Better Promise (Part A)

Again, we have to point out there are sins of weakness. We know our wrong. We fight them.

We hate them. Then there are the sins that we yield to that we could have beaten and we opted not to. Be careful. Don't train yourself to be a fako in the faith.

It's not necessary and it's not better. They're just basic things that we have to do as Christians and among them is one, not be ashamed of the Lord. I'm not ashamed of Him in the face of those who want me to be ashamed of Him. Our response ought to be, you mean you're not a servant of Christ? This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Hebrews.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the book of Hebrews Chapter 8 as he begins a brand new message called, A Better Promise. Hebrews Chapter 8, we'll take verses 1 through 6 and while you are turning there, I'll pause for a moment. Beginning at verse 1, Hebrews 8.

Now, this is the main point of the things we're saying. We have such a high priest who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens, a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle which the Lord erected, not man. For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices, therefore it is necessary that this one also have something to offer. For if he were on earth, he would not be a priest, since there are priests who offer the gifts according to the law, who serve the copy and shadow of the heavenly things as Moses was divinely instructed when he was about to make the tabernacle. For he said, see that you make all things according to the pattern shown you on the mountain. But now he has obtained a more excellent ministry in as much as he is also mediator of a better covenant which was established on better promises.

Better promise, that is what we are going to emphasize this morning. What should have been a wonderful transition from Judaism to Christ came a contested battle zone. Remember now the Hebrews he is writing, he is writing to Jews, and Jews who are Christians, and in that number are those that are either flirting with the idea of going back to Judaism or merging its practices into Christianity or just abandoning Christianity altogether and going back. And he is appealing to them to not make this mistake, that this will indeed damn their souls. And so again it should have been a wonderful joyful thing as it was for many of the Jews who had recognized that Jesus indeed is the Messiah.

And so the writer is working as hard as he knows how to keep them from making this fatal error. Now the second thoughts that many had, they weren't ready to let Judaism fade away. They wanted a religion they could touch, not so much one by faith, which incidentally was supposed to be what separated the people of God from all the fake religions in the world. All the fake religions had their little figurines, their little idols, their little statues of things that they could touch and hold. But the Jews weren't supposed to have any of those images. They were supposed to come to the temple and worship through faith, believing in the invisible yet present God. The Mosaic priesthood had brought them the Messiah, but now they're questioning it all, all of it.

Just like their ancestors before them in the wilderness, they wanted to go back to bondage. Paul, when he wrote his letter to the Galatians, was dealt with much of the same thing. He was writing to Jewish or to Christians, and many of them Jews, who again, looking to go back to Judaism or mix it into Christianity. And he wrote the Galatian letter to say, who's bewitched you like this? Who's put this spell on you? He wrote in that letter, he says, but now after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements to which you desire again to be in bondage? How is that?

Well, I'll tell you. Instigators, there were instigators present. There were those that were stirring up the flock. There were those that did not love Jesus Christ, did not understand what the cross of Christ meant, did not understand where he came from. And they did not like that their brethren were following Christ, so they began to infiltrate the church, or catch them at home, or in the marketplace, or at the workplace, wherever they could, to sway them back to that which they were freed from. Paul again writes about that, not only to the Galatians, we'll take one out of the Galatians, one out of Philippians, but he deals with it in several places. And he says in Galatians 2, and this occurred, these issues, because of false brethren secretly brought in, who came in by stealth to spy out our liberty, which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage. So they were sneaking into the churches. They didn't like the liberty that the Christians had, that Christianity offers. And he had, Paul's ministry was plagued by this throughout his life. One of the disappointing things about serving the Lord in this life is you often have to deal with the same problems, the same troublemakers, the same lies, the same resistance, over and over again, coming from different people, or the same throughout life.

It's how it is. To the Philippians, he said, beware of dogs. Beware of evil workers. Beware of the mutilation. He was attacking those who were attacking the Christians. He was saying, well, you've got to be circumcised if you're going to benefit from Christ's cross. And Paul said, nonsense. That's the mutilation.

And the Greek is much stronger than what I'm using at the moment. But he wrote to those Christians, he says, watch out for these dogs. They're going to come into the flock, and they're going to try to destroy your faith.

And if you let them, then you will suffer consequence. So this is what, again, the Hebrew letter is about. The Jewish system was supposed to fade away.

