Let us go along to another one, this one in Hebrews chapter 3. It is a similar metaphor. It also uses the metaphor of a house but there is a little bit of a twist on it.
Now, you could say, this is just like the other one there in I Corinthians 3. But it is a little bit different. God's house here, that he is talking about, is that the metaphor focuses not on the building materials like Paul did, but on the people who inhabit the house - a household, a family as it were. But it is not just the family. The idea of a household in that age was a lot different than ours. We think of mother, father, and two kids as the house. But this is much broader. The house is a family, yes; it is not only the current family but it is the whole dynasty, the whole line. The whole genealogy of the family is included in this as well as the members of the household that may not even be part of the family by blood.
Notice Moses. Moses was a servant in the house. He was not the son or even a son. In this particular analogy, he was a servant who, in those days, was a part of a household. So it is all, in whatever function that they have, who inhabit that house and have to work for the profit and the good - the efficiency - of the whole household.
So, in that day and age, it might have been a patriarch, a matriarch, sons and daughters, and all the maidservants and manservants. And it could have been a steward who was over the business aspects of the house. It could have been a teacher, a physician, various other employees, or slaves that were in the house. They were all part of the household. They all had their functions and they were all supposed to work for the benefit of the whole house. And Moses was faithful in what he did for the whole house, was he not? He did a great job guiding Israel through the wilderness and giving us the law and all the other things that he did. He was a faithful servant and his work (going back to Paul's other metaphor) stands today even though he was tested by fire.
So what we need to understand here is that we are individuals in this household. We are called sons and daughters. We are not servants necessarily, although we are. We may have different responsibilities in the body of Christ that make us servants. But we are really sons and daughters. But our inclusion in the Family, as he shows here in verse 6, is that we remain loyal. We remain faithful to the Heir, the Son who is the quintessence of faithfulness.
He is showing us how to do it. He is showing us all along how to be faithful. And we have to copy the faithfulness of Jesus Christ and the faithfulness, the loyalty, and the dedication of Moses to remain a part of this Family. Because that was the problem the Hebrews were having: They were beginning to slip away. They were not doing their jobs in the Family, in the household. They were allowing themselves to drift.
Just a note of interest. You might want to jot down I Timothy 3:14-15; Galatians 6:10; and Colossians 3:18-4 verse 1. These are all part of the metaphor of the household and almost all of the references to a household as the church speak to the proper conduct of members of God's house. And the one in Colossians chapter 3 talks about husbands, wives, children, master, servants. They were all part of the household at the time and they all had their responsibilities and they all needed to conduct themselves properly to remain as members in good standing of the household.
Moses is one of that great cloud of witnesses, and there is much that we can learn from his life. It says that he was faithful as a servant. I wonder if any higher tribute can be given a man than that. Moses, the servant of God. To the best of my knowledge, only five people in the Bible are called that. Nobody received the accolades from God that Moses has, as we will begin to see.
He did the job that God gave him, and he did it well. That is what set him apart. He did it well. He was faithful. So well did he do it that, in verse 2, there is a very strong hint that our Messiah - our Savior - is compared to Moses (not the other way around). That is pretty high praise. It says even as Moses.
We are going to go back to the book of Numbers and take a look at where this is taken from.
That sets the stage.
Put yourself in the position of Moses for just a second or two here. How would you like to be accused, and then have God Himself make a dramatic entrance, and hear His voice boom out in poetry in your defense - saying that you were without peer amongst all the people? Do you know what peer means? It means equal. God said to Moses, There is no one like you. He was without peer among the holy. I will tell you, that is pretty impressive stuff. That has not happened very often in mankind's history.
But, on the other hand, there has only been one Moses. Ordinary prophets, there were a lot of them. They had to be content with visions and dreams. But God spoke to Moses personally. Moses was in a class all by himself. There was nobody on earth more intimate with God than Moses. As a result of that, Moses was entrusted with all of God's estate. That is what that means: He is faithful in all My house.
God entrusted to Moses all of His estate. All His house is a figure of speech, and it indicates that house is put for itself (that is, the building) and everything that is in it. What is normally in a house is a family. So what He was saying is that Moses is faithful - he is without peer - in all of God's Household, in all of God's Family.
Nobody was faithful like Moses was faithful; and, therefore, he could interpret God's will to Israel with full authority. That is what was behind those words. So if Moses interpreted God's will that it was all right for him to be married to that Ethiopian, God said it was okay. He backed him up, and He said these people [Miriam and Aaron] were out of line. That is why He said, Why were you not afraid to speak against (or, accuse) My servant Moses?
