Can you have confidence? Should you have confidence?
Is it arrogant? Naive? Unkind?
I ask that because in terms of certain things, current culture values uncertainty.
To be confident of your faith in Christ, of Scripture’s veracity, of your eternal destiny…where would that kind confidence fall?
It would be considered by many…naive at best, evil at worse.
What are the consequences of living without confidence or perhaps dying without it?
More likely to be tossed around by various ideas and personalities.
There is insecurity in how to spend your life.
Lack of resiliency in times of trouble
Confidence is compelling, even though it is often distrusted and even despised.
I think this is because confidence is a human necessity for resiliency…but it often does, fall into arrogance.
And confidence can…fail people at the worst possible time…if it is misplaced confidence.
I’ve known people whose confidence of their sunshine days failed them in the storms of life struggles and tragedies.
The actor Ethan Hawke recently said that growing up in FW, Texas…Sundays meant church….
“I remember one Sunday my stepmother said she didn’t feel well and was going to stay home. Driving down the highway my father said there’s a cowboy picture playing at 1115, we could go see that instead of going to church. “what???” My father took me to see Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. From that day forward the movies have been the church of my choice.”
He says this with great confidence…and in Hollywood…I imagine to the sound of applause…this kind of confidence is seen to be good.
What does it mean that movies is his church of choice…what does he think church is, what does he think movies are?
Now clearly his dad, lacked confidence in “church”…
Is Hawkes confidence warranted…where will it get him over time and beyond his lifetime?
Today we are in Hebrews 8…our reason for living (and dying) with confidence.
8 The point of what we are saying is this: We do have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, 2 and who serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by man.
Jesus “sat down” indicates a completed act…this symbolizes that his work is done…the final sacrifice for sins has been made.
He “serves” indicates ongoing activity…his work continues, he continually intercedes for us.
What this means practically…is that our greatest need as humans has been met and our greatest ongoing need…continues to be met.
If you are a Christian…your past sins are covered, your ongoing sins need not define you…or continue to oppress you…his work has opened the door to freedom.
3 Every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices, and so it was necessary for this one also to have something to offer. 4 If he were on earth, he would not be a priest, for there are already men who offer the gifts prescribed by the law. 5 They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle: “See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.”
What Jesus had to offer was his own life…a once for all, final sacrifice.
Jesus came as a carpenter not a priest in the temple…his one sacrifice for others was his own life.
What is meant by the sanctuary being a copy and a shadow?
The philosopher Plato said that the physical world is all shadows of the eternal.
What we see think of as physical reality is like us standing with a fire to our backs, facing a cave wall.
The things casting shadows are the real eternal things that exist beyond our current experience…we tend to think the shadows are real.
The writer of Hebrew is not saying this world is shadow, Plato did not have a biblical world view.
But he was right in that there is more to reality than just what we can access with our physical senses.
The world we see is real…the place where animals were sacrificed was real…the need, our sin, was real.
But they pointed to a fuller reality.
The animal sacrifice was like a shadow of the reality of the forgiveness of sins in the gospel…they in fact were like copies of the sacrifice Jesus made for our sins.
We can only think of our present existence as concrete, real…the ideas we have of heaven, eternity, and resurrection are shadowy to us.
But Scripture says that spiritual realities are more not less substantial than what we experience with our senses now.
Paul wrote that “Our light and momentary troubles are going to give way to an eternal weight of glory that far outweighs them all…what is seen is temporary, what is unseen is eternal.”
The weight of glory far surpasses even the heavy weight of our suffering now.
Imagine that: Breakfast with Earnest Family…the load lightened as we contemplated the heavy weight of glory.
*At the funeral: “Momma, look at me, Sheila is not in that moment…she is not afraid”
A copy of a masterpiece is real…but the original is greater.
A shadow is a real thing…but much less substantial than the thing casting the shadow.
The sacrifices were important, they were real…but they were copies, shadows of the reality of Christ’s final sacrifice on the cross.
Some religions say that what we think of as human existence is illusion…maya…it’s not real.