That was God's plan. Just like the moon, the moonlight, it fades away. It yields to the rising sun, the source of life, the sun is. The greater light, the moon has no light of its own. It reflects the light of the sun. Well, Judaism is that kind of a picture.

It should have just faded away and let the sun rise and do what it was supposed to do. And so with that in mind, we go back. And again, almost every session we have, we will again cover what this Hebrew letter is all about. Because in some form, it is even practiced to this day by Christians who try to drag Christians into Old Testament ritual and law that Jesus did not put on them.

You've got to do this, and you have to do that. Well, where does Christ tell me I have to do that? They'll go back to the Old Testament, and they'll drag something out, and they'll say, see, and you're supposed to say that's Old Testament. That's not new.

Tell me where it's at in the new. It does not belittle the Old Testament. It organizes the Bible.

It keeps the word of God solid to its development according to its prophecies. When Jesus said, I did not come to destroy it, but to fulfill it, to develop it. And so now we look at the first verse.

Now this is the main point of the things we are saying. We have such a high priest who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens. Well, he's saying Christ is superior.

He's been saying that from the very beginning. Look with me at verse 19 of Hebrews 7, the prior chapter. Verse 19, the law made nothing perfect. On the other hand, there is the bringing in of a better hope through which we draw near to God. Well, if you just look at that verse, you don't know what that better hope is, but if you read that entire chapter and you understand he's talking about Jesus Christ, he made it very clear to them. Verse 28 of Hebrews 7, for the law appoints high priest, men who have weaknesses, but the word of the oath, that is the prophecies of the Lord concerning Messiah, which came after the law, appoints the son who has been perfected forever. So he's saying the main point is Jesus Christ.

He's superior to everything. And he's continuing to develop this in this chapter. Look at verse 6 of Hebrews 8, but now he has obtained a more excellent ministry and as much as he is also a mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises. The whole thing that God is doing through Messiah, the Messiah that you longed for, that you wanted to come, well he's come and he's done it all.

We just now have to work it out, live through it, practice it. You Christians, you young ones especially, you hear the word preached and you've got to go out and do it in the face of all the temptations that will come against you. Temptations to not do this and to do that.

Temptations to do that and not do this. You're supposed to be wisest to the serpent and harmless as a dove. You're supposed to know what Jesus expects of you and to pursue it. Or you're just playing a game. You come here and you sit down and you act all holy, but you're a chameleon.

You take on whatever color is in back of you. If you're out with friends who don't love Christ, you'll act like them. If you're around those who do love Christ, you'll act like them. And you think this is okay, this is acceptable and it's not limited to our teens. It's not limited to our youth.

That is a sin and trap temptation for everyone. We have to be as Christ wants us to be. We have to blend with him all the time. Because when he says I'll never leave you nor forsake you, he means it.

He's always there. Now again, we have to point out there are sins of weakness. We know are wrong, we fight them, we hate them. And then there are the sins that we yield to that we could have beaten and we opted not to. Be careful. Don't train yourself to be a faco in the faith. It's not necessary.

And it's not better. They're just basic things that we have to do as Christians. And among them is one, not be ashamed of the Lord. I'm not ashamed of him in the face of those who want me to be ashamed of him. Our response ought to be, you mean you're not a servant of Christ? You're the one that needs to be ashamed, not me. I know where I'm going.

Now I know that might hurt your feelings and then you might want to hurt my body for it. But that's how it is. Well, we continue in verse one. He says, we have such a high priest who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens. So now we get a look into the throne room of God. It is unlike any other throne room because it is also a sanctuary. It is not just a king's court where he is totally in authority, which he is, but there's more to it than that. It is the holiest place of all.

Ezekiel got glimpses of it with a wheel within a wheel and the creatures and all of this glory flying around it. Our Lord Jesus, he approached the highest loftiest throne in the universe. Now, if you serve a monarch, if you serve a king and you go into that king or queen's throne room, you are to bow until they tell you you can stand up. But instead of kneeling before the throne, Jesus, when he enters the throne room, instead of kneeling before the throne, he sits on the throne. He is Lord God Almighty.

There is the Father, there is the Son, and there is the Holy Spirit. He is at God's right hand as an equal. This is what the scriptures teach.

