Well, as you consider and think about various people in your lives, who is the greatest person that you've ever known? Not the greatest person that you have met, maybe, or seen, but that you really know. Who would that be? The world may not recognize them as being such a great person, but you know they are in your life, or they were, maybe the greatest influence, the greatest model, the greatest... Who is the... What makes them great? What makes that individual great to you? Well, certainly a part of their greatness is what they maybe have accomplished, what they've done. But that's not really the full measure of greatness, is it? I mean, you look up to them for what they've done, but it's not really ultimately about what they've done. It's more about who they are. A person's greatness in the eyes of others is about who they really are, their life and their character. And so in the Bible, when we read about various people such as Abraham, and David, and Peter, and Paul, and of course today Moses. But here in the book of Hebrews the writer emphasizes the obvious that Jesus is the greatest of all. That he's better, he's superior to everyone and everything. Last week we saw how the book began by telling us that God the Father has made himself known in a variety of ways. But the best way was through his son. Jesus is better. It's repeated all throughout Hebrews. Today we read that Jesus is better than Moses. But it is good to be reminded of the greatness of Moses. Who was he? Well, in a commentary by Kent Hughes, a modern author I love reading, on this book of Hebrews, He gave a really good summary in this chapter on the life of Moses and reminds us of his greatness. And I'm just going to paraphrase a bunch of it. But Moses was chosen by God, obviously for an epic task, that would begin with a miraculous rescue from the ruthless Pharaoh who was out to kill all the Israelite babies. And just as God delivered Moses from the hands of Pharaoh, God would then call Moses to deliver his people. And he became a great prophet and lawgiver, we're told. The man that God would use to record the first five books of the Bible, telling the history of God's works on behalf of his people. And God would use Moses to establish the tabernacle where God would meet with man and man would meet with God. But as great as Moses was, The Bible also describes Moses as the meekest man on the face of the earth. The meekest man, the humblest man. He was the greatest leader maybe that Israel ever had. And yet he considered him nothing in comparison to the greatness of our living God. All the glory would be given to God by Moses. And so again, we see that a person is considered to be great for so much more than merely what he has done, but for who he is. Horrible people can accomplish great things for the wrong reasons, but a great man accomplishes great things for our great God and for the glory of God. Moses sought the glory of God. But of course the emphasis in this passage is not on the greatness of Moses, recognizes that, but the emphasis is on the greatness of Jesus. The writer says, consider Jesus. Now that's a preacher's way of saying, you know about the greatness of Moses, but let's talk about Jesus. Let's think about Jesus for a minute. When we use the word consider, we normally mean that we'll think about it, but we're really not that serious about it. For example, if I ask you, do you want to go bowling? And you tell me, well, I'll consider it. I know, I'm going bowling alone. You're not really that interested in it, the way we use that word typically today. But here in this context, when he says, consider Jesus, it means fix your attention upon Jesus. Concentrate on him. Fix all your thoughts upon him. Consider Him. Concentrate on Him. It requires your heart, your mind, your strength, everything about you is going to be focused upon Him. The psalmist said it many ways in various psalms, but listen to what David said in Psalm 27 4. One thing have I asked of the Lord, that I will seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord, all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple." The heart's desire of David, his greatest longing, was to dwell in the presence of God so that he can gaze upon his beauty and inquire in his temple. The word inquire means to consider. to inspect or look deeply into it, to truly understand who God is and what He requires of man. I want to know Him. I want to know Him and to constantly get to know Him better. That's also in this word that the writer of Hebrews uses, consider Jesus. It's not just simply a passing thought now, but consider Him, concentrate Him now, and constantly focus on Him. So let's consider, let's fix our eyes on Jesus today. The writer of Hebrews gives us two great reasons as to why we should fix our eyes on Jesus every day, constantly. First, we need to fix our eyes on Jesus because of who we are. because of who we are. Now, if you've heard me preach for very long, then you probably assume that I'm going to start talking now about how sinful we are and the value of knowing our natural condition. And that's not bad. I think it's always helpful to be reminded of how badly we need God's grace and His mercy. I think that's good for us. However, in this context, in