Hebrews 3, 1. Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession. He was faithful to him who appointed him, as Moses also was in all his house. For he had been counted worthy of more glory than Moses. By just so much as the builder of the house is 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 confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end. This is the word of the Lord. Lord, thank you so much for this day and for this time together. We pray, Lord, that you would just be with us today as we hear your word. We pray that you would open our ears to hear, open our hearts to receive, and open my mouth to speak. In Jesus' name, amen. As a recap, the argument thus far has been Don't go back to Judaism, because sure, God spoke a long time ago in the angels and the prophets, but today he is speaking to us through the sun. says the son that he's speaking through now is the heir of creation. He's also the creator of creation. He is the radiance of glory, but he's also the character of God, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. He says that sure, the angels were great, but Jesus was higher than the angels because to which of the angels did he ever say, this is my son? Also to which of the other angels did he say, by the way, you're also Yahweh? So Jesus is not only the son of God, but he is the God. And we heard the, and then he would then say, for this reason, we pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift from it. For if word spoken through an angel is proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received just recompense, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? Right? So he's saying there, like, So if the son is saying it, then we probably should listen to it. He also would then say that, and we heard him say these things and also witnessed all of his miracles. So it's not like this guy is just speaking, feel pardon the phrase, ex rectum. He is actually just repeating what he has heard. So then he says, sure, Jesus died. And one could conceivably look at that as a problem, except that the Old Testament said that he would die and that would be his crowning glory and that in that death we receive our glory as well. So now having warmed up his audience, preacher then begins his actual argument. The rest of the book is him going through how this man, Jesus, replaces the Old Testament so that there's actually nothing to go back to. So we start here. Consider Jesus. Right? So, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, So, you know, his audience, it's like, you guys are calling yourselves brothers. Those of us who have been called out, you know, as kingdom of gods, let's consider Jesus. You know, this guy that I've been talking about, who's the son, who's like higher than the angels, who's like all that in a bag of chips. Maybe we should think about who he is and what he said. And it's interesting here, he says, he was faithful to him who appointed him, he was faithful to God, as Moses also was in all his house. Now, this is a dirty trick to play on any Jew. You start talking about Moses, you are treading in dangerous grounds. So, I say this because the next thing he says would be, completely controversial to anyone who heard it. And I do mean anyone, even the Christians. He says, for he has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses. Boom, mic drop. The people who are reading this would have reeled in shock. And if any of their family had heard this man say, uttering this phrase, they would have thought, well, this man needs to be stoned. Someone find some rocks. And so this author has led up to this point where he is now going after the old beliefs and he's going directly at the hero. So I always wonder what people think of Moses in general, because basically the only thing your typical person knows about Moses is that he was once played by Charlton Heston. He, you know, parted the sea, or if you're, you know, more of the Christian variety, you know, Christian kid variety, you think of him as a pickle named Moe. It's easy for us as Christians to not think enough about Moses because we're too busy thinking about this Jesus guy, which is entirely appropriate. But we have to remember who Moses is. Moses is the hero. of the Old Testament. If you were to equate Jesus to anyone within Judaism, that would be Moses to a Jew. They look at Moses as the highest person in the entire Old Testament, and for good reason, because he is the most important person in the entire Old Testament. So I thought Today, since so much of what's coming next is going to build off this idea of what Judaism actually is, what the Old Testament kind of teaches, I thought, just in case, let's go over who this Moses character is, because he really is important. Every hero needs a good backstory. And Moses has a great one, right? So if you want to read about the lives and times of Moses, of Midian, you should open your books to, well, don't, because I'm just going to talk about it, but it's in the book of Exodus. It starts in the book of Exodus, which is why, you know, Sometimes the Ten Commandments movie is called Exodus. It talks about the exit of the Jews from Egypt. Y'all know the story. We'll go over it a little bit. So he started life as a baby. He was, as they say, born at a very young age. But before, he was born into captivity under The English, or under the English, the Egyptians. Well, you know the English, they've been everywhere, holy crud. So the Jews were in captivity and this new pharaoh came along and he was concerned that what he called the people of Goshen, because they were all living in the land of Goshen, were multiplying like rabbits, right? He says they're gonna outnumber the people of Egypt. In other words, they were having an immigration crisis. So his response to that was