Since our problem is illusion…then the solution, our salvation, comes through escaping illusion.
This is false….our current existence is real, not illusion.
Our problem is sin-separation from God and our solution is not to escape illusion but rather to fully embrace the gospel.
What is illusion though, is the belief that this current existence is all that there is.
For some “religions” like atheism…all that exists is the physical cosmos…the spiritual is illusion.
So, some think the physical is all there is, others think that spiritual realm is all that is really real.
A fully biblical view of reality understands that the physical cosmos is real, but not all or even most of what is there…
…the eternal realm of God is as real as the current physical realm we experience.
The point of all this is to cast our imagination towards eternity…to challenge us to choose to believe what is real but currently not seen…to not get stuck in the temporal “now” and miss the reality of eternity.
*If you look at the sky at midday…you can’t see into space…all you can see is the sun reflecting off the atmosphere…looks like this is all there is.
If you look at night…you can see, with the naked eye…some of our galaxy.
If you look with a space telescope you see deeper into the cosmos…and it is quite spectacular.
What is important for us as believers…as Trace said a couple of weeks ago…to hold to our confession of faith…to maintain that larger perspective.
What we see around us is not illusion…but it is not eternal either…don’t be fooled.
It took enormous energy, intelligence, resources to build the James Webb telescope…in order to see more of what is true and real of our physical universe.
It takes energy, intelligence, and effort and of accessing God’s power…to continually see what is eternally true and real.
Hebrews was a written sermon…the preacher was trying to inspire, encourage, challenge…not just give a theological lecture.
He wanted to touch heads and hearts…to inspire training for godliness…
Do not be dismayed that holding to the faith takes effort…of course it does…put out the effort.
Remember that this is not mere effort…God holds on to you and will empower you as you seek to hold on to your faith.
6 But the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better promises.
A covenant is essentially a contract involving two parties…the mediator is the go-between whose task is to keep the two parties in fellowship…at the “table” so to speak.
In a case where God is one of the parties and humans the other…the whole thing is one-sided.
The covenant breaker, the flaky party…is always the human.
This makes the mediator’s main task to act on man’s behalf to God…though he also has to act for God before men.
This sounds complex…but think back to how we began this passage.
Christ is seated (he has finished his mediator work before the Father)
Christ is busy at work on our behalf (he continues to mediate to the Father on our behalf)
Practically it means that I am forgiven, fully and finally…at the moment I am born again.
It also means…that Christ continues to “deal” with my sins through his grace…not through judgment…as I continue to commit them.
I will suffer in this life for sins committed after I have become a Christian…broken relationships, addictions, guilt feelings, etc.
However, I will not suffer a break in the covenant relationship with God…even when I break faith with the covenant…Christ continues to mediate for me.
What it means is we can live in the tension of this life effectively and joyfully…without living carelessly.
My sins are covered…I don’t live in fear and guilt…I live trusting in his finished work
My sins are costly still…I do live training to become like Christ…trusting in his ongoing grace and ministry
7 For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another.
The first covenant we call the Old Covenant failed, not because it was bad, it was not…but because we could not keep it and it provided no mediator to deal with our failure.
We broke faith with God and that covenant and there was no remedy for us in it…no mediator.
If it had worked, we wouldn’t need the new Covenant…but because of our weakness, our sin…it didn’t work….and because it lacked a mediator to make up for our failure.
The New Covenant…Christ mediating for our sins is not God’s plan “B”.
The New Covenant in Christ’s death was always God’s plan to redeem us…that’s why in Revelation 13 he is called the “Lamb (sacrificed) slain before the foundation of the world.”
I suggest marveling at and being grateful for this fact…but don’t try to get your mind around God’s mind…you won’t get too far…it is a long way round.
We can see, in the verses he quotes next from Jeremiah that this was always God’s plan.
The historical context of the passage is that Israel, because they broke faith with the covenant, lost the benefits of it and were taken back into captivity…this time not in Egypt but in Babylon.
But God would not give up on them…they would be released and return to the land of promise (and they did).
