Pastor Jonah Sage preached from Hebrews 8. He taught that we no longer strive for a way to cross the gap between us and God, because God went up on a cross to bridge the gap for us. Lector: Erin Warmbier
Pastor Jonah Sage preached from Hebrews 8. He taught that we no longer strive for a way to cross the gap between us and God, because God went up on a cross to bridge the gap for us.
Lector: Erin Warmbier
We come this morning to the heart of Hebrews. Glorious opening to chapter 8:
Here is the main point
-Hebrews 8:1
This is what it’s all about.
There is good news this morning for those with ears to hear.
This news is for you if you see 2 desires inside of you:
This takes many forms, but the heart is the same, a deep longing for more.
Do you have a sense that there’s more to life than you have/are?
A capital R reality, bigger, greater, grander than what you experience?
If you see division, do you long for unity? Ugliness, long for beauty?
Brokenness, long for healing?
Call it climate change or racism or freedom or loneliness or disappointment...
People call the longing by different names, but the essence is the same: what we have is not what we could have and who we are is not who we could be.
Do you see in yourself a desire for more?
If so…
Everyone applies some sort of strategy to cross the gap between here and there
This is the world of religion. When a longing is deep enough, it becomes religious:
A system of making us and our world as it should be.
You’ve entered the world of religion when you hear “do this and you will live”
Get solar panels and an electric car: you’ll live. Vote for this candidate, be this size, run this fast, have this much money. Do this, and you will cross the gap.
Sometimes it’s more explicit. Do these spiritual activities to please God.
Pray this many times, give these offerings, make your sacrifices, and you will live.
Every one of us is religious. Every human longs for more life and each adopts a strategy to get from here to there.
You, your family members, friends, neighbors, and coworkers.
Listen for it, you’ll see it.
There’s an entire chapter for you to chew on, but I’m really just talking 1 verse, because this 1 verse explains Hebrews and Christianity perfectly.
Hear good news for you, me, and every human heart:
We have a High Priest who sat down in the place of honor beside the throne of the majestic God in heaven.
-Hebrews 8:1
Come, let us marinade together!
Two radical, absolutely revolutionary, entirely unique statements made here.
The place of honor is the right hand of God. Literally what is said here, right hand.
This is the place of authority. This is where someone would rule as a king.
In the Old Testament, there was never an Israelite king who served as a priest.
King and Priest were two separate roles, with two separate functions.
Kings represented God to the people. Owed allegiance to him as though he were God
Priests represented people to God. Making sacrifices, providing religious instructions.
So, the King came from the far off country to instruct the priests, and the priests instructed the people about getting to that far off country.
But now… we have a High Priest who is also the King.
You know, there was once a king who was also a priest to God most high, and we’ve discussed him at length these past weeks. Melchizedek, that great appetizer, that foreshadowing of when the King himself would come.
Christianity tells us that the King has come as a new kind of priest.
This means that Christianity claims that someone has come from the place we all long to be. He has revealed it, shown it, and is in fact the King of that place.
Surely this must mean he will give us the pure religion we long for, the strategy to cross the gap from this place to that ultimate reality we hunger for. This leads us to the second staggering reality of this passage:
Nothing like this has ever happened before.
As King, Jesus rules. He doesn’t just represent God to us, he is God.
Learned that over and over throughout Hebrews.
Now, imagine every other religion, every other religious founder, how do you picture that in your mind?
When you imagine the priests of the OT, what do you see?
Blood and sacrifices. Prayers over altars in incense-filled rooms. Such busyness.
Why? Because every other religion has told us, and continues to tell us, “do this and you will live.”
But…Jesus, the Great High Priest and King, sat down.
He is not busy. He is not a bustle of activity. He is sitting down.
Why? Because Jesus tells us that all religious work is done.
Listen to me!
Every religion shares At least 4 things in common
This is how we try to get to that ultimate reality, satisfy our deep hunger.