to, well, we'll just make it really, really difficult on them, and that should pretty much take care of it. Obviously, they're having too much time to hang out at home with their wives, so if we just increase the amount of work that they have, they'll be having less babies. This did not work. So yeah, well, and I do want to kind of point out, it's kind of an interesting thought if you think about it. He was increasing the difficulty on the people and they were having more children. Now it's an interesting fact that poll after poll after poll has demonstrated that despite everyone's perception, married people have far more sex than even non-married monogamous people. Like, this is just a fact. And of those married people, the ones who are having the most sex are the ones who are the deeply religious. Particularly Protestants, oddly enough. Although the Catholics are right in the running, let's be honest, they have a ton of kids too. But what you see here is that there's something about being firm in your faith that God will take care of your future that makes you want to have more of a future. The people here were multiplying. So something about their faith made them different than the people of Egypt. People of Egypt were into pleasure, they were into, you know, good food, wines, they even had beer, like they might have invented beer. and they had all these gods who were dedicated to fertility and they would sacrifice to them and yet they weren't growing at the rate that the chosen ones of Israel were. And so it's an interesting phenomenon that most people think of religious people as fuddy-duddies and yet they're the ones who are having the most kids. I'll leave that to you to decide how that is affects your life regardless, that was the problem. They were having more and more and more children and growing greater and greater and greater and the Egyptians were nervous, shall we say, because the Jews were never particularly loyal to the pharaoh. They were loyal to this weird Yahweh god that they had, and they were concerned that they could rebel. And if they did rebel, then there was nothing that Egypt could do about it. So the king came up with a great idea. What I'll do is when they're giving birth, I'll be there with these midwives. I'll send these midwives in and they have to use state, uh, they have to use the state certified midwives to have birth. None of this birthing at home nonsense or using their own judgment on these things. Oh no, no, no, no, no. The state will assign them a midwife. And if it's a male child, they'll take them and drown them in the river. so that they'll only have females and then the Egyptians can, you know, well, you know, they'll have a surplus of wives and they'll have to, you know, farm out to the other team, at which case they'll have more Egyptian babies and this problem will solve itself. Well, The problem was these state-sponsored midwives didn't exactly do the job that they were supposed to. They went in there and they kept lying to Pharaoh and saying, I just, I don't know. It's like the women, they're pretty, you know, feisty. Like they, by the time we get there, the child's already born. Eh, sorry. Couldn't get him, couldn't throw him in the river, my bad. Moses was born in that environment. And his mother came up with a plan and says, okay, well, I don't want to lose my son. So she said, well, let me put him in a basket, put him in the water, and then we'll float him down river and Yahweh, Yaira, the Lord will provide. So, put him in a basket, he floated down the river, and the first thing that he comes upon was a princess, a pharaoh. And she comes down to the water to have a bath, and she sees a baby, and went, Cool! Free baby! So, she takes it up. Now, the funny part of this story is that his sister, Miriam, is actually creeping along in the bushes, following him, and when the princess takes Moses up out of the water, She goes, yay, free baby! But wait, I'm not nursing. I need someone to be a wet nurse for my child. And Miriam pops out of the bushes and says, hey, I know somebody! And so Moses gets to go back to his mother's house. She gets to raise him for the first three years. And then he goes off to Pharaoh College. well, I mean Pharaoh boarding school anyway, and he is raised in the palace of Pharaoh himself. And he is considered a prince of Egypt, right? So that's not a bad backstory, right? Here's a guy drawn up out of the river and becomes one of the leaders of Egypt. The fact that he was in royalty of Egypt is actually not that weird. If you remember back to Genesis, Joseph was actually at one point prime minister of all of Egypt. So the fact of a Hebrew being in royalty was not unknown, right? So, I mean, that would have been a weird conversation, I'm sure. Like the Pharaoh's, I think it was his daughter or his cousin or something, anyway, comes in and says, hey, I found a Hebrew baby. He says, aren't we supposed to be killing them? Yeah, but this one's mine. It's cute. Go get it. I poke it. Yeah. So anyway, he's raised as one of Pharaoh's children and he is a prince of Egypt. So story continues. He was working in the slave fields at some point, and this Egyptian was harassing these two Hebrew guys. And so he, when no one was looking, grabbed the Egyptian guy, beat him to death, and then buried him. As one does. So, always a freedom fighter. He was maybe perhaps a bit exuberant, but still. He then, the next day, comes upon everything and sees two Hebrews arguing with each other. Says, brothers, why are we fighting? And they all turn to him and says, what, you gonna kill us too? at which point he realized that his murder had been found out. And he fled into the East towards the land of... Well, yeah, just fled across the desert and then he ended up in Midian. There, he has this cool little scene where he's gathered