Speaker 1: Hello everyone.
Speaker 1: This is Pastor Damien.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, orlando.
Speaker 1: At New City, we believe all of us need all of Jesus for all of life.
Speaker 1: For more resources, visit our website at newcityorlandocom.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: By your Spirit's power, give us eyes to see his glory.
Speaker 1: Through Christ, we pray Amen From Hebrews 3, verses 1 through 6.
Speaker 1: Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus the apostle and high priest of our confession, who was faithful to him?
Speaker 1: Who appointed him?
Speaker 1: Just as Moses who was faithful to him.
Speaker 1: Who appointed him?
Speaker 1: Just as Moses, who was faithful to all God's house.
Speaker 1: For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself, for every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.
Speaker 1: Now, moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant to testify to the things that were to be spoken later.
Speaker 1: But Christ is faithful over God's house as a son, and we are his house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting and hope.
Speaker 1: This is God's word.
Speaker 1: Thanks be to God.
Speaker 1: Please be seated.
Speaker 1: This is God's word.
Speaker 1: Thanks be to.
Speaker 2: God, please be seated.
Speaker 2: The hardest part is over for me, coming up here with my whole family, all three kids, one trying to like, grab my mic and get down, the whole time worried I might drop somebody's baby.
Speaker 2: The hardest part is over, but so grateful to God that I get to participate in that way.
Speaker 2: I want you guys to imagine you jump from a boat into the sea with nothing but a swimsuit, maybe a wetsuit, and fins.
Speaker 2: You have a team of people in the boat and one trusted person in the water ready to help you if you need it, and you will need it.
Speaker 2: However, they aren't coming with you.
Speaker 2: Where you're going, you take a deep breath and start swimming down, down and down, occasionally pulling yourself by a rope anchored to the sea floor hundreds of feet below.
Speaker 2: As you glide and fin downward, all of your movements are intentional in order to maximize speed and minimize energy and drag.
Speaker 2: You're slowly running out of air, but you keep plunging down.
Speaker 2: Eventually, the pressure outside increases so that your buoyancy decreases and, instead of naturally floating when you stop, gravity propels you downward toward the seafloor.
Speaker 2: Now you keep a hand on the line, keeping you from becoming hopelessly lost.
Speaker 2: Fear momentarily grips your heart, but you remember your training, push past the mental barrier and keep going.
Speaker 2: You finally get to the bottom, but your lungs are screaming.
Speaker 2: Yet returning to the surface too fast could cause potentially deadly decompression sickness.
Speaker 2: As you finally near the surface, you actually begin to black out your lungs screaming for air.
Speaker 2: Luckily, your spotter knows your limits and has been timing you and was already looking for you to pull you up to the surface.
Speaker 2: His hands and others grab you and somehow bring you back, you awake, to their anxious but friendly faces that are grateful to see you.
Speaker 2: What I just described is the terrifying sport of freediving, in which a diver will swim hundreds of feet down without the use of breathing equipment.
Speaker 2: One of the fascinating things about freediving is that, as buoyancy decreases and pressure increases, you actually begin to move faster downward.
Speaker 2: You'll notice that if you're swimming in a pool or in the ocean and you pause, you either stay floating there or you'll float to the surface, but you actually begin to move faster in what they call a freefall towards the ocean floor.
Speaker 2: It is terrifying.
Speaker 2: I don't know how people do this.
Speaker 2: So, while most of us will never become freedivers, we have all experienced times in our lives when moving forward feels like plummeting downward under pressure and into darkness.
Speaker 2: In moments, like any free diver, fear grips us.
Speaker 2: Fear is an indicator of the lies pulling us down In our lives.
Speaker 2: Fear acts like gravity does on a free diver, pulling us downward towards a free fall into darkness.
Speaker 2: Fear pulls us away from freedom, family and future, and towards enslavement, isolation and hopelessness.
Speaker 2: However a smart freediver, they hold on to their drop line.
Speaker 2: They depend on a team of people who are ready to help them when they need it and they focus on where they are going.
Speaker 2: Likewise, we must hold fast to Jesus, what he's done for us, and actively.
Speaker 2: Last week, ben gave us a summary of Hebrews, a three-word summary, that Jesus is over everything.
Speaker 2: He talked about the four-fold story God made it all, we lost it all.