this passage, I don't think that's the true intention of the writer here. Rather, he refers to us as what? Holy brothers. These are people who have been transformed. They're no longer in their fallen sinful state without Christ. They have Christ. They're holy brothers. The word holy can either mean set apart or separated to Christ, or it can also mean pure and perfect. So one, it can mean our position in Christ, or it can mean our practice since we are in Christ. I think the context here, the writer is referring to our position in Christ. We are declared holy because of our union with Christ. We cannot practice holiness without being in a position of holiness. We can attempt to do good and earn God's favor, but we can't be good and earn God's favor until he puts us in Christ and makes us holy. Now all of a sudden we have new desires and new hearts, but this is the position we are. We are holy brothers. That's our identity now in Christ. We are holy, set apart, separated unto Christ. Now those of us who have been believers for a long time, this is probably pretty easy to understand. But for the typical person, this is a truly bizarre way of thinking. It seems like almost everything good that we have in our life, that we experience in life, is because we've done something to cause it. You get a raise at work because you've done your job well. You get a good grade or a poor one based on the work that you did. To the natural man, it seems as though everything in life is a result of what we do. It seems. We know better. We know that every good and perfect gift comes from the Father. But our natural mind thinks we've earned it. We've done this or done that and that's what we've accomplished. So here comes Jesus saying there's a way for sinners to go to heaven. in our natural mind we think I just have to be good enough and God will accept me. I've told this story before but many years ago when I was a seminary student we went out door to door and sometimes to visitors of our church and to share the gospel with them and I was with a team it was my first opportunity to be the one to share the gospel and it was a young girl that had visited our youth group and so we went to visit her home and Her dad said she was busy studying for her big test, but he would talk to us. And he had no clue what grace meant. No clue of the work that Jesus did. And we were taught to ask a very important question. Basically, at this point in your life, if you were to die in an accident, do you know that you would go to heaven? And the second question is even more important. If you were to die today in an accident and stand before God, and he asks you, why should I let you into my heaven? What would you say? That gives us the frame, the foundation on which a person is standing. Why they think God would let them into heaven. And this guy without batting an eye, he said, well, I'm probably not good enough, but I think God is kind and he would Crack the gate open and kind of turn his back and let me sneak in. So we shared the gospel. And we planted seeds. This man really honestly believed that if he was good enough that God would let him in. But he knew that it really wasn't. We have this natural idea that that's how we get to heaven. But God says you can't be good enough. It's not that one sin, or one good work rather, it balances out better than one bad work. That if you have more good, it outweighs the bad. But that's not the way the Bible looks at the bad works that we do, the sin that we do. The sin erases the good. It's not a comparison and a measurement of the amount. It's that one sin erases any good. And that's where that song that we sang earlier in the service is just so wonderful. His robes for mine. My sin was placed upon him. His righteousness was credited to me. God has taken my sin upon himself upon the cross. and granted me his righteousness." We are holy brothers. God declares us to be holy because of the holiness of his son. The writer also says that we share in a heavenly calling. I like the translation of the New American Standard better when it says that we are partakers of the heavenly calling. Partakers, share, means the same thing, but I just like the visual picture of partakers. It's that we are in this together. We're partners in this. We are partaking in the heavenly calling. We're not alone. We share in a mutual salvation. We received a calling from God to be his child, and we're in the same family now. Years ago, there was a Christian comedian that a lot of Christians criticized because of the language he would use or this or that. He was an immature Christian, maybe, but he was a believer. And he would respond to them by saying, well, you can pick your friends, but you can't pick your family. You're stuck with me. We are one in Christ as brothers and sisters in Christ. We are united. We are wholly, positionally holy in Christ and united together as a family. We need to take a good hard look at Jesus because of who we are. Without Him, there's no holiness. There's no salvation. There's no benefit of gathering together to do what we're doing today. But with Christ, we build one another up. We encourage, we're part of the same body, the same family. that requires all of its parts to be healthy and