around, these ruffians are around the well and they're messing with some girls. Right? Probably there was some inappropriate language going on, but definitely the girls were being harangued, if you will. And Moses appears fresh from a murder and starts fighting all of the people and driving them off. And then he does the cool thing where he draws up the water from the well himself and all the girls are, oh, and then they take him home to meet his father and his father Jethro. And Jethro ends up liking him and says, here, you can have one of my daughters. And he marries her. So he marries a Midianite. Zip Ziporia or something like that. What's that? I don't it doesn't say Yeah, I know He's probably like oh good Thank God he's gone All right, so anyway, he marries this girl, he becomes a shepherd, and one day, while tending his sheep, he runs into this large bush which was on fire. Now, that wouldn't have been weird. Lightning happens in the desert, things get on fire, bushes burn, whatever. What was weird about this bush is A, it wasn't being consumed by the fire, and B, it was talking to him. Yeah, that's enough. There within the flames, Yahweh himself speaks to Moses and says, I have a mission for you. So, he then gets sent on a mission to go back and save the people of Israel from out of slavery. God gave him a mission. This is what the word apostle means, by the way. It means sent one. For fun, one week while I was pretending that I was going to learn Greek, I switched my iPhone over to you know, use Greek because I can read Greek, I just don't speak it, right? So I switched it over and it was funny because on the chats, there in the send feature where you would normally hit send, it said apase, which is apostle, right? So like I can confirm that apostle means sent one. Right? Like, I have an iPhone that proves it. The word apostle means the one who is sent, but it's in the idea of, in military terms, you think of a sortie, right? That comes from the French word sortier, which means to be sent out. And so that's like a mission battle thing. And so when Moses was sent to Egypt, The Greek concept is apostle. So remember the guy from Hebrew said Jesus Christ the apostle and high priest. So you can see now kind of We have some parallels going on, right? We have a enemy trying to kill a bunch of kids. He is saved in the nick of time. He then goes through some troubles. He then flees out into the wilderness like Jesus went out into the wilderness. He was given a mission from God. So he was an apostle. See how these two things reflect each other? Kind of interesting. God gives him a mission and says, I need you to go and speak to Pharaoh and say, let my people go. Moses' response to that is, says, okay, great, except that I'm kind of afraid of public speaking. And so he said, all right, fine, grab your brother, I don't care. So instead of Moses going to speak for Yahweh, Moses speaks to Aaron, his brother, to speak for Moses. And God gives Moses a stick and says, this is the holy stick, this thing will represent my power. He then throws it down, it turns into a snake and he says, isn't that cool? Moses says, yes. And so he picks it up and then he walks with that into Egypt, right? Then, he says to Pharaoh, Pharaoh, I come in the name of the Hebrew God, Yahweh, the creator of all things, and he has told me, let my people go. And Pharaoh said, no. He's like, yeah, but I could... But God said so. And Pharaoh said, mm, don't care. And so then Moses goes to God and says, but he said no. He says, eh, he'll say yes eventually. And then you've heard the story of the nine plagues of Egypt, right? First thing he does is he turns the river Nile into blood, which would have been gross. I can't even imagine that. Can you imagine? And then, you know, several other plagues. Oddly enough, if you look at what the plagues were, you can actually match them up to particular Egyptian gods. Like, you know, there was the one plague of the frogs, right? Well, that was, and I forget the name, it was probably But anyway, she was the god of the reed land, right? She was the one who was in charge of fertilizing the crops because when the river would overflow, all of that gook would go into the fields and make all the fertilizers. So they knew that this was the god of fertile crops. Well, her representative were the frogs who sang in the marsh. So God said, here, let me get y'all like some frogs. Let me give you some frogs. And he then sends like, and frogs were just coming literally out of the woodwork and people would open pots in the morning and frogs would crawl out of them. And he was demonstrating in each. So in that he was demonstrating in each of the plagues, I am more powerful than these Egyptian gods that you're calling on assistance. You want Osiris to save you? Osiris can't save you. You want... Whoever, I don't know them. Anyway, all these things. And then at the very end we get to, of course, the last plague where he kills all the firstborn. Why is that? Well, because the god of the firstborns is Ra. He is the high god. And so he comes through and says, no, I am in control of the line of the pharaohs itself. Right? So that was cool. And then eventually Pharaoh says, all right, fine, uncle, y'all can go. When this happened, they established at that point the three main feasts of the Jewish calendar. There was Passover, the Feast of Weeks, Pentecost, and the Feast of Booths, where they're supposed to spend a week in Jerusalem living in tents and then Yom Kippur. But the reason for each of these feasts was to celebrate the deliverance out of Egypt. So every year, three times a year, the Jewish people remember Moses. Right? So this is not just some random dude. I'm trying to get the mic drop moment in your head here. Every year at Passover, they would have a Seder, and they would recount