And Jesus came to say “all of that is done with now.”
He is our King and priest and he has sat down.
When Jesus sat down on his throne, he announced an end to religion.
A man named Dick Lucas wrote that if you really want to understand Hebrews, you need to imagine a Roman and a Christian neighbor talking in 100 AD.
R: New religion? Interesting. Where’s your temple?
X: We don't have a temple anymore.
R: Where are your priests, then?
X: Oh, no priests. Don’t need them anymore.
R: No temple or priests? How you make sacrifices?
X: We don’t! Jesus is our temple, our priest, our sacrifice.
R: Absurd. What kind of religion is this?
X: It’s not a religion at all. It’s the end of religion.
There is no temple, because we are no longer separated from God.
There are no holy and profane places anymore, because God came and made his dwelling among us. The separation between us and God has been torn in two.
That’s why we don’t need priests anymore. They sinned and they died.
God himself came and is now for us a Great High Priest.
There he ministers in the heavenly Tabernacle
-Hebrews 8:2
Our priest does not die and he does not sin. He is eternal, in the order of Melchizedek
And we don’t offer sacrifices, because our king offered himself as a once-for-all sacrifice.
We no longer strive for a way to cross the gap between us and god, because God went up on a cross to bridge the gap for us.
Jesus’ life was perfect, his priesthood eternal, his blood sufficient, and his kingdom is everlasting.
Jesus is sitting DOWN! All religious work is done. It is over.
Most of us want to jump right to the “well what should I do?! Tell me?! Tell me!”
Listen: that is the language of religion, and religion is over.
The endless cycle of striving to please and appease God is over.
The exhaustion and guilt wondering what you must do to land in that faraway country
Jesus came and landed the faraway country on us.
He did it all, paid it all, secured it all, finished it all. It’s over!
And this was the promise that we had for centuries, even from the beginning.
Into the exhaustion and endless failed obedience of his people, God makes this promise. Listen most closely:
The days are coming when I'll set up a new plan for dealing with Israel and Judah. I'll throw out the old plan I set up with their ancestors when I led them by the hand out of Egypt. They didn't keep their part of the bargain, so I looked away and let it go. This new plan I'm making with Israel isn't going to be written on paper, isn't going to be chiseled in stone; This time I'm writing out the plan in them, carving it on the lining of their hearts. I'll be their God, they'll be my people. They won't go to school to learn about me, or buy a book called God in Five Easy Lessons. They'll all get to know me firsthand, the little and the big, the small and the great. They'll get to know me by being kindly forgiven, with the slate of their sins forever wiped clean. By coming up with a new plan, a new covenant between God and his people, God put the old plan on the shelf. And there it stays, gathering dust.
-Hebrews 8:8-13
That great faraway country we long for is a hunger for God himself.
We don’t have to work to get to him, because he got to us first.
Now, his Spirit lives inside of us, he instructs us and leads us.
He is not a far off king and priest, he is a Knowable God.
We can know him, because he has made himself known, he has wiped our slates of sin clean forever.
He put religion on the shelf, and there it stays, gathering dust.
What would you do if you believed this were true?
How would you respond if you knew you were loved like this?
Do you know what Jesus says you do? He says you would get baptized.
And let me tell you, no one baptizes themselves.
You cannot. Not baptism unless someone lowers you under the water, as if you died
And someone with a strong right arm pulls you out of the water as though they were pulling you up from death itself, just as God pulled Adam’s body out of the dust of the earth, just as he pulled Israel out of Egypt, just as he pulled Jesus out of the tomb 3 days after we put him there.
What would you do if you believed the good news that Jesus, our king and priest, sat down?
How would you respond if you knew you were loved like this?
Let’s pray.
Works Cited: The Lord We Can Know preached by Dr. Tim Keller, 3/13/2005 from Hebrews 8:1-2, 7-13
The Message of Hebrews by Dick Lucas