Strathalbyn Church of Christ

Hebrews 3:1-6 Theme: Jesus’ house. Sermon by Pastor David Williams.

Strathalbyn Church of Christ. 15 Aug 2021.

Pray, Lord, let your Spirit open his word to us today, and help us walk in your light. In Jesus name, Amen.

Billy was told he was moving with his family to a new house, by the sea. Billy was really excited and imagining his new home, he built a model house in his sandpit, made of matchboxes, with a few twigs for trees and even a swimming pool in the back – using the cat’s sardine can. He spent hours playing with his toy house and loved that little house. Then moving day came. But “no Billy, we can’t take your house”. Billy flew into a tantrum. He was not going. He was going to stay with his toy house. He wouldn’t leave. He preferred his copy to the real thing.

Today’s passage is about two houses: a temporary house – one that is only a copy of a greater house.

3 sections:

· Moses, the servant

· Jesus, the builder

· We, the house

1. Moses the servant.

We start off with Moses. Moses was a great man and he built a great house – actually a tent, but what a tent. This tent or tabernacle was the most sacred place on earth for God himself was present there. Yet as great as Moses was, as great as this tent was, they were not the end of the story. Rather, Moses and the tabernacle testified “to the things that were to be spoken later”, v5_._ The tabernacle was like Billy’s toy house. It was a copy of a greater house. Moses himself was only a copy – a copy of the saviour who was to come.

Now like Billy, the Jews had a quandary. Would they worship Jesus or hanker for the copy – for Moses and the tabernacle? For centuries, they had venerated Moses as God’s prophet. They had venerated the tabernacle, and its successor – the temple, as God’s holy place. When Jesus turned up, what were they to do with Moses and the temple?

This was a big issue for the Jews, because up till now their greatest hero was Moses. Just consider:

- He led Israel out of slavery in Egypt after the ten plagues.

- He raised his staff to part the Red Sea.

- With his staff he struck the rock so that Israel could drink in the wilderness, Ex 17:1-7.

- Alone of all the prophets, he talked with God face to face, Nu 12:5-8.

- He gave Israel the ten commandments.

- He wrote the first five books of the Bible, Dt 4:14; Acts 7:37-38.

- He established the whole OT system of worship, with priests, sacrifices and Tabernacle.

a) Imitation saviours

There is no one in the whole OT who even comes close to Moses. It would have been easy for the Jews to start worshipping this great man Moses. God buried him in an unmarked grave, so that the Jews would not worship his bones (Dt 34:6). As great as Moses was, he is called here – not a great prophet – but simply a servant_. “Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant”,_ v5.

Like Billy, we can mistake the copy for the real thing. As humans, we have a desire for a saviour. We have a natural longing for a leader, a saviour who will fix our life’s problems. We love heroes – in sport, in books and films. But all humans are flawed and will fail. Even faithful Moses had an anger problem.

We can make the mistake of looking for a human saviour - the one who will fix our life’s problems. To put any man or woman on that pedestal as saviour is to make an idol. Whether that saviour is a spouse, or a pastor, or a politician. For any human will fail. As your pastor, I will let you down – I guarantee that I will forget, I will say the wrong thing, I will sin. I will try not to, but even in this resolve I will fail. Please pray for me.

Many here know the deep hurt and betrayal by those they have trusted. This cuts even deeper when you have looked to them as a saviour, to fix your life’s problems. Yes we do need to trust one another. We cannot function without trust. And yet we need to be realistic about sin in one another. Our expectations need to be realistic.

Don’t put any man or woman on a pedestal. Don’t look to any as your saviour. Many Christians see Trump as a saviour figure, a modern-day King Cyrus. It is folly to see anyone as a saviour. There is only one saviour. And praise God our saviour will never let us down! Christ is faithful. He has never broken a promise. He never will. He is the saviour you can trust without a shadow of doubt.

b) Imitation heavens

I have spoken of copy saviours and the real saviour. What of the tabernacle – of copies of heaven and of the real thing?