It is beautiful. There are many of those who are damning their own souls, trying to make it not be so. But it's inescapable, especially we going, you who have been here through verse by verse, how many times have we come across verses that make it no contest that Christ is not only Lord, but he is creator, he is God.

The Bible says nothing was created that is created except through him. Well, he sits upon this throne as the Son of God. But who would care to represent sinners in heaven? Well, who would take that on? You would think in a holy place, in the holiest of holy places, the response would be, they're not holy, they're filthy. I don't want to be bothered with them.

Let them get what they deserved. No one put a gun to their head and made them sin. You would think that would be the natural reaction. Thank God how Lord is not natural, he is spiritual, natural in the terms of creation. Of course, to God, his ways are natural to him. Who would dare die for sinners? Who would be good enough to make it matter to a sinner? You see, you can die for someone, but you're not clean enough to take away their sins through your death. You need a savior too, so that won't work. Who would love sinners while doing it? I mean, you can say, well, you know, I don't love them, but I care for them, they're helpless and I have compassion on them and I'll help.

We do that with each other, with people, but to love, to actually love them, to want them, to long for them. This is Christ. How else would God the Father reveal this?

Well, I don't know, but I know how he has revealed it through Christ. I look at him, I see God. I see the compassion of Jesus with sinners. I see him with the woman who was caught in adultery.

Woman, where are your accusers? I see him talking to me that way. I see him say, go, sin no more. I see him say to me, where did you doubt? I see him say, your faith has made you whole.

Not the name it, claim it, prosperity movement. Your faith has no power. It's your belief in Christ that he accepts. And without that, without faith, it's impossible to please God.

But your faith is not some sort of a spiritual hand grenade that goes boom when you throw it. Because you can have the faith of any of the apostles and not be able to stop the lions from eating you if that's what God has ordained. With Daniel, he did not allow it. But with Stephen, did not Herod's sword kill him? Not Stephen, James.

Stephen died through the stones. So my point is, I just want to make sure we're clear on this. It's not your faith in your faith. It's the one whom you're trusting that has the power. He is the almighty one.

We are not. And so this Jesus, the king who loves, the high priest who serves on our behalf. Who would want anything less? Who would want anything else? Many do.

Somehow, most refuse him. Because there's an instigator at work. It is Satan, yes.

It is the world's influence. That is, those who come together without Christ to do whatever they want to do for themselves. And then there is the fallen nature. These three are hard at work to keep us away from Christ whenever they can. In verse 2, it says that he is a minister of the sanctuary, of the true tabernacle, which the Lord erected not man. That Greek word there for minister, the second word of verse 2, he says, a minister. That's not the standard Greek word for minister. For those of you who don't know, the New Testaments were written in Greek, a very rich language. They have multiple words for love, for example. We really have one word, love.

Well, we can use other words to cherish and adore, but they're just a little bit more rich, I think, in their expression. So when they talk about a servant, there's one that is a slave, whether willful or forced. There is one that is sent on an errand. So slave, a doulos, or a diakonos, where we get our word deacon, that is one that is sent on an errand. When Phoebe was sent to Rome with the letter of Paul in her hand, she was acting as a deaconess, as a servant. Don't think in your heads deacons are just the ones that seat you in the spews on a Sunday morning. Those are servants.

They are ushers. But anybody who serves is acting as a diakonos, in the Greek, a deacon, a servant, in that sense. But here, lutorgos is the Greek word. And that is more of a public servant, but we look at, to get the idea of what is being said, we look at how the word is used by the writers in Scripture. Say Paul, for example. He uses this word as a public servant in his temple duties. Romans 15, 16, I'll read it to you. That I might be a minister of Jesus Christ, is that word, lutorgos.

That I might be a minister, a public servant of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles. Then he says ministering a different Greek word. That is the temple attendant, the gospel of God, that the offering of the Gentiles might be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

So Paul teaches us about this word. He says, I want to be someone who is used by God to reach the lost with the message of salvation. I am a servant of Jesus Christ in this way.

I am a temple servant in this way. And so when the writer here in Hebrews 8 uses the word, he says Christ is our public servant ministering in the greatest temple of all. And that's why he says a minister of the sanctuary. So he's not ministering just to minister. He has a goal in mind.

