Not A Copy

Take your Bibles. Let's return to the book of Hebrews, chapter 8. Hebrews chapter 8. Our text for this morning is found in verses 1 through 6. You follow as I read. Now the point in what we are saying is this.

We have such a high priest. One who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven. A minister in the holy places in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man. For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices. Thus it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law.

They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain. But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old, as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.

Let's pray. Lord God, as we do every Lord's Day when we open your word, we ask, we must ask that you would open the eyes of our hearts to the truth of this text. That your spirit would make it come alive for us in our hearts. That you would challenge us. That you would help us. Give us understanding not so we know more but give us understanding so that we serve you better. and that we rely on you and your son more.

And to that end, Lord, we ask that you help us. Amen. Amen. I was walking down the street in the city of Tirana, Albania, some years ago, and I saw a fast food place that had these broad, bright red and white stripes. And I thought, wow, Kentucky fried chicken. And as I got there, I saw this fast food place called Albanian fried chicken.

Okay? Walked down the street a little bit more and came to an Apple store, which looked like an Apple store, but it really wasn't an Apple store, and was selling products that looked like Apple products, but they were not. A couple of days later, I was in another city, and I saw the golden arches, but they were not McDonald's. Now, in Albania, you can copy things without getting into any legal trouble.

And so they did. There was all kinds of copies of things that I was familiar with all over that country. But they're not as good as the original. You know what? That McDonald's was a disappointment. It just wasn't the real thing.

Now, in our text this morning, as we've just read, we're going to see how important the original is and how this all relates to Jesus. Now, our writer directs our attention once more to Jesus, our high priest. Remember, God wants you to embrace Jesus as your greatest and your only hope. And like the people back then, we have a tendency, we contend, to drift away and even abandon Jesus if we're not careful.

But Jesus is vastly superior to anyone or anything that claims to have the answers for us to things like guilt and shame and how to truly relate to God. Again, he wants you to find your only hope in Jesus, who is, as we have seen throughout this book, the final, the best, the superior high priest. Now, as we come to chapter 8, we begin another section of this book, another argument of this book.

We've come up to this place so far. now in chapter 8 verse 1 all the way to chapter 10 verse 31, he engages us in another discussion. And in this section, our writer will discuss three important ideas. Covenant, sacrifice, sanctuary. Those are the three things that are going to occupy our attention for the next few chapters. And even in these verses, he touches on them ever so lightly but in a way that points us to Jesus.

He brings these ideas to the fore in order to move us to a steadfast hope in Jesus. Now again, I can't say this enough. This book is intended to move you to a steadfast hope, a steadfast faith in one person, and that's Jesus. that you don't go looking anywhere else but to Jesus. Now in our text you are told first of all put your hope in the heavenly high priest verses 1 and 2 And then put your hope in the ultimate high priest verses 3 through 5 And finally, put your hope in the superior high priest, verse 6.

Put your hope in the heavenly high priest, he tells us, in verses 1 and 2. Now, the point in what we are saying is this. we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man. The writer begins here by saying, here's the main point.

Here's what I want you to grasp. We have such a high priest. The high priest, he says, I've just described, and as we've looked at in chapter 7, the one who brings a better order the one who has a better qualifications the one who offers a better hope who has a better oath who offers better intercession and finally who is perfectly suited to meet our needs we have that high priest that's the one we have and that's the one whose benefits we enjoy but he goes on to say that's not all this high priest sits on the right hand of the majesty in heaven.

He is seated at the right hand of God himself. Not only do we have such a high priest as the one I've described for you, all these wonderful things, these qualities that belong to him, not only do we have such a high priest, but he is seated at the right hand of God himself. He is the promised priest to whom God said in Psalm 110, remember we've been mining the depths of Psalm 110.

It is in Psalm 110 that God promised this one that he must sit at his right hand. This is the priest king who rules from heaven. This is the priest king who transcends all earthly corruptions and limitations. This is the priest king who exercises transcendent power. This is the priest king that we have. And not only that, he says, not only is he ascended to God, but look where he serves.

He serves there. Look where he serves. Now, oftentimes, we gauge the effectiveness or importance of a ministry by where one ministers. Someone says, Tim Passerman ministers in LaRue. And another says, La what? Another person says, Tim Keller ministers on Manhattan in New York City.

And everybody's going, wow, that's impressive. Now whether or not we're right or wrong, normally we're wrong in evaluating ministries that way. Whether we're right or wrong in that, what we see here is Jesus, this high priest, ministers in the holy place that is the very sanctuary of God, where he ministers really tells us that it's an important ministry.