We can invest great amounts of time and energy, money and emotion in stuff. In dreams. In places. The pull of nostalgia and memories. The hope of that dream home, or that bucket list vacation. We can spend years working on them. These too can become idols. We can look to them for happiness, for security, for filling empty voids in our hearts. But what are they but stuff? Chunks of bricks and mortar. Memories that will fade like old photo prints.

We visited a dear friend at Meningie yesterday. There are some lovely homes around the lake’s shore. Some are like castles. She was bemoaning the fact that so many people had left or died – and those who had moved into these grand homes did not even know the names of those who were pillars of the community only ten years before. And - Oh the indignity of it all - some of these castles have been demolished and replaced with flats.

Will that be your lot? Nothing we build here will last forever. Nothing we build in our own strength. Will you spend your last years labouring away on some project that will be demolished and forgotten in a mere ten years. Or will you labour on something that will last – even for eternity? Will you labour on a toy house, or will you work to build an eternal home?

2. Jesus the builder

Moses was faithful as a servant in God’s house, but “Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses …” v3_._ Jesus is the builder of God’s house, just as God is also the builder. Jesus is also described as _the Apostle and High Priest,_ v1.

a) Apostle

He is God’s apostle. This verse is the only place where Jesus is called an apostle. “Apostle” simply means “one who is sent”. Jesus often referred to himself as “the one sent by the Father” (Jn 5:23, 7:33, 17:3, 8, 21; 20:21). We are also sent by God (Jn 17:18, 20:21). However, it seems Paul was the last to call himself an apostle with any justification.[1]

There are some Christian leaders today who are called apostles just as in Paul’s day, there were “super apostles” – who were religions charlatans (2 Cor 11:4-5; 12:11). I would be very wary about listening to anyone called an apostle today. I doubt that Paul or Jesus would have condoned this – or indeed that great man Moses, called here, simply a servant.

Jesus as the one sent by the Father was the forerunner for both the apostles and all who would be sent out in the power of his Spirit – all of us. Jesus was commissioned – sent – to do a task by his Father. And he completed that task, with his cry from the cross, “It is finished!” Humanity has been rescued from the power of sin, death and the devil. The war has been fought and won. Now the troops are sent in for mopping up operations. That is our task. That is what we have been sent to do.

b) “the high priest of our confession”

Jesus is our high priest – he is our go-between. I met a Baptist pastor in PNG. He went into a slum and was confronted by a Raskol gang man with a gun. Happily, the pastor was with a lad who was a converted Raskol. The gunman saw the lad and immediately dropped his gun. The lad had lived in both worlds – he knew both the Raskol gangs and the Christians. Because he knew both and was trusted by both, he could act as go-between.

Jesus is our go-between. He alone is both God and Man and he alone knows both God and Man. He can speak to humans on God’s behalf and to God on behalf of humanity. There is no one else who can do this. Not Mary, not the saints, not your Spiritual mentor. You don’t need a pastor to pray for you – you can go direct to Jesus himself and ask him.

3. We, the house

What is this house Jesus is building? Certainly it is no temple. It is us, “we are his house”, v5_._ Peter calls us “_living stones_”, 1 Pet 2:5. But how is a stone to live? The writer gives us six clues.

i. Faithful stones

The beauty of Strathalbyn lies in its stonemasonry. Ever seen a stonemason at work? They have a great eye – for sizing up just the right size, shape and grain of a stone, knowing precisely where it will fit, how much to chip off and just where to strike so that the stone will flake in the right way. And when it is all built, what a magnificent structure it is – sound, strong, beautiful.

We’re all odd shapes. But Jesus knows just where we need to fit to be useful to him. As the master builder, God places us exactly where we need to be, 1 Cor 12:18.

