Jesus Is Better

Transcript

If this is your first time with us, my name is Andrew Pack. I’m one of the pastors of the church, and it is my pleasure to preach from God’s Word to you today. So if you have a Bible, if you’d go with me to Hebrews chapter 1. If you don’t have a Bible, there should be one in front of you, and if you’d please stand with me for the reading of Scripture.

Long ago, at many times, and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature, and He upholds the universe by the word of His power. After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high,

— Hebrews 1

(ESV)

having become as much superior to the angels as the name He has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

— Hebrews 1

(ESV)

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Please pray with me. King Jesus, we come together today to worship you because you have made us your own, you have called us a people, you have given us a place to be here in Portland to proclaim the goodness of your death, burial, and resurrection. We’re here to proclaim the goodness that you save sinners from death to life, and there’s nothing we can do to earn it. And at the same time, Lord, we come together as a people who know that it is so easy to drift off of a Jesus-centered life, but there is nothing better than Jesus. There’s nothing better than the life and abundance you’ve given us. And so as we dig into your word today, I pray we would see your truth and your goodness

and your beauty, and that we just be captured again by the joy that it is to live in your presence, you God who are above the heavens and outside of creation. You’ve entered into creation and you’ve sent us your spirit. And so as we open your word today, I pray you would send me your spirit, that Jesus would be clear from the text, Holy Spirit, that the word would be illumined to our hearts. But this is only possible through you, because it’s no longer we who live, but Christ who lives through us. It’s not our intelligence or our words that open eyes to the gospel, but you, Holy Spirit. So dwell richly with us today, and help us to worship Jesus so well. Jesus, we love you, and we pray these things for your glory and for our joy in your name, Jesus Christ.

Drifting from What Matters

Amen. Y’all can have a seat. If you’ve ever been on a lake in Washington or Oregon, in an inflatable kayak, and I’m not talking about one of those hard kayaks that just like cut right through the water, one of those inflatable kayaks, which are awesome in their own right. But if you’ve ever been on a lake in the Northwest, on one of those kayaks, as at least a little bit of wind kicks up and probably a little rain to kind of be vexing and irritating while you’re trying to row really, really, really hard, and you’re not going anywhere, you know how easy it is to, when you’re in one of these vessels, to get off course. It turns out in life, it takes just a little bit of wind, a little bit of pressure, a little bit of distraction to deviate from that which is most important, in this case, hitting the

dock rather than the willows in the side of the water. Today we’re going to look at these four verses from the letter to the Hebrews, and to know what’s happening here, and to even understand these verses, we have to understand the context in which these words are being written. So the author of Hebrews is writing to a group of folks who are Jewish in background, who have come to see that Jesus is the Messiah, and they’ve embraced him and his gospel and put this gospel at the center of their lives. This is the same thing the church has been doing for 2,000 years, putting the reality of the life, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus at the center of absolutely everything we do. He has lived as one of us so that he can relate to us, he can guide us, he can

help us, he’s showed us how to live, he’s been tempted in every way but knew no sin and can empower us and comfort us. He died on the cross to make us clean, to pay the price for our sins, because we can’t do that on our own. We can’t get to the transcendent God of the universe on our own. He is good and perfect and beautiful, and we, to be frank, are just not. And he’s come through the cross to cleanse us of our sins and make us right with God. But not only that, he rose from the dead to show that the God of the Bible is the God of life. He gives new life and not just sort of this like half-hearted sort of normal worldly life, but this transcendent, beautiful life in the spirit. This life where people who are spiritually dead raise from the dead and become spiritually

alive. And anyone who’s had an encounter with God knows that this absolutely changes everything. But what else would you expect? If you had an encounter with God, and the way we encounter God is through Christ. And this life we have in him is a gift, and that’s why it’s the center of everything. That’s why our Sunday services are celebrations. Because I didn’t earn it, I didn’t work for it, but that Jesus came on this rescue mission and saved me from myself and from death to life. My whole life should be sort of just a constant praise of this God who’s done these wonderful things for us. Now you see this group of folks are living in this complicated time. By the way, every group of Christians has always lived in a complicated time. This just happens to be their complicated time. And their complicated time is this.