Speaker 2: Jesus paid it all and we got it all.
Speaker 2: And this week we're taking what we learned in Hebrews 2 and seeing it applied and the implications of it in Hebrews, chapter 3.
Speaker 2: So my first point today is that Jesus gives you freedom.
Speaker 2: Let's go ahead and look at the passage.
Speaker 2: It's chapter 3, verse 1 of Hebrews and really we're just going to look at the first word, chapter 3, verse 1.
Speaker 2: Therefore, holy brothers, therefore invites us, the author is inviting us to look back on what we just learned about the gospel in chapter 2 and then draw out its implications for chapter 3.
Speaker 2: And so, like a free diver, gravity pulls us down and fear bubbles up.
Speaker 2: We need to remember what we know and apply it.
Speaker 2: And so how does fear show up?
Speaker 2: Well, in chapter 2, verse 15, we see that fear enslaves us.
Speaker 2: It says in 2.15, and Jesus delivered all those who, through fear of death, were subject to lifelong slavery.
Speaker 2: So when you're overwhelmed, in pain or scared in this life, how do you respond?
Speaker 2: Is it anxiety that bubbles up?
Speaker 2: Do you tend to retreat from God, community and others?
Speaker 2: Do you become depressed and worry about the future?
Speaker 2: Do you tend to retreat from God, community and others?
Speaker 2: Do you become depressed and worry about the future?
Speaker 2: Do you work hard to make sure that everything will turn out right and okay?
Speaker 2: Whatever our response is, oftentimes it's unintentional.
Speaker 2: We're enslaved to the fear and to the anxiety that just drives us a certain direction and to respond a certain way.
Speaker 2: John Mayer, the well-known blues guitarist and vocalist, has a song called Gravity.
Speaker 2: Gravity, john Mayer says, is working against me.
Speaker 2: Gravity wants to bring me down.
Speaker 2: The song resonates with so many because fear and the lies it indicates is common to the whole human experience.
Speaker 2: Fear pulls us down mentally, emotionally and spiritually into slavery, to lies and to Satan, and so we all want freedom from fear.
Speaker 2: We want freedom from and to the life that God has for us.
Speaker 2: Freedom from fear and to the life that God has for us.
Speaker 2: But what does that look like?
Speaker 2: Earlier this year, I went on a retreat with a couple guys and I think it was the St John's River.
Speaker 2: I don't really swim in Florida lakes and rivers.
Speaker 2: There's alligators, there's snakes, there's amoebas.
Speaker 2: It's a scary place.
Speaker 2: I have a swimming pool.
Speaker 2: I go to the beach, you know, I'd rather take sharks over those things and you can see in the water.
Speaker 2: Anyway, however, we were kayaking in the river and we came to an island, and on the island it had this big tree that overhung over the river and there's a rope swing and one of my friends, he, decides to climb up to the top and jump off of the tree, and I watched him do it and I was like, wow, that just looks so freeing.
Speaker 2: And so I climbed up to the top of the tree and I looked down.
Speaker 2: It's like 15 or 20 feet in the water.
Speaker 2: Of course I can't see anything in the water.
Speaker 2: Could be a gator with his mouth open, could be amoebas ready to enter into my ear and get into my brain, who knows.
Speaker 2: But as I stood there, I was rooted to that tree by fear.
Speaker 2: Fear really kept hold of my legs.
Speaker 2: I mean look down and think about all the things that could happen.
Speaker 2: And then I just had this thought you know, like God has me, he's holding me in his hands.
Speaker 2: I want to experience the freedom that my friend felt when he jumped into the river.
Speaker 2: So I jumped and it was exhilarating.
Speaker 2: It was fun, it was enjoyable.
Speaker 2: It was freezing cold when I hit the water, but it was fun.
Speaker 2: And now I'm not saying that you should just go and jump into lakes and rivers wherever you want because Jesus is your God, wherever you want because Jesus is your God.
Speaker 2: But that sensation of that freedom from fear, that jumping, that risk-taking into freedom, is what I was trying to pull out of that we have freedom from shame when we fail, freedom to ask for help when we need it.
Speaker 2: Freedom from lies that tell us that we're not good enough.
Speaker 2: Freedom to risks towards things, the good things that God has for us.