He is in the very sanctuary of God. He is in the place where God himself dwells. That is to say, he's in the sanctuary that is the true tabernacle, the one set up by the Lord, not one built with human hands. Now, please understand, all of heaven is not constructed like the tabernacle. If we as a congregation today could ascend to heaven, we wouldn't find a bunch of people milling around in an outward court with a giant laver and a giant altar.

And we wouldn't walk into the holy place and then walk in one more step into the holy of holies to find, aha, there's God. He's not saying that. Rather, this is the sanctuary, the dwelling place that God himself constructed. This is his heavenly dwelling place. This is the very sanctuary of God. Now, you remember that God made his presence known at the tabernacle in the Old Testament.

And he made his presence known by that great Shekinah cloud resting on the tabernacle. Go back and read the stories. Here is this great cloud. You remember the cloud of fire, the pillar of fire in the cloud, cloud and day, fire at night that would lead the people whenever they had to travel, that would lead them where God wanted to take them. When they stopped and they erected the tabernacle, that great cloud settled on the tabernacle.

And if you had the ability, which you couldn't but once a year, if you could go in to the very Holy of Holies, you would see the brilliance of God's glory there in the Holy of Holies. It was to represent God's dwelling place among men. Alright? But that tabernacle was derived. It was built by men. It was a derived tabernacle.

It was a temporary residence for God. This isn't where he permanently resided. It was a temporary residence. And it could never rival God's heavenly dwelling place. In fact, when the temple was built, the next thing that did rival the glory of the tabernacle, when the temple was built, you remember Solomon said at its dedication ceremony as he prayed, but will God indeed dwell on the earth?

But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, how much less this house that I have built. So we're talking about this heavenly dwelling that nothing could rival. This earthly dwelling, this tabernacle, shared the defilement of its builders and had to be cleansed with the blood of animals. It was subject to decay like all the other pieces that exist in creation.

But the sanctuary in which Jesus serves is eternal, incorruptible, undefiled, dwelling place of God. That where he serves No longer no longer in a derived temporary defiled decaying sanctuary He doesn't serve there. He serves in the eternal, undefiled, incorruptible dwelling place of God, where God has always been and where God is. And so our high priest serves us in the very presence of God.

He is our heavenly high priest. Don't miss what he's saying here. He is our heavenly high priest. He represents you in the very presence of God, face to face with this eternal universal king. He transcends all limitations and all corruptions that you find on earth. And this priest can never fail to have God's attention.

Because he's in the sanctuary where God dwells. This is where your priest serves. He's a heavenly high priest. Put your hope in this heavenly high priest. No longer in the priest that's serving in this derived corruptible tabernacle, but in the priest who is actually in the very presence of God, who serves in this heavenly sanctuary. Put your hope in him.

Put your hope in him. Not in earthly things, but in this one that serves in the heavens. He goes on to say, to put your hope in the ultimate high priest. Verses 3 through 5. For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices. Thus it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. now if he were on earth he would not be a priest at all since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law they serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things for when Moses was about to erect the tent he was instructed by God saying see that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain put your hope he says now in the ultimate high priest since Jesus has been appointed he says to the office of priest he serves a particular function and that function is to offer gifts and sacrifices gifts for worship sacrifices for atonement here is the duty the essence the function of any priest to bring you access to God to bring you access to God and because Jesus has been appointed to be a priest he has to serve the same function as all other priests and that is he has to offer sacrifice in order to give you access to God he has to serve the function of just like any other priest since he is a priest that's what priests do that's what he does or did but he says in verse 4 he cannot serve that function in the same way as other priests he can't serve it in the same way as other priests if he were on earth he would be subject to the Levitical law that law had genealogical requirements remember and Jesus could never meet them a descendant someone who's descended from Judah could not do the work of a priest because he was not descended from the tribe of Levi so if you're on earth you'd be subject to the Levitical law the the law that they use to offer the sacrifices and he wouldn't be able to do that.

Only those descendants of Levi could offer the sacrifices. Judah's descendants were not allowed to offer sacrifices on the altar or sprinkle the blood on the Ark of the Covenant on the Day of Atonement. Only the Levites, only the high priest coming from Levi could do that. But remember that he is a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. He is an exalted priest at God's right hand who's been appointed a priest on entirely different grounds.

This is one because of his qualifications who serves here and not here. If he served here, he wouldn't meet them. But he is the Melchizedekian priest who's been exalted. And he serves here and his requirements are different. His qualifications are different. Remember what they are?

Better oath, right? an indestructible life, all these things that we've noticed, this is what equips him to be our priest. He is God's promised heavenly priest, and so he's not subject to the law of other priests. Now, if he would serve on earth, he could not be a priest at all. But he doesn't. He doesn't. Not only that, but he could not serve as a priest on earth because earthly priests serve in a replica of the true sanctuary.