The Pressure to Compromise

As the church has grown, as the popularity of Christianity has grown in the Roman Empire here in the first century, it’s become unpopular to be a Christian. And so what’s happened is specifically, and we don’t know the exact date that this was written, but for example, in 64 AD, Rome burns, and Nero, who’s in charge of Rome at the time, the city of Rome, blames the Christians. And it becomes very uncomfortable to be a Christian. So you have these folks who are Jewish in nature, so they’ve come to see that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament. They have become Christians, but it’s becoming a little hot to be a Christian. And so they’re starting to wonder, maybe I can just be kind of sort of mostly Jewish, and maybe I can focus on the Old Testament, and maybe I can focus on the sacrificial system,

and maybe I can focus on these kind of cool festivals and things. Because the thing is, at the time, the Jews are a protected class of citizen. Everybody else, wherever Rome goes, has to sort of adopt some of the Roman spirituality and the Roman religion. But the Jews, who have been in the Roman Empire for a long time at this point in time, have special protections. And these Jews are now saying of the Christians, who they don’t like so much, because they don’t think Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament, are saying, oh, yeah, those Christians, they’re not Jewish. Go ahead and light them on fire or whatever horrible thing you want to do to them. And so the pressure’s on the Christians, and these Jewish Christians are starting to say, well, maybe we can just kind of blend in. And as a result, the author of Hebrews is pushing on them and saying, hey,

y’all are starting to drift on that which is most important, and that is this Jesus who is better. Now, fortunately, by the way, in my time at Trinity Church, I’ve never had someone come in for pastoral care who’s come in and said, you know, I’m thinking about starting to sacrifice goats. What do you think about that, right? This has never been my situation, thankfully. If you’re thinking about sacrificing any animals in the old covenant fashion, by the way, let’s talk before you do that and not do that. Just on the record, don’t do that. There’s a lot of reasons for that. We can get into that at a different time, right? But the reality is we live in a time and a place where there’s a lot of pressure on us, and we can feel it in sort of the obvious ways, right? There are obvious ways that being a Christian is not the most popular move

in 2022, but there’s just sort of the regular pressures of trying to work hard, trying to pay your mortgage, trying to be successful, trying to be known, trying to do life. And though we might not be tempted to revert to the Jewish old covenant system, we are tempted in many ways to make something other than Jesus the center of our lives. Now, what’s beautiful about this, I think the antidote that he gives them is a good antidote for us today, okay? And the whole center of the book of Hebrews is the reality that Jesus is better. Better than what, you may ask? Yes, whatever you can put in there, Jesus is better than that. So here we are, we’re going to see three things. We’re going to see that Jesus is the better prophet, we’re going to see Jesus is the better king, and Jesus is the better priest.

As a quick note, if you came up in the church, particularly in sort of like the church planning movement of the 2000s, there were people who were using this idea of prophet, priest, and king as kind of a personality test, and you’re a prophet, and you’re a priest, and you’re a king. I just have to tell you, I don’t have time to like dig down into that, but some of you are like, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but some of you are like, I know exactly what you’re talking about. And if you’re one of those people who are saying, I know exactly what you’re talking about, A, I’d be happy to talk to you more about that at a different time. B, there is no biblical merit for turning prophet, priest, and king into a personality type. It’s actually all about this Jesus we’re going to look at.

Jesus the Better Prophet

Anyways, so here we go. Jesus is the better prophet, Jesus is the better king, and Jesus is the better priest. Verse 1, long ago, at many times, in many ways, God spoke by the prophets. Wow. Let’s start with this amazing reality that God is not distant and he actually speaks. This is the reality of the God of the Bible. He is a God who speaks and communicates to us lowly, and I mean that in the nicest way possible, lowly creatures. Now, the way that God has most clearly spoken to us is through his son, and by extension, his word. He speaks in a number of ways. He speaks in visions, he speaks in dreams, he speaks to our conscience, he speaks to the church. But if you want to hear the voice of God, there is nothing that compares to opening this thing called the Bible and reading it and trusting that when you open this

thing, the Spirit is going to do something and you will hear from God. And often, I have people say, it doesn’t really work for me that way. Often, then I ask them, well, how often do you actually try that out? Well, I don’t because it’s whatever. Like, well, let’s start by actually like giving it a whirl. Let’s start by trusting what God has to say about himself and his word and about his Bible and opening it up and seeing what it says. So ‘long ago’ — he’s reaching into all of history, long ago, at many times in many ways. He’s always been speaking in a variety of ways because God’s actually very interesting. Don’t forget that. But the clearest way in the Old Testament he spoke was through the prophets. Now, when we think of prophets, we often think about future predictions. Now, that’s true, Isaiah 7, Jeremiah 31.