All this pointed forward to the new covenant…written not on external tablets but on human hearts.
Jeremiah, was telling the people about God’s future plans.
“The time is coming, declares the Lord,
when I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah.
9 It will not be like the covenant
I made with their forefathers
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they did not remain faithful to my covenant,
and I turned away from them,
declares the Lord.
10 This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
after that time, declares the Lord.
I will put my laws in their minds
and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
11 No longer will a man teach his neighbor,
or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.
12 For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”
The time is coming, declares the Lord…meant that this thing that was centuries from fulfillment was a certainty.
*We ought to look back at the past at what God said and what he then did…as confidence building for our own lives.
He has always followed through…he always will.
*What he has said to us about our future destiny is a certainly…it only remains for us to hold on to our confidence (our certainty).
Because we can have a certain future because of the promises of God…
without experiencing the current benefit of that certainly…
we can be eternally secure and live in insecurity…if we fail to hold to our confidence.
*Sometimes children who have gone to live at the YH homes will hoard food at mealtimes…hiding it in their pockets because they have lived with such uncertainty in the past.
What they don’t know is that there will be food for them at every meal…they don’t have to live in uncertainty…they don’t need to experience this stress and fear.
Their lack of certainty doesn’t mean they will lack food at dinner…it just means they miss out on the peace they could have as dinner approaches.
If we have trusted Christ for our future destiny…we can have peace…or we can live without peace…our choice.
When the time comes, our lack of peace will not undermine God’s promises…but we will have lived, unnecessarily so…outside the full experience of God’s blessing in this life.
Here in this passage, in concise form is the story of the Bible:
God made a covenant with his people.
We broke that covenant.
God made a new covenant that doesn’t depend on keeping external laws but rather on a changed heart.
Christ the covenant keeper…dwells in his people.
“Hearts and minds” is a poetic parallelism…not indicating two different things but simply an emphasis on the inward character of the new covenant.
He will put his laws on our minds, he will write them on our hearts.
This means that we are changed inside out…not outside in.
This is not about trying to conform to certain standards, but about being transformed by God…of course as we are transformed, we will want to conform to his will and ways.
Another beautiful aspect of the new covenant is that there is no need for human intermediaries…no priests, no special spiritual class of people that serve as conduits for God’s grace to “normal” people.
Anyone who will…from the least to the greatest…can know God…they can have relationship with God.
This new covenant is available for all people.
The quote from Jeremiah ends with the reason we can have confidence…again, it’s not in our ability to be good or strong or faithful…it is in the character of God.
For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.
God’s grace is our confidence…he will be merciful to those who trust him.
This is not some new development in God…he hasn’t changed in the New Testament and become nice
God does not grow or develop…his perfection doesn’t change…or by definition it wouldn’t be perfection.
Some think there is a hard-nosed OT God and a kinder NT God…but the OT (covenant) was God’s mercy as much as the new.
We call it “old” and “new” but it all a single strategy for God.
We could never know God were it not for his mercy…his plans have always been to provide a way for us to know him…those plans include the Old and New covenant.
*Let’s think back to the historical context of this passage:
The people were in exile in Babylon…they had no access to the temple sacrificial system they had depended on to be forgiven of their sins.
They were living under the rule of a people who did not worship their God (except when Daniel and the boys lived out their faith in ways that shaped the whole kingdom, but that is another story).
Think of what it would sound like if you were living as an exile, a prisoner of war…and you thought all hope of peace with God was gone…to hear this…
“The day is coming when I will write my word on your hearts… I will remember your sins no more.”
If you are dealing with your own guilt…feeling (and being) far from God…this would be music to your ears.
Now, having ended the long quotation from Jeremiah he adds his own comment.
13 By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear.
Now he is looking back and seeing in full what Jeremiah only saw in part.
The OT performed it’s function and has given way to the New.
Slide rules were used to build the rockets and plan the mission that landed Apollo 11 on the moon…Buzz Aldrin used his pocket slide rule for last minute calculations in those stressful “go no go” minutes before landing on the moon.