It is very clear what set Moses apart from others. He was faithful. This can, I think, clearly be seen when he is contrasted to Israel (who were God's Family at that time). They were the very people that He was leading, but they were anything but faithful! In fact, if you look at the Old Testament and some parts of the New Testament as well, you find that the reason that they failed was because of their lack of faith. And without faith you cannot be faithful.
Please turn with me over to Hebrews 3. In contrast to the ancient Israelites, we must be diligently confident and conscientiously hopeful with joy. Their servant leader Moses was faithful to his house, Israel, as a type of Christ over His own house, God's church, and its individual members. Here, there is a comparison between Jesus Christ and Moses, showing Jesus Christ to be the more faithful one, but Moses still having been faithful.
The faithful Moses was a type or forerunner of Jesus Christ. But the Israelites he led out of Egypt had inconsistent faith and hope, and they focused on physical things and their work of bondage because of their fearful and distracted mindset. They resisted hope. The physical challenges of life were more real to them than the spiritual realities of God's deliverance. Had they had real hope they would have been willing to suffer and endure and persevere to achieve the goal of their future reality.
We have a different future reality in that it is a spiritual reality. It is a reality of liberty which these days represent, and also of the Kingdom of God. Theirs was a physical liberty in the land they were to inherit at the end of the 40 years.
This confident message of hope means our life involves endurance and perseverance. Faith and hope are interconnected. Faith will diminish without hope because hope is a motivator.
In stark contrast to Moses, the Israelites in the world today believe that the word hope means something that is uncertain, which is the opposite of what true hope is. But for us, the church, it refers to what is sure and certain, but for which we wait. The apostle Paul calls this one hope in Ephesians 4:4 because it embraces a unifying set of beliefs among us, the elect of God, the saints.
Another way of thinking about our hope is to say that when Jesus Christ returns, we are going to be with Him. People from all races, nations, and economic backgrounds will be together with Jesus, our Savior, our King; and the many things that divide us now will be forgotten then.
It is vitally important that we remember our privileges as members of God's church. And it is our privilege that we are called children of God. To bear the name of the Family of God is something to keep our feet on the right path that set us climbing toward perfection.
Nevertheless, we are not merely called children of God. We are the children of God. And it is by the gift of God that a person becomes a child of God. By nature we are the creature of God, but it is by grace that we become children of God.
Please turn over to I John 3. While all humans are children of God in the sense that we owe our lives to Him, we become His sanctified children in the intimate and loving sense only by an act of God's initiating grace and the response of our own hearts. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind.
It is important that the New Testament describes Jesus as faithful. He is called a merciful and faithful High Priest. He fulfills that role, finally and ultimately, in the service of God to make expiation for the sins of the people, as Hebrews 2:17 tells us. Jesus Christ is faithful in Moses' role. He surpasses and fulfills the faithfulness and loyalty of Moses in building and ruling the house of God - the household of God, the church of God.
The children of Israel continually tested God's faithfulness and loyalty, and always God was faithful to His covenant; and He was loyal to those who were loyal to Him. But they suffered from a human trait that comes out of rebellion, and that human trait is unbelief. Unbelief is faithlessness, and part of faith is loyalty. Therefore, disloyalty equates to unbelief.
Regarding Hebrews 3:6, the servant owns nothing, is heir to nothing, has no authority and no right to control anything; and he is himself wholly at the will of another. A son, however, is the heir of all, has a prospective right to all, and is looked up to by all with respect. The idea here is not merely that Christ is a Son. It is that, as a Son, He is placed over the whole arrangement of the household and is One to whom all is entrusted - as if it were His own.
We are part of God the Father and Jesus Christ's Family. That is where we belong. We belong to the Family over which Christ is placed, under God the Father. Jesus Christ is the consummation of God's determined loyalty to His gracious covenant-relationship with His people. Christ is faithful and loyal to the Father, and the Father to Him. We have the wonderful opportunity to be part of this faithful and loyal Family. The training grounds for it is here and now - in our own households, and in the household of God.
Loyalty means enduring commitment to a person over a long period of time - often with the implication of the commitment persisting in the face of obstacles. We certainly see the obstacles in members of God's church - in sickness, from principalities, from others, and from our own human nature. Loyalty means enduring commitment to a person over a long period of time - often with the implication of the commitment persisting in the face of obstacles that threaten the lasting commitment.
Let me ask you this question, and let it ring in your ears as I let it ring in mind: How loyal are you? (How loyal am I?)
