk about we don't like to discuss it with each other but we do we have someone who understands how could he understand what temptation was like unless he was a human and experienced it like we do Except he was tempted greater than us now Don't misunderstand something Jesus could not sin, okay? It was not possible. Temptation would have never got a root started in Him. It never would have gotten past the very outside of His body, His mind. He had a holy mind. He had a holy and pure soul. There was no way He could sin. It was impossible. Now, I've heard this discussed by a lot of people through the years, and, oh yeah, well, it was possible for him to sin, and if not, he wouldn't know. It was not possible. The way our Lord understands things is as an infinite being. He was human, but he was still an infinite being in his soul, in his spirit. and being infinite he could understand the full weight of temptation with never being a sinner or never possibly being a sinner. It's just like when he was on the cross And God shut down the light of the world for three hours as the darkness of God's wrath fell upon His Holy Son. In that three-hour period of time, He paid for every sin of every believer that would ever live from the beginning of time to the end. How could that happen in three hours? Because He is an infinite being. And as an infinite being, He can do that. And you remember we talked a few weeks ago that our sin is an eternity in hell. Eternity cannot be satisfied, but He overcame eternity and satisfied it. Christ could do that because He's an infinite being. That's who we're talking about. That's the magnificence of Christ. And that's what the writer here is trying to get the Jewish people to understand. Christ is superior above all things. You've got to read a lot of that. I just say it into that verse. Because it's not really plain right on the surface. But if you study into it, you understand those things. And there is what he begins with in verse 3. Therefore, since this is the case, since this has happened, since this is what we're talking about, holy brethren. Now that word brethren could be children, it can be men, women, it's not just just men, holy people, partakers of the heavenly calling. Do you know that you are a partaker, a receiver I did a lot. I did. You know, I spent two hours studying the words in that verse, but I ain't got time to go into them. Maybe I can next week. I got them wrote down in my new one new book, you know, but you are a receiver of the heavenly calling. God called you. You weren't you weren't a fish in a net that just got caught while they were dragging it through the ocean. He called you. You're a partaker. You are holy. How can you be holy? How can we be holy? I'm not holy. I can tell you that. I've committed enough sins since I sat down in this chair an hour ago to send everybody that's ever lived to hell. Because Christ is holy. Paul says, I am what I am in Him. And the writer says, Hey, folks, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider Jesus. And that word, consider, is kathinaeo, is how you say it in the Greek, and it's really fun to say that word. It comes off your tongue, so really nice, you know. It means to consider attentively. It means that from the original word, every word has an origin word. And from the origin word, it means to fix your eyes or your mind upon someone or ponder toward them. It's as intense as it was guys, when you first laid eyes on your sweetheart. I'll never forget the first time I saw Robin is about three o'clock in the afternoon on September 16 1969 standing right outside a door in a fuller dormitory at the University of Montebello and I intently scrutinized her the moment I met her. And that was 50 years ago and I still intently scrutinize her because she's still a doll. That's what this means. He's saying Focus on Christ. Ponder Him at all times. Consider the glory that He is. Because what happens is, and he's going to come in these verses and start telling them how much superior Jesus is to Moses. Well, that really ain't got a lot to do with us because we're not Jews and we've never practiced the law and we don't put a lot of stock in Moses. But we do think that if we do good on some days better than others, God's more happy with us than He is on days when we do bad. And that's the law. And that's the Ten Commandments. And the Ten Commandments were given to Moses on Mount Sinai. So it matters to us because whether we want to realize it or not, we're applying Moses' law in our mind when we think we're better some days, God's happier with us. And when we're bad, He's not. See? And we all do it. Because we all want to be liked, and we think the better we act, the more God likes us. God's never going to love you or like you any more than He already does because He loves you and likes you perfectly in His Son. And that's what just, I can't get I can't get it through my mind when I see people saying that they want to be all that they can be and God's still working on me. Well, you can't work on a corpse and you're never going to be, you mean you want to be more than you are in Christ? How could that be? You can't be more than you already are in Him. As far as God is concerned, you're just as righteous as His holy Son. Because you see what He said in the first sentence? Holy brethren, or holy children. Now watch out. Because later on in the chapter, right on down here in verse 13, I mean, excuse me, verse 12, he's gonna say, take care, brethren. He leaves the holy out. Because he's not talking to believers anymore. He's talking to those who might be considering that they're going to be believers, or they're not believers at all. You see that? I know it's different in each translation, but he calls them holy in verse one. But there's no holy in verse 12. That's where we are in Christ. And He says, all that you are is in Him. Fix your gaze and consider Him and keep your mind and your eyes focused on Christ. Because once we start focusing on ourself, and I'm only speaking from my experience, I get real discouraged. Real discouraged. Have you ever asked God why he didn't send you to hell already? No, don't answer me now. You know my policy. I don't want you to answer me. That's not what I'm after. Have you ever wondered why? considering all the sin that's in our lives. And again, I'm not condemning you, but I know who we all are. Why hadn't he already done that? Well, I've given him enough reason to send everybody that's ever