There’s a lot of places in which this future is being spoken of, but the primary job of the prophet, the primary job of the prophet is to speak the truth of God to people, specifically the people of God. And to be frank, with prophets, it’s usually they’re screwing up. This is what God says, and this is what you’re doing. They are different. Remember who God is. Remember who you are. Come back to that which is good. Come back to that which is true. Come back to this God who is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. Come back to this God who redeemed you and your fathers out of Egypt, this good God who cares for you and has your best interest in mind, who loves you and is in relationship with you. But long ago, and many times, in many ways, God spoke to our fathers

by the prophets. This is a big deal. This is most of what scripture is, our prophetic writings, or much of what scripture is. These are prophetic writings, truth writings from the prophets. But listen to this. But, so he’s not denigrating, he’s that, see, that’s great. That’s wonderful. The Old Testament’s great. We should actually spend more time in that first 78% of our Bibles. John teaches a class on Sunday mornings. You should go to it on the Old Testament. It is awesome. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son. So the clearest way that God has spoken to people is in the person of Jesus. Luke 24 tells us that actually that whole thing, that first 78% of our Bible, is all about Jesus. The whole point is Christ, and his coming, and his redemption, and his glory. And if you’re not reading the Old Testament through the lens of Jesus,

you’re not reading it right. You can’t actually understand the Old Testament in its fullness without Jesus, which is the key to unlocking it all, which, of course, is what’s happening in Luke 24, the greatest Bible study of all time. When Jesus sits down with a couple of cats and does that. So as these people are drifting back into saying, well, this Old Covenant, Old Testament stuff is cool, he’s saying, but in these last days, God has spoken to us through his son. And when it says last days, of course, what it means here is this time between when Jesus came and when Jesus returned in these last days. So in this time and in this place in which we live between his coming and his return, God’s not actually going to speak in a clearer way than through Jesus. And we have that captured in his word in the New Testament.

There is clarity here. And God is coming. So if you want to get to know God, you look to Jesus and see who he is and what he has done. You say, I want to know God, get to know Jesus, his son. Look at his life and understand him. He set aside his divine rights and entered into human history. He didn’t have to do it. He did it because of his love. He’s a servant. He’s the one deserving to be served, but he’s the one who comes and lays down his life for many. But not only that, what a good God that he would come and relate to us. This is different than any other God. Any religion that has any semblance of this is borrowing from Christianity. The God of Islam is a far-off God that can’t even be trusted to be true or false.

The God of the Bible is the God who came and walked on this very earth. He actually knows what it’s like to be you. He knows what it’s like to be tempted like you. He knows what it’s like to struggle as a human being, but knowing no sin, fully God and fully human. But not only that, he dies on the cross to make us right with God. You want to know what kind of God we love? This is the kind of God we love. He looked at us in our massive deficiencies and in our sin and lays down his life taking the justice I deserve for all the wrong things I’ve ever done, all the right things I’ve ever done for a wrong reason. For every idol I’ve ever made, he comes and he drinks the cup of wrath I deserve for wrongdoing because he’s a good God who doesn’t sweep anything

under the rug. He dies in my place so I can have life. The gift of Jesus, friends, is life. It’s mercy and it’s grace. I don’t get what I do deserve and I get a bunch of stuff I don’t deserve. My life in God is a gift through Christ. My whole life in being gets to live and emanate the truth of this Jesus. And he gives us life, he raises from the dead. You want to know what kind of God is the God of the Bible? You look to Jesus. And in all this, he reveals what is true. Not what is potentially true, not what is his opinion of the truth, what is truth, by the way. We live in a very interesting time. We’re actually confused what the word truth seems to mean and that truth is not my opinion, truth is truth. Now, with all of these that we look at, we’ll actually see that this is an

antidote, though it’s writing into these Jewish Christians. There’s some antidotes here for our own time and place because we live in a time and a place where we’re saying things like, basically, that morality is to taste. Good, bad, right, wrong, that’s your opinion. You just have to follow your truth. If you said your truth to a human being living in the 1400s, they would say, I don’t, like, I cannot comprehend what you actually mean by your truth and my truth. That’s not how truth works. We’ve actually been lied to that we can be our own prophets of our own lives and our own determiners of truth and that we find that by going inside rather than looking for truth on the outside where truth lives, where things are crunchy and real and can be sensed. We actually need God who is transcendent being, who is above all to be the one that