Speaker 2: That is the freedom we want, we all want to feel.
Speaker 2: So the therefore in verse 1 is how we get from fear to freedom.
Speaker 2: So this word is inviting to look back, as I mentioned, to give instruction about what we do with these truths.
Speaker 2: And so we know these truths in chapter 2.
Speaker 2: We know what Jesus has done for us, that he's delivered us from the fear of death and lifelong slavery, that he is sanctifying us, that he's a merciful and faithful high priest, and so why do we need to apply them?
Speaker 2: Isn't it enough just to know and decide to follow Jesus?
Speaker 2: John Owen takes mention of this, therefore, and he says John Owen takes mention of this, therefore, and he says His gospel truths are medicina, anime, physic for the sin-sick soul.
Speaker 2: Now he says of what use is it to get a store of medicines and cordials and never to take them?
Speaker 2: No more is it to collect, at any price or rate, sermons, doctrines, instructions, if we apply them, not that we may have their efficacy in us and proper work toward us.
Speaker 2: He goes on talking about the Israelites in Egypt.
Speaker 2: He said and precious, but when they laid it up by them, it bred worms and stank.
Speaker 2: When God scatters truths among men, if they gather them to eat and they are bred from heaven angels food.
Speaker 2: But if they do not only do it, only to lay them by them in their books or in the notions of their mind, they will breed the worms of pride and hypocrisy and make them an offensive savor unto God.
Speaker 2: So Owen says it's not only useless if we learn the truths of the gospel and fail to apply them, but it actually even does worse it breeds hypocrisy, it hardens our hearts, it makes us feel like we know the Lord when truly we aren't experiencing the freedom and the life that he has for us.
Speaker 2: The author of the book of James knows this well.
Speaker 2: He says in chapter 1, verse 22, be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving yourselves.
Speaker 2: For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror, for he looks at himself and goes away at once and forgets what he was like.
Speaker 2: But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing so.
Speaker 2: We don't want to just go to the doctor to fill a prescription and never use it.
Speaker 2: We don't want to buy all the food for a feast and never eat it.
Speaker 2: We want to listen and hear the word and experience it in our lives so that we can experience God's blessing and generosity to us in the midst of it.
Speaker 2: And so he says, moving on in chapter 3, verse 1,.
Speaker 2: And so he says, moving on in chapter 3, verse 1, that consider Jesus is an invitation to how we apply these truths.
Speaker 2: That word consider means to notice, to observe, to contemplate, to think carefully.
Speaker 2: I wonder what it is that you and that we notice and observe.
Speaker 2: What do we contemplate on?
Speaker 2: What are we always thinking about in our minds?
Speaker 2: In Exodus 33, 8, that same word is used, but in the Hebrew.
Speaker 2: It's the Hebrew-aligned word.
Speaker 2: And what's happening is that all of Israel in that moment is watching Moses to go into the tent to meet with the Lord, where the Lord would speak to him face to face.
Speaker 2: All of God's people would watch Moses go into the tent because they knew that God was there meeting with him.
Speaker 2: They knew that he was interceding for him, they knew that he was receiving instruction for the Lord and they would just stand outside and worship the Lord as he was there, so attentive they were to what God was doing through their mediator, moses.
Speaker 2: And so the author, who is comparing Jesus to Moses, was very well aware of that connection, and so he too is inviting us to attentively watch Jesus, who, he says in chapter 6, enters into the inner place behind the curtain.
Speaker 2: A forerunner on our behalf.
Speaker 2: Place behind the curtain.
Speaker 2: A forerunner on our behalf, hughes, in his commentary, says consider expresses attention and continuous observation and regard, and is applied in desire, concentration, discipline and time, and I would add, those need to be done all together.
Speaker 2: As we together watch Jesus, we are invited into what he's doing.
Speaker 2: A brilliant mathematician, norbert Wiener, shows us this.
Speaker 2: When he was walking across the campus of MIT, he was so absorbed in thought that when a student greeted him, he failed to respond.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I become so absorbed in thought that I fail to respond when my wife or my children talk to me, and I always regret that.
Speaker 2: But this MIT professor continues.
Speaker 2: But after a few steps he turned and said, looking at the student pardon me, could you tell me which way I came from?