functioning. When you're not here, when you're disconnected from the body, the rest of us hurt. We need one another. So first we need to fix our eyes on Jesus because of who we are. And then obviously we need to fix our eyes on Jesus because of who He is. As we read the book of Hebrews, you see that Jesus is greater in chapter 1, greater than the angels. He's greater than the prophets in the past. God spoke through the prophets, but his final revelation has come to us through his Son. And do you remember the warning that we glimpsed at last week in verse 1 of chapter 2? The warning that we are prone to drifting, prone to wander from God. And in the case of the original readers, They appear to be the threat of drifting back into Judaism. So the writer is saying, Moses was great, but Jesus is far superior to Moses. Don't drift back. Beware. He's making it clear that Jesus is better. Look at verse 3, in Hebrews 3. He says, Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses. It's of tremendous value to be reminded of the greatness of Moses, but Jesus is far superior to Moses. And then in verse 2 we read that Jesus is the apostle and high priest of our confession. I think we probably have a pretty good idea of what the high priest title would mean. We emphasize that a lot in this church, that he sacrificed himself as our high priest. He didn't present a sacrifice, he became the sacrifice. As John the Baptist proclaimed, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He is the sacrifice once and for all and forever. We understand, I hope, his high priestly role as our sacrifice. But he's called the apostle. It's an interesting title. To my knowledge, it's only used here in Hebrews. Jesus referred to his disciples, he talked about being sent by the Father, but he didn't use the same word there in John 4. or elsewhere, but in John 4, he also said, my will is to do, or my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. Jesus was sent by the Father, and that's literally what the word apostle means, one who is sent. And so Jesus is the apostle. sent to complete our redemption on the cross and to be raised in glory and to ascend to the right hand of the Father for us. He is the Apostle. And then next the writer uses another title and says that Jesus is the builder of God's house. Moses and Jesus were both faithful to the one who sent them. Moses was a picture of what would come ultimately through Christ. He was sent by God to deliver his people out of slavery from Egypt and to lead them to the promised land. But Jesus was sent from the Father to lead his children out of slavery to sin and to lead us to heaven. He's better. Moses was sent to lead God's people in righteousness by means of the law. Jesus was sent to grant his children righteousness by his perfect obedience to the law. He's better. Moses was used by God to oversee God's house, he says. But Jesus is the builder of the house. Moses is part of the house, a very important part obviously of the house, but still merely a member of it. The builder obviously is always greater than that building itself. Now, the word building or house is used many times throughout the Bible, especially the New Testament, in referring to the people of God. In many places we can read about God building his church, such as in Matthew 16, when Jesus says, I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. We are part of what Christ is building, and hell cannot stop Jesus. This is so important for us to remember as we desire even to see our own local church grow. Jesus is building his church that spans the globe, spans time. And he's using us in this little local church to do part of that process. Throughout my many years of ministry in several churches, I've heard people, even a couple of you, ask me such questions as, what are you going to do to grow the church? What are you going to change so that we'll grow? Or if we don't change this or that, then we'll die. This may come as a shock to a few of you, but I am not building this church. The officers are not building this church. Jesus is building His church, and we are simply a part of that great work that He uses to accomplish His purposes. He is the builder. However, that doesn't mean that we just sit here and do nothing and watch and see what he'll do. The normal process that God uses to build his church is to equip his people to build up one another, encourage one another. Turn to Ephesians 4, earlier in the New Testament, Ephesians 4, where Paul explains how God builds up how he builds his church by building up the local church, Ephesians 4. Look at verse 11. Talking about Christ, he says, and he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, or pastors and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry so that the body of Christ may be built up. Jesus is building His church and the gates of hell will not prevail. He's building His church by giving the local church pastors and teachers that will work to equip you for good works of service so that you'll build each other up. You are His people. You're not my people. You're His people. we are part of his church that he's building. And I could go on and on, because I love the topic, but let's consider Jesus, the apostle, the high priest, the