lived to hell in my life. Well, it's because He loves us and because we are who we are in Christ. And we have the heavenly calling. And that means we are to keep our mind and our eyes focused on Jesus who is the Apostle and High Priest of our confession. The word Apostle means one who is sent. That's all it means. One who is sent. Now the qualifications of an apostle was that they had to witness the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. So all these people running around today calling themselves apostle this and apostle that, you know, they're not. Because to be a true apostle, you had to see Christ. If you remember in chapter 1 of Acts, when they replaced Judas with Matthias, they said, we must pick someone who went in and out among us while the Lord was with us. That's a qualification. And they were the ones that he sent. And anytime you get to thinking, well, I'm too old, I'm not smart enough, I don't know enough things, I'm not witty enough to really have an impact for Christ, remember, fishermen, tax collectors, illiterate men who probably had trouble with grammar and who smell bad. Those are the ones that Christ chose. Now, none of y'all smell bad to me. But I'm just saying, that's, that's, that's who he sent. He didn't go into the great halls of education and learning. And he didn't go into the temple and select the highest ranking Sadducees. He sent his apostles to common men. first Peter's written in classical Greek, second Peter in common Greek. First Peter was probably written by Barnabas dictated by Peter because Peter wouldn't have known classical. But if you ever read them, you can tell the difference even in the translation. But in second Peter, he just wrote like just a good old boy. He's our high priest now. You need to go back, and I hope some of y'all had a chance to take a look at Leviticus and Numbers. They're some of the most interesting books in the Bible. I'm halfway through Deuteronomy now, and it's just some of the most interesting reading, and you'll understand more about the high priest, and we're gonna talk about him in a few sessions on down, because we're gonna get to the high priest, and hopefully Melchizedek before we stop. But the high priest is just one who interceded. Today is Yom Kippur and the Jewish people celebrate Yom Kippur today. It's the day of atonement. And if you want to read about it, you can go to Leviticus and read about it. But they had all kinds of sacrifices for all kinds of things. But once a year, they just had a general sacrifice for everything they didn't even realize they did. It was kind of like a blanket sin offering, which is not relevant to us now. It was then. But the high priest went in, he put the blood on the mercy seat, and he came out. He was the only one that could do that. He was the only one that could go behind the veil. Christ went behind the veil, and he didn't pour bull or goat blood on the mercy seat. He poured his own blood. That's why he's our high priest. He's the one who intercedes for us. You know, you have an advocate that's sits right now in glory and knows you personally. He don't, he never goes to sleep. He never gets tired. He don't take a day off. And he has a mind that you can't imagine. that can call every star ever created by its own individual name. And He knows you perfectly. And John says in 1 John, we have an advocate with the Father. If anyone sins, we have an advocate. Someone who stands in for us. Someone who pleads our case as a lawyer would. To understand our position. Holy brethren. That don't mean you're going to walk out of here and you're never going to sin again. You may sin before you get out the door. But we have someone who stands in our place. And the Holy Spirit addresses us as holy brethren. Not as in ourselves, but in Him. And we are partakers of this calling And we should have the blessedness, not a job or not a task or not something that we just, oh, I've got to do this, but the blessedness of concentrating, focusing, and pondering our Lord Jesus Christ. How do you do that? Right here. you read his word. You know, sometimes I just, I go to start reading in the mornings or whenever. Sometimes it won't nothing do for me but his just to hear his voice. I don't know what his voice sounded like. Oh, it would have been wonderful to understood the tone of his voice and Well, you know, when he went, when he went home to Nazareth and read, they said, everybody wondered at the gracious words that were falling from his lips. He, he probably had a voice that was unlike anyone else's. But sometimes I just, I just have to read his words and hear his voice. Don't you just don't you just adore Your Lord Jesus Christ. Don't you just... Isn't He the most special to you? That's what the writer is saying here. Concentrate on Him. Enjoy Him. That's her calling, beloved. For all eternity, we're going to be able to enjoy God. In all that He is. and all that he is is in our Lord. Colossians says the fullness of the Godhead lives in bodily form in him. So spend this week marvel at him. That's what 2 Thessalonians says when he returns. They'll marvel at him. That's going to be some sight to see. Listen, the first time we see Jesus, I don't believe we're going to be worried about crowns or rewards or grandma or mama or daddy or nobody else. Once we lay our eyes on Him, there's nothing else going to matter. Nothing. He says, consider. And that's more than just, Oh, hey, how you doing? Well, we'll stop there. And we were going through verse six, but we got to verse one. Ah, well, it's wonderful. The birth. So in, I mean, it's just wonderful to just meditate on the Lord Jesus Christ. I don't love him like I ought to. He says love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, body and strength. I've never done that a day in my life. Nobody has. Nobody. Only one. He's the only one that's ever done that. There's only one. There's only one person that deserves to be in heaven. You know that right? That's him. He's the only one that's ever loved God like that. But he loves me. And you, far above and beyond whatever we can imagine. And when God sees us, He sees Him. And in Christ, we are what we are. Spend the week You think about it, meditate and ponder on your Lord. Enjoy him. That's what that's who he is. He's not a taskmaster. He's not a slave driver. He's our blessed Savior that didn't mad at us anymore. And we are to enjoy his company. Enjoy his fellowship. Enjoy his person. All right, thank you lot.