Hebrews Chapter 8 Verse 1a

• Really this is the sum of the things or this is what all that we have looked at in the past amounts to…

Hebrews Chapter 8 Verses 1 – 2

• That’s it. The sum. The point. The “forever” High Priest, Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus the Son of God…we have a High Priest now who ministers to us and mediates on our behalf from a position of all mighty authority in heaven! So much different than the earthly high priest!

• First, the heavenly temple is real, not a copy. The earthly temple is a scrupulous copy of the real temple in heaven! Did you know that? (True Tabernacle – the real one…or the one that exists in reality! I love this because this Greek phrase, “Alithinos Skene,” well is just sounds cool but it also has the same word used in Luke 16:11, “Therefore if you have been unfaithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust true riches?” Wondrous, eye-opening, electrifying, empowering and releasing reality awaits your faithfulness!

• I gasp with awe at some of these older churches and cathedrals and all of their splendor…St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, Westminster Abbey in London, The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem…but if you want to know what the church in heaven looks like, you must study the Jewish Temple!
• The earthly temple is a detailed copy of the heavenly temple! And so…the earthly high priest ministers in God’s RV! HA! That’s what the writer is saying! His temporary home…His tent as it were…because Acts 7 tells us that He doesn’t dwell there. Acts 7:48 says, “The Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands…” So Jesus, unlike the earthly high priest, Jesus is at the Father’s house, the real one, the center of all reality and truth and He sits at the position of power. The right hand!
• I love this too…Jesus ministers and mediates…sitting! Do you know there was no place for the high priest to sit in the temple and certainly not in the Most Holy Place!? The earthly temple, the Jewish temple had beautiful furnishings and ornate structures but no place for the priests to sit…why? Because the work was never done!
• Do you have work that is never done at your house? Laundry maybe! Wouldn’t self cleaning clothes be amazing!!?? But I digress…Not one sacrifice, not one act was ever enough…it was just a picture of spiritual kick the can! Jesus is all done with reconciling us to the Father. All done! Nothing more! It was enough! And so this High Priest…rests! BOOM
• And so here He is, Jesus the ultimate forever High Priest, in the real temple, in heaven, at the Father’s house, in the position of power, at the right hand of the Father, and He Himself is seated. He is firm is the implication and He has finished the work of redemption of mankind, the forgiveness of sins!

Hebrews Chapter 8 Verses 3 – 6

• So not only is Jesus a better, a higher, an ultimate and forever High Priest and so much superior to the earthly copy…but so is His ministry! So is His covenant and promises! This is the introduction of what is known as the New Covenant.
• John Chapter 13. Jesus washes the feet of His disciples. Think about that for just a minute. The forever ultimate High Priest who was seated at the right hand of the Father (before coming to earth), yet rose from His throne, and stepped down to save His people (man that scene must have been intense), and as He walked the earth, His humility was legendary!

• And that night, right after Judas failed so horribly, Jesus said this in John 13: 34, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” Enter the New Covenant. But I thought He said commandment? He did but did you hear, it wasn’t, “A new commandment I lay upon you, I expect of you, I press upon you.” He said, “A new commandment…I give you!”

• The word is didomi in the Greek. It means to give like a gift, like a supply, a furnishing, an intrusting, a presenting…It’s an entirely different thought and an entirely different delivery than the Old Covenant Law which was obliged, heavy, sentenced upon mankind…what Jesus did was equip us! That is what this commandment is…it is given by Jesus…by His blood and His salvation and His Spirit!
• So awesome! So much better, such a better promise. Why? Because this one is not a burden upon man…predicated on man’s performance like the law and like all religion but this one, this gift commandment of love, this empowerment…this IronMan Suit of holiness and righteousness and goodness and forbearance and joy, it is entirely predicated on the a better promise, one that can actually be kept, one that was actually kept, it is according to the perfection of Jesus Christ alone!

• Exodus 19:5, Old Covenant, “If you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” If you will keep…New Covenant…Jesus kept! Revelation 1:5-6, “Jesus Christ, the faithful witness who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father…to Him be all glory!”