So don’t get disgruntled about who you are or where you are or what you are doing. It is likely that God has a job for you to do right where you are. It may be a job that only you can do because of the peculiar person you are. The KJV calls us a “peculiar people” – in its time peculiar meant “belonging to”, but looking around those gathered, including the one I saw looking at me in the mirror today, I reckon that other meaning could apply – strange or odd! Sometimes it takes someone who is a bit odd to reach another who is a bit odd.

So what does a stone do? We are in this building together. A stone sitting alone achieves nothing. A stone in its right place in the building supports other stones, holds them together. Now a hunk of limestone just needs to sit in place. It doesn’t need to do anything. But as living stones, we have quite a job to do. We need to work out how we can support one another, avoid falling apart and carry our share. It’s a joint effort – working together with the master builder. We need to follow Moses’ example, being faithful in God’s house.

ii. Holy people

But you say, I’m not good enough. Who am I? The writer calls us holy. Pure, and free from sin. But how can that be? I don’t feel clean. Jesus has paid the price for my sin. He, the sinless one, took my filth and made me clean. God now looks on me as holy.

iii. Brothers

Not just holy, but we are called brothers and sisters of Jesus. There is no religion or political system that comes close to the Bible in the dignity given to human beings. What other system or faith is there where the founder, even God himself, would raise us up to his own level. That is what Jesus has done in calling us his brothers and sisters. This is no token gesture. Jesus came to serve us, to take our place. Our elder brother came down to our level to raise us up to his level by dying in our place.

iv. “you who share in a heavenly calling”

Friends, we share in a heavenly calling! The King himself calls us to share with him in his work! So give up your small ambitions, your petty worries, your trivial hurts. You have been called to serve the king – today and on into eternity. That is your purpose here. That is your eternal career path. We serve the master builder, who is building the people of God. Are you fully engaged in his calling?

v. “Consider Jesus”

Who he is, what he has done, how you can serve him.

“What Would Jesus Do?” – has become a clique. But it’s not a bad one.

· Before sending a comment online, WWJD

· Before giving up, WWJD

· Before spending on stuff we don’t need, WWJD.

· Before giving way to self pity, WWJD

vi. “And we are his house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope”

Boasting is good for us – it’s a humbling experience. Next time someone praises you, turn the talk to Jesus. Don’t thank me, thank Jesus who turned my life around!

Do you have well-meaning friends who say, Oh you’re such a good person? You might reply, “Don’t call me good, I’m so bad that Jesus had to die for me!” If there is boasting, let us boast about Jesus!

We praise the things we value. We have no embarrassment about talking up the great performances of the Crows. Why is it we get embarrassed in talking up the performance of Jesus – an act that is without equal in history? A Port supporter may not be keen on you talking up the Crows, but that doesn’t stop the die-hard Crows fan. An atheist may not agree with us on Christ, but what is stopping us? Isn’t the problem our confidence? Our confidence in Him?

Imagine saying, “Um, excuse me, I just thought I’d share, if you don’t mind, and have nothing better to do. I respect your right to disagree, but will you let me share Ash Bartey’s win with you.”

That is how we can talk about the saviour of humanity, the one who battled the devil and death and defeated them! Our testimony can be like tepid tea – it won’t hurt you but it is undrinkable muck. Look at the boldness of Peter. His confidence was not in himself – he had denied Jesus. No, his confidence was in him who rose from death. He bragged about Jesus. The Pharisees and jailers were amazed at the disciples’ confidence and boldness (Acts 4:13). If our vision of Jesus was certain and clear, would we not also shout about him from the rooftops? Let’s not mince words – we live amongst the walking dead. Those outside the church are dead. We have the words of eternal life. Let us boldly share it and watch the Spirit bringing life.

Lord Jesus, you were sent as our go-between. You are building your house, men and women saved by your death. And we are called to share in this heavenly calling – to build your house. Give us courage to boast in the hope of eternal life. In your name, Amen.

Source:

· Hughes, R. K. (1993). Hebrews: An anchor for the soul. Wheaton, Ill: Crossway Books.

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[1] https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/were-apostles-unique-and-unrepeatable-messengers-of-christ