6/5/2016
The Priesthood of Believers Pt. 7
Our Priesthood is a Spiritual Calling
Hebrews 3:1 Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and High Priest Whom we confess.
An Effective Priesthood is Faithful To God’s Service
Hebrews 3:2-4 He was faithful to the One Who appointed Him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house. Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything!
Jesus Is God’s Son Therefore We Are Included In His Household
Hebrews 3:5-6 Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house, testifying to what would be said in the future. But Christ is faithful as a Son over God’s house. And we are His house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast.
God Expects Return On His Investments…
Hebrews 3:7-11 So, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the desert, where your fathers tested and tried Me and for forty years saw what I did. That is why I was angry with that generation, and I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known My ways.’ So I declared on oath in My anger, ‘They shall never enter My rest.'”
Our Priesthood Involves Mutual Obligation
Hebrews 3:12-13 See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.
To Choose Unbelief Proves Disbelief
Hebrews 3:14-19 We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. As has just been said: “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion.” Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? With whom was He angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the desert? To whom did God swear that they would never enter His rest if not to those who disobeyed? So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.
Faith To Believe The Gospel Is Supernatural
Hebrews 4:1-2 Therefore, since the promise of entering His rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith.
Ephesians 2:8-9 …it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this (faith) is not from yourselves, it (the faith) is the gift of God–not by works, (manmade religious actions) so that no one can boast.
Our Position Is Dependent on His Finished Work NOTHING ELSE
Hebrews 4:3 Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said, “So I declared on oath in My anger, ‘They shall never enter My rest.'” And yet His work has been finished since the creation of the world.
Revelation 13:8…all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, (Anti-Christ) whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
Our Belief Is Set In a New Day…The Day of Jesus Christ
Hebrews 4:6-8 It still remains that some will enter that rest, and those who formerly had the gospel preached to them did not go in, because of their disobedience. Therefore God again set a certain day, calling it Today, when a long time later He spoke through David, as was said before: “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts. “For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day.