Speaker 2: The student pointed and answered that way, sir.
Speaker 2: He said thanks, now I know that I've had lunch.
Speaker 2: This is extreme, to be sure.
Speaker 2: Right, most of us remember whether or not we've eaten lunch, although sometimes we forget.
Speaker 2: But no one's thoughts can be said to be fixed without concentration.
Speaker 2: So hard was he focusing on what he was thinking about that everything else fell to the wayside.
Speaker 2: No one will ever learn anything about the subject being considered without that focus and concentration.
Speaker 2: Isaac Newton said the key to his understanding was I keep it before me.
Speaker 2: Concentration, of course, requires discipline, like an athlete.
Speaker 2: Hebrews chapter 12 says.
Speaker 2: Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.
Speaker 2: So we see here that the writer of Hebrews is inviting us to be attentive together to Jesus.
Speaker 2: We need to fix our eyes on the person of Jesus, who is our merciful and faithful high priest.
Speaker 2: I spoke with a friend in our congregation through text.
Speaker 2: I asked him a few questions to see how he experiences Jesus in day-to-day life.
Speaker 2: I spoke with a friend in our congregation through text.
Speaker 2: I asked him a few questions to see how he experiences Jesus in day-to-day life.
Speaker 2: I spoke with a few people and one of them said when I am not experiencing Jesus, it's because I prioritize my list of tasks and feel overwhelmed when I can't accomplish them in my timeline.
Speaker 2: It's when something goes wrong and I lose my ability to control a situation.
Speaker 2: It's when I see or experience something ugly in the world and take on cynicism.
Speaker 2: It's when I think I look bad in others' eyes.
Speaker 2: Basically, it's when I've lost sight of the redemptive hope Jesus offers me and hold too tightly to my plans and expectations.
Speaker 2: In those times I isolate myself and try to handle that burden alone.
Speaker 2: So we see that fear and the brokenness in the world.
Speaker 2: They pull us away from Jesus, away from the freedom that he offers us and this gravity.
Speaker 2: It's the inertia of our flesh to naturally fall in that direction.
Speaker 2: But on the contrary, he says, for me, experiencing Jesus means I have to start my day remembering who he is.
Speaker 2: My faith in an unseen God has to be rooted in what I know.
Speaker 2: And he goes on.
Speaker 2: Just like when I listen and respond to a friend or my wife, I believe I am drawn closer to Jesus in meditating on his words and when I take action on them.
Speaker 2: It's the.
Speaker 2: Therefore, it's when we look back at what we know about who Jesus is and when we look up to him in the present, in prayer, and we look forward in obeying his words to us in all that we do in our lives, that enables us to experience the freedom that he has for us day in and day out.
Speaker 2: My second point is not only does he offer us freedom, but he gives us a family.
Speaker 2: We don't go alone in this journey.
Speaker 2: So notice our preacher isn't giving us instructions for individuals, for self-betterment this isn't a self-help book but he's giving instruction to a family for their collective perseverance in faith.
Speaker 2: So he says holy brothers who share in a heavenly calling.
Speaker 2: He talks about our confession.
Speaker 2: He says we are his house if we hold fast.
Speaker 2: Later, in chapter 3, he says that we are called to exhort one another to avoid a hardened heart so that we may share in Christ.
Speaker 2: And chapter 4, he says those who fall because of unbelief do so because they were not united in faith with those who listened.
Speaker 2: So we see all of these terms are familial, collective and committed.
Speaker 2: His point is that we succeed and fail in this journey together.
Speaker 2: I'll say that again we succeed or fail in this journey together.
Speaker 2: That plural form of share, metochoi, occurs in chapter 314, sharers in Christ and 6-4, sharers in the Holy Spirit, as a technical term for those who have responded to God's call for salvation.
Speaker 2: This isn't a collection of individuals, but a community called into the presence of God to enjoy privileged access to him.
Speaker 2: We are together, those who are being led to enjoy the glory of God's presence.
Speaker 2: However, I'm sure we all have experienced this we often retreat when we feel sad and dejected, fearful, anxious, exhausted and defeated.
Speaker 2: We might retreat from God, we might retreat from others, yet this is to have medicine and not to use it.
Speaker 2: This is to eat and store up rather than to consume, for our benefit Rather than helpful.