He would have to serve then in a replica of the true sanctuary, not in the real sanctuary. Now, several years ago, I remember I was, a little church down in Asheville, North Carolina, would ask me, I think asked me about three or four times to come down and do a Bible conference for them. and there was a guy in the congregation whose name was Werner. He was from Germany.

But Werner worked at the Biltmore Mansion near Asheville. And so the Biltmore Mansion was this incredible place that the Vanderbilts owned. And it had tons, I mean, just incredible acreage all around it. It was almost like a castle with all the people serving it. Werner worked there. And so we were on a tour of the grounds and we came to this one particularly luxurious part of the grounds and there was a White House.

They had been filming a movie there and they thought these grounds kind of look like D.C. and so they erected a replica of the White House on these grounds. So there was the White House. It's probably made out of plywood if that right It was just made for this movie It was a replica But I tell you what we would never think of bringing the commander or the president of the United States to that replica in order to carry out the duties of his office He's in the real deal.

He's not going to come and do it in the replica. And so it is that Jesus could not, should not, or would not serve in a replica of the heavenly places. he serves in the real deal. He's in the original, not the replica. And notice the words to describe this tabernacle, the tabernacle that we read about in the Old Testament. This applies as well to the temple, in which he says there, but a copy and a shadow of the heavenly things.

And that Moses had to follow a pattern, a pattern that was shown him on the mountain. and and he quotes in fact um ezekiel i'm sorry exodus chapter 25 verse 40 where where we read how god says build it like i tell you because i show you the pattern now you need to do it so it's a copy it's a shadow it's a pattern of the true heavenly thing so the writer quotes those instructions that God gave Moses. He was to build a replica of the heavenly realities. What does that say?

What does God reveal to us then about that earthly sanctuary? This is a copy. This is a shadow of the original. Okay? From the very beginning, from the very beginning of its construction, it's obvious that the tabernacle signified a greater reality. From the very beginning, by God saying, you got to make this after a pattern that I'm going to show you, it became clear that that signified a greater reality.

It was intended to be temporary. It was intended to be in place for only a limited time in salvation history. God intended it to be a pointer. A pointer to a greater reality. The greater reality of the heavenly sanctuary. So then Jesus is the ultimate high priest since he serves in the ultimate sanctuary.

He serves in the ultimate sanctuary. why listen why abandon your hope in Jesus for a hope in the shadow in the copy in the temporary that's the point let me ask you what sort of temporary hopes do you have where do you place your hopes think about that we're doing this all the time we have to be caught up short we're putting we all have temporary hopes we're all staking our happiness on certain things i'm staking my happiness on the way people treat me i'm staking my happiness on my reputation i'm staking my happiness on whether i i gain so much money or resources or pleasure we have temporary hopes this is our only permanent one this is the ultimate high priest only he can give us the things that we um that we tend to desire and not to give he doesn't serve us by giving the things we want but he gives us the permanent sorts of things that god intends for us here's the last thing he says in verse six put your hope in this superior high priest verse six But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better since it is enacted on better promises. Put your hope in the superior high priest. Now Jesus, serving in the real, original sanctuary as the heavenly and the ultimate high priest, has obtained a more excellent ministry than there ever was before, than that of the old covenant.

You can say that the ministry of Jesus has excelled anything proposed for you today. He is a superior high priest because of this most excellent ministry. he obtained it because he mediates a new covenant now Moses was the mediator of that old covenant under which Israel lived and if you're here in Sunday school today we talked a little bit about that and we saw if you want to look at it it's in Exodus 24 we saw how Moses assembled the people how he read the book of the covenant to those people and then he offered a sacrifice to ratify it and he took the blood and he sprinkled it on the people which brought that covenant into force this is now the rule of life for them this is now their if you will constitution it constitutes them as the people of God and what's expected of them but Jesus revealed a new covenant to God's people He shed his blood to ratify that covenant and we have been sprinkled with that blood to bring us under that new covenant, to bring that covenant into force. you remember Peter in 1 Peter chapter 1 identifies us as God's elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father in the sanctification of the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with His blood we have all been sprinkled with the blood of Christ and thus He has brought into being He has brought into force He has brought us into a new covenant now we're inclined to think that new always means better frankly if you get old like me you get kind of tired of that young people being We live in a culture that tells us new always means better. If I were to go out, regardless of what you think of Hondas, regardless of what you think of Hondas, I would go out and buy a brand new Honda Accord.