the deliverance from Egypt. Moses played a prominent role in that, and so they would remember Moses. Same thing at Pentecost, same thing at the Feast of Booths. It was all about Moses. If you think of your childhood and holidays, imagine all of your holidays focusing in on one dude, and that one dude was Moses. And the author of Hebrews says, yeah, sure, Moses was great. Jesus was afforded more honor than Moses. So that's just what he did up to that point. Then on top of that, the Jewish system is based on the law. Who wrote the law? Moses. Moses wrote the law. When he got out of Egypt, he was brought up to Mount Sinai. God said, hey, come on up. Let's have a meeting. We'll leave everybody down there because those people, they're not holy enough to see me. So Moses, come on up the mountain. We'll have a talk. And he goes up there and God tells him the law. This law is what the mothers of these Jewish Christians were trying to get them to go back to. The law. The law brought to the people by Moses. So, but he wasn't just given the law, he was also given the plans for the Ark, the Ark of the Covenant. Raiders of the Lost Ark, you've seen the movie, that thing. Then you've got the Tent of Meeting, the place where the Ark was supposed to sit, where all the sacrifices happened. He was also given all of the sacrifices. He was then given the law concerning the high priests. of which he couldn't be the high priest because he said, I'm not real good at public speaking. And God sort of kind of passively aggressively, you know, punished him by making his brother Aaron the high priest. But if you look through it, he's operating as the chief judge. So he kind of is the high priest. And there's the second parallel. We've got Jesus, the apostle and high priest of God, Moses was the apostle and should have been the high priest, but wasn't. And so then the other thing that Moses was repeatedly doing within the time in the desert was the people would grumble and complain. They got out to the desert, they had no water, the people all said, oh, you've led us out into the desert to leave us here to die, which if you've been around a bunch of Jews is the funniest thing ever. Anyway, so the, And then so Moses goes to God and say, look, I'm sorry, they don't have enough faith. I apologize, but they want some water. And God says, all right, tap on the rock, give them some water. Then he says, then the people complain, they don't have any food. And Moses said, I'm sorry, but I mean, they kind of don't have food. And so Yahweh sends the manna. And then later on, they start worshiping a golden calf. Remember the meet and greet that Moses was on the mountain with? Well, while they're up there, he says, man, they sure taking a whole long time. Maybe he's dead. So they said, well, you know, Yahweh wants to worship him and Yahweh's really great. We know that like the, the, Cow is a really, really great thing. So tell you what, why don't we make this golden cow that will represent Yahweh and we'll worship him and maybe Moses will come back or something. I don't know. Anyway, so they do that, which is, of course, ironic because the very first three things that God said to Moses was, no other gods, no other idols, and also don't make anything that you think looks like me. And he comes down and sees them worshiping someone else, also it's an idol, also they made a graven image of him. So they had screwed up. Moses then turns back to look at God and says, sorry? Please don't kill them." And God repents. So now do you see that parallel? Jesus was the one who sat in front of God paying for our sins. So when They look at Moses, they look at him as the one who saved their people from the wrath of God. And the author is saying, remember, that's what Jesus was doing, saving them from the wrath of God. And we see the parallels there. So, and then after that, the people grumble more and God says, fine, y'all can just die here in the desert. I don't care. Your kids though, can go into the promised land. It's going to take 40 years for y'all to die out. Uh, so why don't we all just hang out here in the desert for 40 years and you can go. Yes. It had his hands physically on it. He's the one who organized the whole thing. He was ahead of everybody when Moses was up on the mountain. He let it happen. No, no, no. He organized it. It was his idea. What did he tell Moses whenever... Oh yeah, that was the best thing ever. Moses comes out and says, what's this? And Aaron says, all the gold landed in the fire. It just made a cow. I don't know where this came from. He got a wonder there, because at the time Moses looking on this would have looked on this and said, you do know I'm going to write this down, right Aaron? Like people are going to be reading about this. You want to take that one back? Let's try again. It's like, no, no, no, it won't happen. Anyway, people complain. They say, we don't like this whole God thing. Why are we in the desert? And he said, you know what? I am done with you people. Y'all can die here in the desert. I'll get your kids and bring them into Israel. And so 40 years passes and all of the old people died and all the young people are left. Mos, then as a final harangue, Well, as a final hurrah, we have the book of Deuteronomy, which is the last words of Moses. It's also called Deuteronomy, deut, meaning, uh, no, two in Latin, and Anomie, which is actually retelling of the law. So this is the second law. Moses gives a big recap of the law and he gives a bunch of speeches and promises everybody if they do well, they're going to prosper. If they don't do well, they're going to be taken over. And again, as a Hebrew believer, when you invoke the name Moses and you're currently under Roman occupation, you've got to wonder maybe we've done something wrong. And all of this is bound up in that phrase