we’re seeking and in him we find the truth. And I just also say that as people have sought to live in my truth, how we want to say that, frankly, it’s not making anybody better or happier or making the world make any sense. In the laboratory of life, to be frank, it’s not working out. But I think we have an antidote in it when we realize that Jesus is the truth and Jesus shows us the truth and he shows us what is truly true. But not only that, Jesus is the better king. Verse 2b, right in the middle of verse 2 there. So we’ve heard that he is the prophet, he’s the truth-teller. Right in the middle of verse 2, the author switches. Whom he, that’s God the Father, appointed the heir of all things. Jesus is the Messiah who’s in charge of everything. Through coming on that cross, he didn’t just save us from ourselves, which he did.

He defeated Satan and all evil, spiritual, malevolent forces. He defeated sin, he undid the curse, and he did everything that needs to be done to do all the things he promised he was going to do to put the world back the way it’s supposed to be. And because he is the Messiah, when we think about this word Christ, well, first of all, Christ is not an expletive. Second of all, Christ is not his last name, it is his title. Jesus is the king. King Jesus, Christ Jesus, Jesus Christ, Christos, Messiah, God’s king. So in doing what he did, by living this perfect life, by dying on the cross, by saving sinners from death to life, by his grace and mercy, not because of anything we’ve done, but not because of anything we’ve done, but because of everything he’s done, he is the king of everything. He is the rightful heir of all things.

Jesus the Better King

But it’s not just that. Whom he appointed the heir of all things as Messiah, but through whom he, that’s God the Father, also created the world. John 1 tells us that in the beginning was God, and the word was with God, and the word was God, and there was nothing made that was made without the word. So what did God make in Christ? Everything. Can you imagine something? He made that. What’s amazing, it’s even impossible, I think, to imagine nothingness, right? God’s outside of creation. God created absolutely everything, and he did so through Christ. So Jesus has the rights of being king as Messiah, who’s come to liberate, and free, and save. But also he has the rights as king, because he made absolutely everything. So he has rights as Messiah and rights as God. He’s both God and Messiah. But listen to this. He is the radiance of the glory of God.

Now, again, these are Jewish believers, and I believe the thing that would have first come to their mind when we talk about the glory of God, this is the word used for this thing that happens with this amazing tent called the tabernacle. And in this tabernacle sits the Ark of the Covenant, and in the Ark of the Covenant is what’s called the Shekinah Glory, which is a fun word to say. But the Shekinah Glory is this pillar of smoke and fire by day that sits in the middle of God’s people as they’ve been rescued out of Egypt, and God has liberated them. And if you look at Deuteronomy 9 in the last.. Numbers 9 in the last part of that particular chapter, you get this almost boring yet amazing description. And we’re told that when this pillar of smoke by day, fire by night,

the manifest presence of God in the midst of his people, when it moved, they moved. When it moved, they’d break camp. When it stopped, they’d make camp. Sometimes it’d be a day, sometimes it’d be weeks, sometimes it’d be months. But when God moves, they’d move, and God was the center, physically manifest center of everything in their life, and everything in their life was organized around the presence of God among them. That’s amazing. We’re also told that the Holy Spirit dwells inside of us if you’re in Christ. You’ve actually been given the presence of God in a deeper and richer way than even they were. But they would immediately hear this and hear that he, that’s Jesus, is the radiance of the glory of God, and from him and his goodness and his beauty emanates the light of God. In some respects, this is very plain teaching.

And at the same time when I hear that, I wonder why that I don’t spend every breathing moment of my life in pursuit of that, and how much I desire and seek and see it more and more, that reality of Jesus permeating more into my decision-making and my relationships and my friendships and into my family and into this church, because that’s what he’s doing in the world. That is the end of the Great Commission, that the church grows and people live more and more in his likeness, and someday he puts everything back the way it’s supposed to be. He is the radiance of the glory of God, and the author of Hebrews likes a lot of these things. He’s this and this, and the exact imprint of his nature. Jesus is God. If I had a whiteboard, which I don’t think belongs in a Sunday service,