Speaker 2: To the contrary, knowing the blessings of God and communing with him and community with the body and failing to make use of them leads to a hardened heart, because we are commanded to love God with all of our hearts, souls and strength, and commanded to love one another, as Christ has loved us, but our flesh naturally pulls us away from that.
Speaker 2: I know that when I've had a really hard day, my temptation is to go straight to ESPN right, it's to go.
Speaker 2: Straight to Netflix, it's to go straight to the box of cheese that's in our cupboard, which we don't have anymore.
Speaker 2: Because that's what I do, right?
Speaker 2: My flesh naturally wants to pull me towards sin.
Speaker 2: Fear pulls me towards idols.
Speaker 2: It pulls me towards lies that these things will satisfy.
Speaker 2: You don't need to go to your brothers in Christ.
Speaker 2: You don't need to tell them about the sin that happened today.
Speaker 2: That's hard, that's vulnerable, that's difficult, it's awkward.
Speaker 2: And yet there is where Jesus invites us to persevere in faith together, in John 13, jesus, who is about to endure betrayal, suffering and death.
Speaker 2: He stops to wash the disciples' feet.
Speaker 2: He commands them to do the same, giving them the command to love one another as he has loved them.
Speaker 2: If you know these things, he says, blessed are you if you do them.
Speaker 2: When we are going through fear, suffering, pain, exhaustion you name it.
Speaker 2: It's tempting to pull away.
Speaker 2: It's awkward, vulnerable and difficult to share that with others.
Speaker 2: That's true.
Speaker 2: That's completely understandable.
Speaker 2: Even Peter himself felt really awkward about Jesus washing his feet, so vulnerable was that act of being loved by Jesus.
Speaker 2: And yet Jesus commands us to love others as he has loved us.
Speaker 2: We've talked about, I think, redwoods from up front before, but mangrove trees is what I want to talk about today.
Speaker 2: For the true Floridians here who know what mangrove trees are, mangrove trees are really cool because they get.
Speaker 2: Those are those trees you see on the coastline that are like, have those like spider-like roots that go into the ground.
Speaker 2: And so mangrove trees what they do is they root themselves appropriately just right along the beach line and as they do that, the waves hit them, but they're so elevated above the waves that they don't get pushed over.
Speaker 2: And as they do that, they actually persevere together.
Speaker 2: Because these trees, what they do is they, because they root in the soil, they keep the soil there and they allow other plants to be planted as well, so other mangroves will begin to be planted and to grow.
Speaker 2: And then, on top of that, they create these ecosystems for all of the animals that are there to flourish, so other plants and animals can begin to live there in the shelter of these mangrove trees that are keeping the sand and the soil from being washed out to sea, and they're even a defense against the winds of storms that will come onto the beach.
Speaker 2: And so, mangroves, they persevere together, they are rooted appropriately and they create ecosystems for one another.
Speaker 2: And so we are called to be mangrove trees.
Speaker 2: We are called to root in Jesus appropriately, right, and to do that together.
Speaker 2: And as we are rooted together, we actually encourage the flourishing of one another and of everything in our lives.
Speaker 2: And as we live out that community together, we see mangroves that will cover the whole coastline.
Speaker 2: We'll see communities flourish right.
Speaker 2: We'll see people flourish around us and through us and in us as we live out that together.
Speaker 2: In the Wager, a book I'm reading by David Graham, basically what he does is he likes to write historical fiction and actually history.
Speaker 2: So he'll go through and he'll capture the account of like hundreds of people who've written journals about their time as a sailor, and then he'll pull all of those together and he'll create a story from what actually happened.
Speaker 2: And so at this point there's this man who climbs up to the top of the crane's roost looking over the ship, and he's looking down at the ship from the crow's nest and he says each man's life depended upon the performance of others.
Speaker 2: They were akin to cells in a human body.
Speaker 2: A single malignant one could destroy them all.
Speaker 2: Now I'm not saying that if you don't do your job, that the whole community is going to fall apart and everyone's going to die a terrible death in the sea, but rather like the members of a ship who all perform unique functions right.
Speaker 2: We are all gifted with gifts from the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2: We're all empowered in the Spirit to benefit the body of Christ.
Speaker 2: We're all invited to partake of that family and community together.