that I just said. Now, everything in Judaism follows from what Moses did. Abraham was their father. They were named after Jacob, who was Israel, the father of the 12 tribes, but everything they were doing on a day-to-day basis, including Christmases and Easter, not actually Christmas, you know what I mean? Anyway, you know what I mean? I'm talking about, in our context, it would be Christmases and Easter, although for them, it's the three feasts, right? was all about Moses. Moses, Moses, Moses, Moses, Moses. Oddly enough, one of the final things that Moses said before he died is that he made a promise to the people of Israel. And this I will actually have you turn to if you like. Deuteronomy 18, 15. The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you. From your countrymen, you shall listen to him. This prophecy stuck with the Jewish people. Yes, they were looking for the second coming of Elijah. Yes, they were looking for the return of David. But more than that, they were looking for the prophets who would be like Moses. Jesus happened to say at one point in his ministry, I am that prophet. I am the one whom Moses said would come. And so now we return to our story. With that context in mind, hear this again. Therefore, hallowed brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession. He was faithful to him to have appointed him, as Moses also was in all his house. For he has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses. But 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. Christ was faithful as a son over his house, whose house we are if we hold fast our confidence. So, you're a Jew. You've come to Christ. Things aren't going well for you. You're thinking, well, maybe I should just go back to being a Jew. At least then I'd be able to buy things in the marketplace, which would be better than not being able to do that. Well, the author of Hebrews says, yeah. But Jesus is better than Moses. So, he's better than the prophets, he's better than the angels, he's better than Moses. But Moses said Jesus would come. Moses was a servant of the house of Israel, Jesus made the house of Israel. So, if you're sitting there in your Hebrew context and you hear this, this is a I am blown away statement. Jesus built the house. Moses didn't build the house. He was a servant in the house. So, the author here is saying, yeah, I know, Moses came and he did a lot of great things. He parted the Red Sea and all that stuff like that, but he was only doing so under orders, and guess who was giving him the orders? That's right, Jesus. You're gonna go back to Moses? Cute. Moses would be a Christian if he were here. In fact, we know that because he showed up at the Transfiguration along with Elijah, and when Jesus was revealed in his glory as a shining light, there was Moses, and there was Elijah, and Moses was worshiping him. So, he says, have confidence. But what does he actually say? He says that Christ was faithful as a son over his house, whose house we are. We are the house of Christ. We are the house of Israel. We are in Christ. We are part of that house. If we hold fast our confidence, if we hold fast our confidence, and the boast of our hope firm until the end. So what is he warning these guys of? He's warning them, yes, you are under the house of Jesus, unless you flake out and go back to Moses. Which applies to us too. I don't wanna talk about whether or not we can lose our salvation. I'm not going to talk about that. I will say this, the Bible is very clear on the subject that those who are Christians are the ones who stay Christians. I don't want to talk about how that happens or anything like that. I just want to show that this here is the warning of the book of Hebrews. Today, Christians are under immense pressure to stop being Christians because Christians are silly. Christians don't follow the latest thing. Many of them are those evil Republicans. Many of them don't support gay pride. Many of them are bigots. We don't like them. and you are being told to not be Christian. Well, here is the warning to you from the book of Hebrews. Unless you hold fast. Three, verse six. unless you hold fast. In other words, unless you keep your confidence. If you hold firm to the boast of Christ, then you're not of the house of the Lord. However that happens. So there's your warning. And we need to take this warning as well. Because we know people who were Christians and aren't anymore. Those people have nothing to go back to. You're being asked to go back to the world. As we've talked before, the world has nothing to offer you. We have this boast from Christ that he has freely given his life for ours. Are we holding firm to that? I pray that you do. But we also have this hope. For in John 6, Jesus gave the greatest hope I've ever received. He said, all that the Father gives me, I will keep. And I will never cast them out. Furthermore, nothing can pluck them from my hand. So, however this works, your job is to stay faithful. But Jesus says, I got you, kid. Stick with me. No one is taking it from you. And we'll see this warning repeated much. But remember, the temptation that you are under to turn away from Christ is nothing compared to the people whom this author was addressing. So count your blessing in that. You are being told it's not they are being told you can starve and die in the streets. We haven't quite gotten to that point. So for goodness sake, keep faithful, keep moving toward Christ, keep obeying him, keep doing as he says, and know in the background that Jesus said, no one can pluck you from my hand, which I would say means you too. Anyway, we pray that we would just stand firm in Christ. when things start getting bad, that you would remind us that you are greater than anything else anyone has to offer. And I pray this, Lord, in Jesus' name, amen.