I think I would probably be thinking this is a better car than my 2005 Toyota Corolla. it's almost blasphemy in this congregation, I know. But you get the point. Right? It's brand new. It's better. But the covenant that Jesus mediates is not better just because it's new.

New doesn't always mean better. New doesn't always mean better. New sometimes means worse. But it's not better just because it's new. it's better because it's been enacted on better promises than that old one. There are better promises in this one. Now, our writer is going to go into detail about those better promises in the rest of the chapter, to which we will return.

The rest of the chapter, we will look at that next. But for now, you have to see the foolishness of hoping in anyone or anything else because this priest is superior on account of the superior covenant that he mediates. The very rule of life that we live under is better than that old covenant. It's better. Suppose you lived in a country where only particular members of a certain tribe could be citizens, where only one religion was allowed to be practiced, and you had to just obey the decrees of the royal family.

Suppose there was a revolution and there was a new constitution put into place. A constitution that said if you live within these borders you're a citizen. And you can worship as you want We not going to force you to worship in a particular way And all your laws have to be passed by an elected assembly Would you consider that a superior constitution Yeah, we would consider that a better one.

Why would you want to go back to the old one then? Why would you possibly, what could possibly move you to go back to the old one? And so it is. Don't go back to the old ways. you have a superior priest because he is his priesthood's enacted on a superior covenant now none of you here are tempted to go back under the old covenant that once governed israel i mean i can't help but imagine some of you're going to have pork barbecue this afternoon or tonight because this afternoon we'll all be over there i don't know what we're having but you don't you want to go under an old covenant where you can't go to city barbecue anymore right i'm gonna go back under a covenant um you know where after you give birth to a child you got to stay away from everybody for so many days you want to go back under that covenant you want to go back under a covenant where someone um you bring you know um where the parkers would bring one of their goats over and you'd slit its throat and put it on an altar and burn it right is that what you want to go back to he said no none of us are tempted to go back to that But listen, you are tempted to go back to the old ways.

And if you're not careful, those old ways, especially when going back to the old ways is going to cost you less than following Jesus. Those old ways of the flesh and the world entice you and say, why are you going to stand for righteousness when everybody else around you, your friends in high school, your friends where you are, think that you are a narrow-minded, harsh bigot because you don't believe that if a girl says she wants to be a boy, she shouldn't become a boy. She shouldn even try What kind of a person are you And the temptation is going to be to abandon this superior high priest to go back to those old ways Because it costs too much to give my allegiance to one who's given me something better, but it's going to cost me.

This is a superior high priest because he has a covenant that's so much better. it's better than those old ways that are enticing you back. It's better than those ways. There is nothing left for you in the old ways. There is nothing there that will deal with your shame. There's nothing there that will deal with your guilt. There's nothing there that will help you relate to God.

There's nothing there. Why do you want to give up that for those old ways? Don't go back. Put your hope in this superior high priest. because his covenant still has better promises than anything else that beckons you with its promises from the old way. And so here is Jesus. Once more, he brings us to focus on Jesus.

And he says, here is Jesus, the heavenly high priest, representing you in the sanctuary of God. Here is Jesus, the ultimate high priest, who offers for you the perfect sacrifice. Here is the superior high priest who enacts a new covenant. Some of you here, you're believers. And you know what? Honestly, some of you here, some of you today may be here.

You're a believer. But man, you're in a wrestling match right now. You're in a wrestling match that says, oh, those old ways, they look good. They look good. And there's something about it. there's something about where you are in life, there's something about your experience, there's something going on where you're toying with the idea of thinking, I don't know if this is worth it Listen listen to me There no hope There is no hope in any other way There no hope in any other way Jesus is your greatest and your only hope in all of life Now some of you here, some of you here may not buy any of it.

You're just saying, yeah, you know, Pastor Tim, you talk about Jesus and I come and I listen and, you know, it's, sometimes it's interesting. I don't know if I buy it. Let me tell you something. you who have not ever bowed the knee to Jesus. Listen, there is no hope for you without Him. None. None.

You may be sitting here thinking, when is this guy going to be over? I want to beg you to listen to me. There is no hope in this world without this priest. Count on it. count on it. Because God says, He's your greatest and your only hope. Let's pray.

Father, Father, You know every heart here. And there are people on the spectrum from, I don't buy any of it, but I'm totally committed to this Jesus. God, wherever, wherever hearts are on that spectrum, I beg you to work in those hearts. Give those hearts something to think about. Give those hearts something to glory in. Something to hope in.

At the very least, something to seriously consider. So God, move in the hearts that are here today in the way that seems best to you. we're asking you to move in heart so every heart here will say Jesus is my greatest and my only hope granted we pray for your glory and the good of your people in the name of our high priest Jesus Amen