we’ve never had a whiteboard up here, have we, I hope? I say that, I realize, you know when you say something dumb and you realize, like the week before my family got here, they were using whiteboards all the time. You’re like, whoops, oh, well. You could draw a triangle, because here’s the reality. Jesus is God, the Father is God, the Spirit is God. But Jesus is not the Father, the Father is not the Son, and the Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son, but they are one. This is Trinitarian Doctrine 101, but they are so one that the author of Hebrews says, and the exact imprint of his nature. So if they’re saying, you know, I’m just going to kind of be into God as he revealed himself in the Old Testament, he’s like, that God who revealed himself in the Old Testament, by the way, is Jesus, is Jesus in the clearest

revelation of that God. He is the exact imprint of his nature. So I always have to be careful here. So I haven’t seen this movie in a long time, so don’t go and watch it on Netflix or whatever. But if you were a kid like me who grew up in the, you know, late 80s, early 90s, you saw Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves with Kevin Costner like a million times in the theater because that’s what I did. I saw it like a million times for three bucks. I spent a lot of money doing that and getting cheeseburgers with pickles on them at the food court right afterwards. But in that film, someone sends this letter to the king, and she takes a piece of wax, and she melts it on the scroll, and she takes this ring, a signet ring, and presses it into the wax.

Now, this has been used by people for a very, very long time, including in the time that the letter of Hebrews is being written. So if you were to receive a letter with someone’s signet on it, it’s as if they are speaking those words to you themselves. So what he’s saying here is whatever Jesus says, the Father says. And so you better obey him, by the way, people who this letter is receiving. Whatever Jesus says, the Father says. And Jesus has given us his word, and what the word says is what God says. So we submit ourselves to the whole of the scripture. But he’s the exact imprint of his nature. This is who Jesus is. And listen, but he doesn’t stop there. This is like four verses. And he upholds the universe by the word of his power. The blood in all of our veins right now.

The oxygen in this air. The gravity that’s holding us in our seats. The earth spinning on its axis. The temperature of stars we’ve never seen. The ends of this universe. He is actively, this is not a passive act. This is the active act that while, as we heard, I believe it was in our confession, that we have this God who’s interceding for us. This is his power. That means he’s not just interceding for us collectively, but you personally. Right now, as you sit in your seat, Jesus is interceding for you. We’re also told the Spirit’s interceding for us too, which is a whole other thing. That’s a whole other awesome thing. So in his power, he’s able to control the temperature of that star that you’ll never see. Hubble will never get to it in your lifetime. And interceding for you, right now, before the Father.

That, my friends, is a good king. That is a good king. We are told that ultimate freedom in our lives is our own autonomy, is our own decision making. Looking out for number one, doing what Sprite says and obeying our thirst, and pretty much just caring just for me. Now, what’s funny is, on one level as a society, we think this is the best thing possible. Yet, when we actually see anybody live it out in the laboratory of life, we think that is the worst human being who ever lived.

It’s fascinating to me that the ultimate crescendo of the Enlightenment, or thinkers like Nietzsche, is that you just care about you. And at the same time, when anybody actually does that, we say, that is the worst human being I’ve ever met in my entire life. There is something fundamentally broken in that operating system.

But here’s the thing about Jesus. It’s the story the world tells. This is the story of the Bible. This is the story of reality. That there’s a God who made you and everything else and knows how it all works best. And the way that you have your being and live in reality is through a relationship with him and getting outside of yourself into these other things that he has made. And the thing that we actually all have in common as human beings, whether we’re Christians or not, is that we’re made by Jesus and in his image. And the thing we have in common as Christians is that we are enlivened by his spirit together as the people of God, both as individuals but collectively.

And the reality is that real love is not love for oneself. That’s actually hatred of everybody else. That the ultimate picture of love, 1 John tells us, is one who would lay down his life for our friends. And to be honest, I don’t think it actually takes much to convince most humans, certainly across the balance of history, that in fact, the one who is bold enough and brave enough to lay down their life in the service of others is what it really means to be a human. It’s the greatest act of love you see in a human.