builder. And then in verse six, we read that Christ is faithful over God's house as a son. Jesus is the son of God. Moses was a servant. Jesus is the son. Last year I had the privilege of officiating over 20 funerals. Most of them were families through the funeral home who had no pastor. A few of them were members in our own church family and some in the funeral home were genuine believers. They just were without a pastor. There is a stark contrast between the funeral for a person who was loved by God and a person who did not recognize God and had rejected Christ. At almost every funeral, however, I think in every case, I begin the same way by admitting the difficulty of facing this hard reality, the death and sorrow that comes in the face of death. No one wants to see a loved one pass away, but I point them to Jesus. who also wept in the presence of death when he saw the sorrow and the agony of those who were at the tomb of Lazarus. He knew what he was about to do. He himself wasn't filled with sorrow because he knew he was going to speak to Lazarus and raise him from the dead. But he wept because of the pain and the sorrow that the people were feeling. They were like sheep without a shepherd that had no hope. The presence of death causes pain and sorrow. Listen to these words of comfort with which I begin every funeral service. Jesus, before he got to the tomb, Martha met him, Lazarus his sister. And Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this? Martha responded with one of the most amazing statements to Jesus. But again, remember, before I tell you the statement, remember that she was in deep grief over the loss of her brother that she loved so desperately. So in deep grief, she says to Jesus, yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God who is coming into the world. Jesus asked the question of all questions. Do you believe this? Do you believe my claims to be the Son of God? Do you believe that I am the Apostle, the High Priest, the Builder, the Son? Do you believe When God created this world, it was absolutely perfect, without sin. But man turned his back on God and went his own way. And ever since then, this world has been broken, filled with misery. And we can see the misery everywhere we look. You can even see it in your own life if you look closely enough. And we try everything we can think of to find relief from the pain and misery that this life causes. But nothing seems to fix the deep hurt. But God, God stepped into this world. God stepped into your world through his son and he gave life. Now we have assurance. Now we have the confidence that he is going to restore his original design. Now we know. We know that he is in the process of making us more and more like himself and he will never stop until we finally see him face to face. He will complete the work that he has begun in us. We know that. We still have a long way to go. But he's still at work, building his church. There is nothing that is as good as Jesus. Yesterday, I had a tremendous experience, personally. You might not have thought it was such a great experience, but for me, it was one of the best things of the week, maybe of the month. There was a group of old people, older than me, Thankfully, I was the youngest one there. And this makes sense why I'm saying this in a minute. But it was made up of the youth group from First Presbyterian Church, the church that my dad came to when I was only two years old, moved from Minnesota to Olathe and became their pastor. And then in 73, they started this church. But in my preteen years, the youth ministries throughout Kansas City were just exploding. And at First Pres, they were exploding during my upper elementary preteen years. My brother and sister absolutely had the best youth ministry that I've ever seen in my lifetime. And it was so incredible to sit there again. I was always kind of tailing the group and always want to be around them, even as a little boy. So I got to be there again yesterday. uh and and here they passed around a microphone a little cordless thing and and they started sharing kind of who they are you know and how many kids they have and this and that but then they just started giving testimonies as to what that youth group did in their lives it was amazing to hear how the gospel transformed them Some of them were believers before they came to First Press, but most of them, the vast majority of them, came to know Christ through either my dad's preaching or the ministry of a man by the name of Doc Harned, who worked with the youth and college students in those years. But they gave glory to the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He changed them. He made them come to life. They dedicated their life, and many of them, in some way to building up other people. There were pastors, missionary, teachers, a soldier, a Kansas state senator. Most of the people there had given their lives in one way or another to serve other people through the gospel as well. It truly was an amazing opportunity for me to sit there and listen to how a faithful gospel ministry transforms people's lives. Because it is the gospel that is able to make you wise unto salvation. Jesus is better. He is superior to anything and everything. Come to Jesus.