• See that? Old Covenant, “If…then priests…” New Covenant, “Because of Jesus…priests!” Awesome. No one ever even achieved the Old Covenant except Jesus. No one. Humanity burdened with guilt and revelation of failure. Through Jesus everyone who comes to God through Jesus achieves the New Covenant because it is a straight up gift from Jesus the minute a life is given to Him! He suits you and me up man…fills us with power…gives us His heart…

Hebrews Chapter 8 Verses 7 – 12

• Did you hear that! He’s quoting from the Old Testament! From Jeremiah 31! Jeremiah, the weeping warrior carried a message that now stands to release a nation! 600 years after it is written, it finally comes full circle. I can see him breakdancing in heaven as the Jews read this…they can finally understand, because they didn’t then…and they mocked him…

• The point is so powerful, if the Old Covenant was perfect and faultless, then why would the prophet of God speak of a new one coming…and this new one is precisely what we’ve been talking about! God says, “No longer will I allow our hearts to be separate, I will download my heart into yours!” But first, He had to make us compatible…

• This is so cool. God’s wonderful, loving, perfect and powerful heart is simply not compatible, it’s not congruous, its not harmonious with man’s sinful, hateful, faultful and weak heart. So before installing the app, He had to change the OS. You ever try to access Google Play on Apple? Download an Android App on an iPhone? Pretty frustrating…doesn’t work. Incompatible…only Apple apps on an Apple device right?

• I love this, it is so clear…the New Covenant, the gift of God, His very Son and in it is not just the removal of sin…it is so much more…it is the gift of the New Covenant…His heart, our heart…His mind, our mind…coming together majestically by His grace and once again, restoration, peace…man once again knows His God…

• And now, as we walk with Him and know Him and grow in His will and word, what He has always desired for our lives…becomes our desire…He removes the thou shalts and replaces them with our own desires and satisfactions if we will only give ourselves so fully to such an able Lord and walk so fully in the New Covenant of love! Jesus said, “My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” We understand that now, don’t we?

• Our sins have been cleansed…even forgotten by the power of the blood of Jesus Christ…and we are free to go…not to go into destruction and more sin…we are really free! Free from sin, dead to this devastated design and alive to the OS of Yahweh Himself!

Hebrews Chapter 8 Verse 13

• Shortly after this the priesthood of the Old Covenant did vanish. 70 AD, the Roman General Titus destroys the temple and to this day, sacrifice, priests…gone. Vanished. And yet God is so at work in the hearts and lives of His creation, right? How! Precisely this. Precisely what we have unpacked today. That God the Father is as close to us as His Mediator, His Son…who indeed became Man and promises to love us to the uttermost. A better promise than man being good enough for God. A realistic promise. A revealed promise!
• He remains today doing this work in the hearts of folks. Folks like us, folks like you…but there is still an if…the New Covenant is only if you will receive Him…simple as that.

After wonderful things were said about him, Dr. Graham stepped to the rostrum, looked at the crowd, and said, "I'm reminded today of Albert Einstein, the great physicist who this month has been honored by Time Magazine as the 'Man of the Century.' Einstein was once traveling from Princeton on a train when the conductor came down the aisle, punching the tickets of every passenger. When he came to Einstein, Einstein reached in his vest pocket. He couldn't find his ticket, so he reached in his trouser pockets. It wasn't there, so he looked in his briefcase but couldn't find it. Then he looked in the seat beside him. He still couldn't find it. The conductor said, 'Dr. Einstein, I know who you are.  We all know who you are. I'm sure you bought a ticket. Don't worry about it.' Einstein nodded appreciatively. The conductor continued down the aisle punching tickets. As he was ready to move to the next car, he turned around and saw the great physicist down on his hands and knees looking under his seat for his ticket. The conductor rushed back and said, 'Dr. Einstein, Dr. Einstein, don't worry, I know who you are No problem. You don't need a ticket.  I'm sure you bought one.'

Einstein looked at him and said, 'Young man, I too, know who I am. What I don't know is where I'm going.'"

Having said that, Billy Graham continued, "See the suit I'm wearing?  It's a brand new suit.  My children, and my grandchildren are telling me I've gotten a little slovenly in my old age.  I used to be a bit more fastidious.  So I went out and bought a new suit for this luncheon and one more occasion.

You know what that occasion is?  This is the suit in which I'll be buried.  But when you hear I'm dead, I don't want you to immediately remember the suit I'm wearing. I want you to remember this:

'I not only know who I am... I also know where I'm going.'"