So the world tells us your autonomy is where it’s at. But clearly, if this is our king living in the way that he’s lived, it’s where it is, in fact, at. Now, the foundation of these two principles, and what makes these two so powerful, that Jesus is the better prophet, he’s better than all those Old Testament prophets, and Jesus is the better king, he’s better than all those Old Testament kings, certainly better than you are as a king. You know, the author of Hebrews has these Old Testament kings, folks like David and Solomon in mind, which, of course, if you read the Old Testament at all, you’ll find out that most of the kings, though they have some high points, have a number of low points as well. I’m saying that sarcastically, they’re all pretty horrible. But the amazing thing as a foundation of Jesus as our better prophet and Jesus

Jesus the Better Priest

as our better king is Jesus as our better priest. Verse 3b, after making purification for sins, if we are all honest with ourselves, we have hurt other people, we have done wrong in the world, we have done wrong in the world, we’ve even done right things for the wrong reasons. If we’re really honest, we’ve taken things that are created and made them the center of our lives. The most important thing that they could possibly be, and for everybody, that’s going to be something different, but it’s certainly something that pushes us away from the dock, so to speak, as we are paddling away in our little inflatable kayak. That’s sin. Romans 3.23 tells us, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But if we stop there, we miss the whole gospel. That’s not even like the full gospel. Sometimes people love to emphasize how sinful we are.

Yes, I get it. That’s true. We are very sinful apart from Christ. But in Christ, we have both just and justifier. We have this one that’s, as Cosano was mentioning, we’re these chosen people of God. So after making purification for sins, well, whose sins? My sins and your sins. But listen, that word is powerful, purification. That’s why we sing Rock of Ages. He’s cleansed me and made me whole. So in purifying you, you are completely clean. You are completely forgiven. This makes us completely whole. And I think we have something we do wrongly as Christian folks, and I mean this more in a loving way, not a rebuke-y way. But I think often we get this wrong framework in our head where we think that Jesus paid the price for all my sins before I met him, and then after that, it’s up to me.

After that, it’s my job to be a good Christian. It’s my job to try hard. It’s my job to do it right. And I miss that I have this intercessor in Christ. I have this great high priest who’s purified me completely, and I have a new identity in Christ. I’m not the person I once was. I’m now in the process of taking off the old person and putting on the new. I’m actually in the process of living more as the person I already actually am. But listen, so after making purification for sins, he sat down. This is a Hebrew image that if you’re at the gates, for example, and you’re arguing with somebody, because that’s where people argued is the gates, and you make your point, or it’s done, you don’t drop the mic, you sit down, and you say, what? I sat down. Argument’s over.

It’s finished. Jesus, from the cross, said, it is finished. Everything has happened for you who are a sinner to be a saint, to be loved, and forgiven, and accepted, and live new lives in Christ. You are pure. This is not like a blank check to go sin, but it even means in your sin, what he does is he looks at you and sees the completed work of Christ. And that, to me, is motivation to live in that world, and in his beauty, and in his glory. So he sat down, where? At the right hand of the majesty on high. Next to God the Father, he sat down. It is over. The author of Hebrews is going to spend a lot of time kind of pulling out this idea that Jesus is a better high priest. And he said, hey, listen, under the old sacrificial system,

the problem is priests had to make offerings for themselves and for the people because you’re all sinners. And that thing is an act of grace that God said, here’s how you live. And when you don’t live the way I’ve called you to live, here’s how you deal with it. I’ll take this animal in your place, which, by the way, I think is sometimes we don’t read Hebrews all that much because there’s a lot of stuff like that in there. I think if we read our Old Testaments more, we’d be more comfortable with it, but I digress.

So the beautiful thing is that he’s going to say, yeah, that system by which you try harder and then we deal with it, the law made nothing perfect. Or maybe a better way to say it, the law made nothing complete. That system didn’t make it to where you were completely forgiven, but Jesus did. Not only that, we have this high priest who was tempted in every way but knew no sin. We have this high priest who intercedes for us, and we have this high priest that brings us into true beauty and true worship and to joy by purifying us and sitting down at the right hand of the majesty on high. And in being this better prophet and in being this better king and being this better priest, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

So when we think about angels as these beings, that if we saw them, we would bow down and worship because we’d think they were amazing, which we see happening in the Bible. And they usually say, stop that, stop that, stop that, stop that, stop that. You’re going to get you and me in a lot of trouble here. You stand right up. Happens at least a couple of times. But he’s saying that, even that spiritual reality of these spiritual beings, Jesus is above that. Jesus is above everything. He is God, he is outside of everything. And as our priest, he shows us what we ought to actually worship because we live in a time and a place, friends, where the world tells you that the worship of life and what’s important in life and the center of life terminates on you. Worship does not terminate on us, it terminates on God.