Speaker 2: And as we do that together, we are truly blessed by God through relationship in one another to go to where he is calling us all the better, and that's what he is inviting us into in giving us family.
Speaker 2: So what does this look like?
Speaker 2: Well, when we're going through something, it's tempting to pull away, but we need to lean into community.
Speaker 2: This not only provides you opportunities to experience the mercy and grace of God through the family he's given you, but also bless others as they get to bless you and now have context to do the same.
Speaker 2: And then, when someone else is going through something maybe you don't fully know what it is, but you can tell they're having a hard day it's easy to just be like, ah, it'd be really awkward to ask to pray for them, or ah, they might just want to be left alone.
Speaker 2: But I know when I'm experiencing those things, even if I do want to be left alone, when someone actually does come up to me and ask me how I'm doing, ask me if they can pray for me, I always experience the love intended in the midst of it, and so I think it's always better to ask than to not to.
Speaker 2: And we often fail to do this because we do not embrace and apply God's promises and as we do, our hearts harden.
Speaker 2: We don't have a team to support us, like a free diver, and if we don't have that team, when we black out, we won't make it.
Speaker 2: I spoke with a friend in our congregation about this as well, and he said without some friends in my life, I truly don't think I would be here or still be believing.
Speaker 2: Community has helped me because there were times where I had no idea what God was saying, or even if he cared, and I think God spoke directly to me through our brothers and sisters.
Speaker 2: They were my lifeline, and so are we partaking of the family of faith?
Speaker 2: Are we partaking of the blessings that God has for us in community?
Speaker 2: Jesus invites us to step out in faith into that, even when it's awkward and difficult.
Speaker 2: So Jesus gives us freedom, family, but he also gives us a future.
Speaker 2: Jesus is our faithful apostle and high priest, it says in verse 1.
Speaker 2: Faithful to him, in verse 2, who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God's house.
Speaker 2: For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself.
Speaker 2: Glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself.
Speaker 2: Jesus is leading us and interceding for us, such that when we hold on to him we are certain of where we are going.
Speaker 2: That word, apostle apostolon this word and the older Greek and later is actually a naval expedition and its commander.
Speaker 2: Its root means a ship ready for departure, a delegate, envoy and messenger.
Speaker 2: I don't know if this is the sense the author has in mind, but later on he will talk about how the promises we have in Jesus are an anchor to our soul.
Speaker 2: So I choose to believe he is.
Speaker 2: But Jesus, in essence, is our naval commander, bringing back that imagery with the wager on a ship.
Speaker 2: Jesus was sent by the Father to claim a people for himself, but he also sends us in the same mission.
Speaker 2: He's with us like a captain on a ship.
Speaker 2: He's always with us.
Speaker 2: He says in Matthew 28.
Speaker 2: And in Mark 6, right in the Gospels, we see Jesus' disciples on a boat.
Speaker 2: We see at one point they're on a boat with Jesus and Jesus is just napping right and this huge storm comes and as it does, they run to Jesus and say Jesus, what are you doing?
Speaker 2: Do you not care that we are dying?
Speaker 2: And Jesus says you have little faith.
Speaker 2: And what does he do?
Speaker 2: He calms the storm completely.
Speaker 2: He rebukes the storm and it's all calm.
Speaker 2: And they say who is this man?
Speaker 2: And then later on, right, jesus is walking on the water as they're trying to not drown in a storm.
Speaker 2: And Jesus invites Peter to walk on the water towards him.
Speaker 2: And Peter does.
Speaker 2: And it's only when he starts to look around at the storm and gets distracted and takes his eyes off of Jesus that he begins to sink.
Speaker 2: And Jesus says oh, you of little faith.
Speaker 2: See, jesus is our naval commander.
Speaker 2: He is always with his church.
Speaker 2: He is ready to walk us upon the waters, he's ready to stop the storm.
Speaker 2: He is in that, with us.
Speaker 2: He is our leader and he invites us to look to him as his leader because he can do all things and we can do all things as we look to Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2: But Jesus is also our high priest.
Speaker 2: Moses interceded for God's people and he turned back God's wrath.
Speaker 2: He's held up his staff and incurred God's favor.
Speaker 2: He went into the tent and up the mountain and mediated the covenant and God's will.
Speaker 2: But Jesus turned back God's wrath forever.