He has people in mind. It's us. It's sinners. People who are not worthy. We have someone in heaven looking out for us who are not worthy.

We who are not worthy. But he is. And so he reigns as king, yet he serves as high priest. Now again, when you think of high priest, you can't think of the Inca high priest, the Roman Catholic high priest, or the Episcopalian, or any other people on earth. The closest you can get are the Jewish high priest.

And he exceeds even that. And that's what he's trying to tell these people who want to go back to Judaism. Wait, you've got a high priest. Better than anything you'll find downtown Jerusalem. You have king of kings in the holiest place ever. Now he mentions the sanctuary. That is the holiest of all. Place of divine majesty. Place of divine ministry.

Those two go together. Ministry and majesty. You have a king serving you.

It's not some, just common reason. So when we sing about Jesus Christ, we move into a whole other level of expression and thought and experience than singing about anything else on earth. This is the name of Jesus Christ.

At that name, every knee will bow, every tongue will confess. The sanctuary was woven into the minds of the Jews even, that this was God's safe zone. Jeremiah 1712, a glorious high throne. From the beginning is the place of our sanctuary. God's throne room is God's church in heaven where he presides.

Because he is the king priest, his throne room is also the place of worship. It is a reality. That's what he's trying to say.

Here's my main point. This is the real story. Eternity is more real than the present because it goes on forever. And it goes on forever in the presence of God. So sanctuary is the place of refuge, spiritual refuge, holiness. Why were the saints burned at the stake singing hymns to God because they were in the spiritual sanctuary while their physical bodies were being destroyed? It is the place of holiness.

There's no place like it on earth. It is the place where we go away from the ideas of sin and its curse and unholiness, spiritual power and safety and peace because of the presence of this high king who ministers to us when the Holy Spirit makes his presence known. Now if you're going to mature in Christ, you've got to have personal experiences with him. He's got to speak to you. You've got to feel him. But then you also have to have times when you can't find him. That is when you are living the life of the matured saint by faith. Now it won't always stay that way, but he will let you get to those places to prove your faith to yourself. Not to him.

He knows everything. We need to go through that. We need to say, Lord, I hate what is going on, but I'm still here.

I'm still loving you. I don't like it. Paul said we are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed, perplexed, not in despair, persecuted, not forsaken, struck down, not destroyed, always caring about the sufferings of Christ. We go through all this junk and we're not going away from Christ.

And it rocks the house of hell when Christians perform that way. We can't do it on our own. We can want to do it on our own. Christ filling in the rest, giving us the strength. So we become a royal priesthood under this high priest to serve sinners by serving them God's plan of salvation. That's how we become the togas, ministers, public ministers. We serve them the plan of salvation.

That's not all of the story, but that is a lot of it. He says the true tabernacle. Now he's talking about the one in heaven. It's not a real building like the one on earth. Those who worship God must worship him in spirit and in truth, but it's emblems, it's meanings.

They are the reality behind anything physical. Let me see if I can open that up a little bit more for us all. The true tabernacle, the place built by God where God meets man. There Christ is to intercede above creation because he is the creator of creation. Not one of the angels is doing this.

Now maybe I'm speaking and there's someone who doesn't have heat that can hear me. A relationship with Christ. She was never opened up your heart and said, I am a sinner. I have broken your law. That makes me an outlaw to heaven and I am worthy of your judgment, which is eternal death for the sinner. Unless that sinner repents and that's that sinner comes to God and says, I broke your law. I asked you to forgive me.

There is no one else who can forgive me and make me right with you except you and I'm asking for that. If you do not yield to God in that way, then there is also a throne for you, but it is not a sanctuary. It is a great throne.

It is white and glory shine. You've been listening to Cross Reference Radio, the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia. As we mentioned at the beginning of today's broadcast, today's teaching is available free of charge at our website. Simply log on to crossreferenceradio.com. That's crossreferenceradio.com. We'd also like to encourage you to subscribe to the Cross Reference Radio podcast. Subscribing ensures that you stay current with all the latest teachings from Pastor Rick. You can subscribe at crossreferenceradio.com or simply search for Cross Reference Radio in your favorite podcast app. Tune in next time as Pastor Rick continues teaching through the book of Hebrews right here on Cross Reference Radio.