A slide rule is an analog computer (used to make computations)…they were super useful…but they became obsolete starting around 1974 with the introduction of the handheld calculator…a digital computer.
So, when you hear obsolete don’t think “bad”, rather think…no longer needed, it has been superseded.
When the author of Hebrews says this old system of sacrifice would soon dissappear he was right.
In less than 5 years from the time he wrote this…the Roman General Titus would destroy the Temple and the days of ritual sacrifice came to an end.
This was in fact the second temple, the first Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians 650 years earlier…back when Jeremiah was predicting the coming of the New Covenant.
Why did God do it this way?
Why a nation from a single person…then all those years and all that back and forth of dealing with human fickleness.
Why take on human form, why die on a cross?
Clearly because it is the best way, the only way God’s purposes could be accomplished.
Why do we live at this point in the human time line?
Because, Dr. Luke wrote in Acts…God determined that you would so you would seek him and find him.
Beware the trap of trying to figure God out before you trust God with your life.
You will not figure him out…but you can know him and trust him…you have confidence in the answers you have…even with the questions that remain.
Marriage experts talk about how unhelpful and even how destructive it is when couples practice what is called “mind reading” on one another.
It is actually a cognitive distortion…fancy word for a wrong thinking pattern.
How do you feel when someone says “I know what you are thinking!”
It’s fine when you are being playful…but it’s not good when there is judgment involved.
It’s also harmful when couples expect their partner to read their mind.
“You knew I was upset/I didn’t want that/I did want that.”
“No, I didn’t…I can’t read your mind.”
Mind reading is one of those things where you can get in trouble for doing it and you can get in trouble for not doing it.
God is an expert at relationships…he doesn’t ask us to try and read his magnificent mind…he has told us what we need to know.
We get in trouble when instead of trying to understand and apply what he has told us about his will and his ways…we begin to judge him for what he has or hasn’t done or explained to us.
We don’t need to guess…he has spoken.
We don’t need to live with insecurity…he has spoken.
There are plenty of reasons to trust God with you past, present and future.
At the same time…there are plenty of questions that remain about God and human life.
The Hebrews (like us) were tempted to allow their questions to overwhelm their answers…and to spin backwards to their old lives.
Questions are good…ask them.
But answers are good…believe them.
It doesn’t mean we are to be smug in our answers…we are to be humble, grateful, and confident.
The answers we have are from God’s mind to ours….they revolve around the Lord Jesus.
*Culture is certain about their uncertainty…they are confident of the inability to have confidence.
*But God, as a good Father, does not want his children to live and die in uncertainty.
Will you mostly believe your questions?
Will you believe the answers that God, in his mercy has given?
All people at various times and in various ways…struggle with the questions…
But those who choose to have confidence God’s answers not just in their questions…begin to grow and develop.
They have a firm place to begin to build on…and a firm place from which to deal with questions.
Early in his ministry Billy Graham struggled with questions…key among them was…
Is the Bible true and reliable?
He decided that he had enough evidence to believe the answers and not just his questions…at that point his life took on new power.
You have questions…
Question: What about those who are sincere in their beliefs but don’t believe in Jesus?
Question: Why did God do things the way he did? Why doesn’t he do them differently? (why did this happen to me or that innocent person?)
Question: Is Scripture true, can I trust it?
There are layered and profound answers to those questions…but in the end all answers surround whether we will trust Jesus or not.
We do have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, 2 and who serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by man.
Jesus is, or Jesus isn’t…the savior of the world.
There is no middle ground here.
What did he demonstrate by his life, death, resurrection?
What does he do even now in the lives of those who trust him…who believe in him as the answer….and do not put their faith solely in their questions.
Believe the answers…not just the questions
Hold to your confidence…you can, if you will…but you must nurture confidence.
If it neither noble nor necessary to nurture doubt…it is neither arrogant nor ignorant to nurture your confidence.
Trust the answers God has given…this is counter-cultural…but culture is confused…you don’t have to be.