Speaker 2: He forever intercedes for us.
Speaker 2: He sent the Spirit in our hearts to make known his will.
Speaker 2: Jesus is the faithful mediator, mankind's sin bearer In mercy.
Speaker 2: He's the one who emotionally gathers up our needs to himself and then, in mercy, he does something about them.
Speaker 2: He knows what it is to be man, and that makes him a merciful high priest.
Speaker 2: He is faithful in his role as mankind's sin bearer and now also in representing us to the Father.
Speaker 2: See, there was a cloud of sin between us and God, forever alienating us from him, and now also in representing us to the Father.
Speaker 2: See, there was a cloud of sin between us and God, forever alienating us from him, and none could penetrate it.
Speaker 2: But Jesus came to earth as the only one who could take on both God and man in his nature and penetrate that cloud of sin that he might forever be a mediator on our behalf.
Speaker 2: And so the author here gives some context about Moses.
Speaker 2: He says Jesus is worth of more glory than Moses.
Speaker 2: We see Moses is divinely chosen.
Speaker 2: As we look at the Exodus story, he experiences God in the burning bush.
Speaker 2: He's the incomparable deliverer.
Speaker 2: He separates the oceans.
Speaker 2: He makes the river to turn to blood.
Speaker 2: He's the greatest prophet.
Speaker 2: He's the lawgiver who goes up on the mountain.
Speaker 2: He's the great historian who wrote the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch.
Speaker 2: He's known as meek and of good character.
Speaker 2: It says in Numbers 12.
Speaker 2: Ultimately, he's Israel's great apostle and high priest.
Speaker 2: He even functions like a priest when he sprinkles blood and he's second only to Adam in intimacy with God.
Speaker 2: Moses is the goat greatest of all time, and the Jews of that time?
Speaker 2: That's what they were thinking.
Speaker 2: This guy is the goat, nobody can surpass him, and so in the back of their minds they're probably not fully connecting the fact that Jesus is greater than Moses in all of these things, so great was Moses in their mind.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like those who will not accept LeBron as the king because they think Michael Jordan is the greatest of all time Shots fired.
Speaker 2: But think who is the goat you admire, is it LeBron James, michael Jordan, caitlin Clark, tom Brady, michael Phelps, simone Biles?
Speaker 2: These are all people who are like, incredible in their sport.
Speaker 2: They're people who we watch, if only because of the greatness of who they are right.
Speaker 2: So, lauren and I, we began watching the WNBA and the NCAA women, not because I had a history of watching these things, but we just heard Caitlin Clark's name and she was not only beating records for the women, but the men as well.
Speaker 2: And so now, all of a sudden, I'm like buying WNBA pass and I'm watching.
Speaker 2: Like every game that Caitlin Clark is in and people all over the United States are showing up to the games.
Speaker 2: Every stadium that she's in is selling out.
Speaker 2: Why?
Speaker 2: Because she's the GOAT, because she draws our attention.
Speaker 2: Likewise, there are people in our vocations, people in our neighborhood, people we know that we look up to.
Speaker 2: If it's in your profession, right, it's somebody who you're buying their book, you're listening to their podcast.
Speaker 2: You want to follow them and be like them and listen to everything that they have to say.
Speaker 2: You want to follow their lead.
Speaker 2: Who are those people that you take notice of, whose lead you follow, that inspire you?
Speaker 2: Our author is essentially saying Jesus is not only the goat, he actually ended the argument forever.
Speaker 2: There's none after him.
Speaker 2: Literally, the sport just stopped because no one can top him.
Speaker 2: No more books are written in his field.
Speaker 2: He just wrote everything that can be written.
Speaker 2: He solved the equation.
Speaker 2: What is more, you can not only learn from him, but you're actually empowered to be like him in your calling.
Speaker 2: Therefore, he says pay attention to him, watch him.
Speaker 2: He is your captain and your medic.
Speaker 2: He will lead you and intercede for you.
Speaker 2: Pay attention, because the alternative is that you are not in line with the one who determines your very purpose and future.
Speaker 2: Jesus offers us a future.
Speaker 2: If you look to Jesus as your captain, if you come to him as your priest, he is leading you home.
Speaker 2: Paul says in Philippians 1.6, and I am sure of this that he who began a, and what is that day of completion?