We think we are the most important. When we lose sight of Jesus, we think we are the most important thing in all of creation. But when we get outside of ourselves, we realize that I’m very small and my life is very short and it’s built for the joy of Jesus that he’s made for me and I should embrace that gift that he has given me. So, at the end of the day, the world says a lot of things about truth, goodness, and beauty. We are the arbiters of truth, we are the arbiters of goodness and how we ought to live, and we are arbiters of what is beautiful and what is meaningful and what should be the center of our lives. But as we look to Jesus, who is the truth, who tells us the truth, when we look to Jesus, who is the good king, who shows us the good way to live,

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Finding True Freedom

and when we look to Jesus, the true priest, who shows us how we ought to live and worship and what is most beautiful in the world, namely, God, we find freedom. We find liberation. We find meaning. We find joy. If you’re in here today and you are not a Christian, I suspect you are searching for these things. He will always come up short apart from Jesus because he is what is actually true and actually good and actually beautiful. Not only that, he tells us what’s actually true, what’s the good life, and what we are to enjoy and love in the world. And the amazing thing about entering into a relationship with this God is that you don’t leave here and put on your Sunday best, you don’t start trying harder, you don’t find some esoteric wisdom. You come to this God with the empty hands that we all acknowledge we have and say,

Jesus, I need you. I want to know you. And I’d say there’s fewer things you can do than start hanging out with some Christian folks who will tell you about who he is, take one of those Bibles in the seat in front of you. We actually have nicer ones we’ll give you and start reading his Bible. Open up John’s Gospel, start reading it. Get stuck with another Christian who will read it with you. We’d love to help connect you. I’ll be at the back door at the end of service. I’d love to talk to you, answer any questions you have. Friends, if we’re in here today and you’re like, you know what? When I hear you talk about Jesus that way, I am a Christian, I love him. He is the better prophet, priest, and king. He is the better one. He knows how life works best, or what is most true, or what is most beautiful,

or how my life can be permeated with him or synced up with him. But it’s not there right now. I’m not feeling that. Don’t leave here discouraged. Leave here encouraged. Jesus has such a better life for you that begins right now. Jesus wants the reality of the Gospel and his life and his presence in you to permeate every corner of your life. And sometimes that actually means saying, I need some help. Can someone walk with me and help me, help me assess my own life and think about things? Sometimes it means saying, well, you know, I’ll get to reading the Bible next year. Maybe you get to reading the Bible this afternoon. I’ll get more plugged in at church next year. Maybe this week. But he’s inviting you in. The water is warm. There’s great joy here. He saved you for more than what you’re living for if you’re not living for this.

And you can have it right now. And if you’re in here today and it’s happening, right? The reality of Christ is permeating more and more into your lives. You can see that you’re a different person than you were when you got saved, and you see how God is wearing off those edges. And you can see where you’re just sort of opting out for the story of the world, or the rhythms of the world, or the work life of the world, or wherever the world is telling us we ought to be, or should be, or whatever. Well, one, I’d say, that’s awesome. Keep going, because we’re never perfect in this world, of course. But I’d also say, help other people to understand these different Jesus-centered rhythms and what it means for that to happen. Give of yourself to help other people and invite other people into that life and

lifestyle where Jesus is at the center of everything. And this is yours in Christ Jesus, friends. The author of Philippians tells us, have this mind among yourself that is what? It is yours in Christ Jesus. He’s not hiding it from you. He wants it for you today. Let’s pray. King Jesus, you are a good God. You are a good king. You are a good prophet. You are a good priest. You’re not just a good prophet, priest, and king. You are the best. You’re the only. And so I pray for us, Lord, that your truth, your word, your proclamation would just permeate every corner of our life. It would impact our calendars, and our budgets, and what we do, and what we do with ourselves. Lord, you’ve shown us the good life. You are a good king. You’ve given us a good life, and I pray we would trust your scripture.

Your scripture has told us what it looks like to live in you, to be content with what we have, and to be generous with others, and to love the church, and to love the people of God, and to have a 24-7 life in Christ. And you’re a good priest, Jesus. You’ve made us yours. You’ve forgiven us for our sins. You’ve set us free. So, Lord, we just thank you, God, and pray these things for your glory, and for our joy, in your name, Jesus Christ. Amen.