Speaker 2: What is the home that he is leading to you?
Speaker 2: Is it a good home?
Speaker 2: Revelations 21 says that God will dwell with man and they will be his people and God himself will be with them as their God.
Speaker 2: He will wipe away every tear, and death shall be no more.
Speaker 2: Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away, the fear that is in our lives will be no more.
Speaker 2: Gravity will no longer be working against me.
Speaker 2: That is where Christ is leading us.
Speaker 2: That is what he invites us to experience even here and now, in Jesus' freedom, future and family.
Speaker 2: And so, as we look back at chapter two, we see that man was created to reign over creation as steward crowned in glory and honor an intimate relationship with God.
Speaker 2: But man became enslaved.
Speaker 2: We became enslaved to the devil through fear of the power of death.
Speaker 2: But man became enslaved.
Speaker 2: We became enslaved to the devil through fear of the power of death.
Speaker 2: Serving the devil in sin.
Speaker 2: Therefore, a holy and just God means that we need death and life apart from him.
Speaker 2: And yet God desired to bring them to glory.
Speaker 2: He desires to bring you to glory, and so he condescended to become man, suffer, taste death and have the wrath of God pour out on him for your sake, so that we might be sanctified, made holy in him.
Speaker 2: And now he is our merciful and faithful high priest.
Speaker 2: He will accomplish his work as we hold fast to him, unto our holiness and union with God and one another.
Speaker 2: And the good news is this isn't just one time so that we can look forward to this in heaven.
Speaker 2: Every time we come to God together here, every time you pray, every time you worship him, every time you're praying with him at work or with him with your family, jesus sanctifies those moments as we come to him in Jesus.
Speaker 2: He hears your prayers.
Speaker 2: He will always hear your prayers.
Speaker 2: He loves your worship.
Speaker 2: He will always love your worship.
Speaker 2: Have you sinned this week?
Speaker 2: Come to Jesus, be sanctified in him, and God sees you, he hears you.
Speaker 2: He's offering you freedom, family and future.
Speaker 2: Finally, jesus tells the story of the prodigal son and in that story, the son.
Speaker 2: He wants a version of freedom, right, he takes his inheritance and he goes to the world and he seeks all that the world has to offer and it falls short and he finds himself alone and dejected, isolated, with no future in sight.
Speaker 2: And he says I know my father, I could at least come back and be a servant in his house.
Speaker 2: So he applies what he knows.
Speaker 2: He goes back.
Speaker 2: Little does he know his father is waiting for him, probably sitting on the porch, looking for him every day.
Speaker 2: And as he's coming home, his dad sees him from afar and runs to meet him.
Speaker 2: The son is just thinking over in his mind, like what do I need to say to him?
Speaker 2: How can I be accepted back in his house?
Speaker 2: Will he accept me, right?
Speaker 2: And as he looks up, he probably sees his father just run up and embrace him, with a huge hug smacking into him.
Speaker 2: He throws his coat over him, he puts a ring on his finger.
Speaker 2: He says welcome home, son.
Speaker 2: He throws him a feast.
Speaker 2: He's a son in his household again.
Speaker 2: This is what Jesus, because of who Jesus is and what he's done for us.
Speaker 2: This is our relationship with the Father.
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter where you've been, what you're doing.
Speaker 2: He always invites us to come and receive freedom from this in our lives, to be welcomed back into the family of God and to know that our future is with him always.
Speaker 2: Let's pray, heavenly Father, I thank you.
Speaker 2: I thank you that you are with us.
Speaker 2: I thank you for your son, jesus Christ, our faithful mediator, our merciful high priest.
Speaker 2: I thank you that we can come to you now and that you hear our prayers.
Speaker 2: I thank you for all that you're doing in our lives.
Speaker 2: We trust, oh Lord, that you hear our prayers.
Speaker 2: I thank you for all that you're doing in our lives.
Speaker 2: We trust, oh Lord, that you hear our prayers.
Speaker 2: We trust that you have wiped away our sin when we come to you, we trust that you have a future for us.
Speaker 2: We trust that you have a family for us, here and now and one day fully in heaven.
Speaker 2: Help us to experience all that you have for us today and this week and our whole lives.
Speaker 2: Amen.