Hebrews 3 gives a comparison of Moses and Christ. Paul is basically telling us that the Christ was so much greater than Moses. Moses is a huge figure in history, especially Jewish history. But, Paul says, As much respect as we give to Moses, we should be giving even greater respect and reverence to Christ because Moses was simply a servant. But, Jesus Christ is the Son of God. A son will inherit the house. The Son is going to be in control, whereas the servant will always be a servant. And so, Christ, therefore, is superior to Moses.
Now, this is interesting. What he is saying here is that what Moses taught in the Pentateuch (and this can be expanded out to cover the whole Old Testament using Moses as kind of key figure) as a witness of, or a forerunner of what was going to be taught by Jesus Christ and the New Testament.
So, what he is saying here is very similar to Romans 15:4 or I Corinthians 10:11 where they say that the things that happened back there were examples to us for us to learn from and have comfort and hope by. And, he is using it here, not only for that purpose, but also to give himself backing and proof for what he is about to say.
What he is about to say is that we have to guard against the danger of falling away - a falling by the wayside before we reach God's Kingdom. Because, what he is going to do is reach back into the Exodus account, and he is going to show that all those people who left Egypt died in the wilderness.
God had given them this wonderful hope. He described it in detail. He told them how He was going to do it. But, every one of them, save for Joshua and Caleb, failed to reach it. As he says very picturesquely, Their bodies were strewn across the wilderness in 40 years time. It seemed that all the Israelites did was bury their dead; 20,000 might die in this plague and 30,000 in that plague. They scattered their bones all over the wilderness.
So, he is saying, Look! We have got to see this example back in the Old Testament as a type - a testimony, a witness, a forerunner - of what could happen to us if we follow the same path they took.
And so he goes through the rest of chapter 3 and on into chapter 4 showing why they did not make it into the Promised Land, which he calls, God's rest.
Jesus Christ is the epitome of loyalty and faithfulness. It is important that the New Testament describes Jesus as faithful. He is called a merciful high priest and He fulfills the role finally and ultimately in the service of God to make expiation for the sins of the people, as Hebrews 2: 17 tells us. Jesus Christ is faithful in Moses role. He surpasses and fulfills the faithfulness and loyalty of Moses in building and ruling the Household of God and the Church of God. Here in Hebrews 3:1-13 we will read.
We are in danger of being depersonalized, of having our hearts hardened - that is what depersonalization is.
Unbelief is faithlessness, and part of faith is loyalty therefore disloyalty equates to unbelief, to faithlessness. Of course it is loyalty to God and Jesus Christ first, and then to our brethren, as long we are following God and doing what He says in His inspired holy written word.
The servant owns nothing, is heir to nothing, has no authority and no right to control anything and is Himself holy at the will of another. A son, however, is the heir of all, has a perspective right to all and is looked up to by all with respect - that is if he is a good son, or righteous son.
The idea is not merely that Christ is a son; it is that as a son, He is placed over the whole arrangements of the household and is one to whom all is entrusted as if it were His own. We are part of God the Father and Jesus Christ's family. It is where we belong. We belong to the family over which Christ has been placed as the Firstborn Son.
Jesus Christ is the consummation of God's determined loyalty to His gracious covenant relationship with His people, and Christ is faithful and loyal to the Father and the Father to Him, and we have the wonderful opportunity to be part of this faithful and loyal family. The training ground for it is here and now, in our own households, and in the household of God.
Paul is saying that Christ and Moses are on different levels. Moses was a mere servant, whereas Christ was the Son. Understand this. One of the main themes of Hebrews is that everything with Christ is better in every way than the way it was before.
Moses was a servant in the house. Christ is the Son, and we are the house. Very interesting. It is an analogous metaphor as the body. We are Christ's body. Just keep this in the back of your mind. He says we are Christ's house.
What he is saying is that we have been given an opportunity to be in a place, in a level, in a position even above Moses. He is saying, Look, you Hebrews. Look how much you revered Moses and what he did. Because of what Christ did when He was here, and because He is now our faithful High Priest, we have an opportunity to be even greater than Moses was.
What he is doing is piling on proof of their obligation to do things like Christ did. He said what we need is to be faithful, and to be good stewards like Moses was. Remember it says here that Moses was faithful as a servant. We need to be faithful like Christ. So we need to be faithful. We need to be enduring all the way to the end. This is what it is going to take.
He is really making it tough on them. He is saying, You don't have any excuse because you have been put in a place of great honor, great potential, and if you want to be like God, then you have got to do things like Christ, because He is the pattern we are supposed to follow. He is really turning the screws on them.
The rest of chapter 3 and the first part of chapter 4 he is telling them, You guys had better make careful that you don't miss out on the Kingdom of God. You need to be faithful. This is a very strong admonition for them to put their heart into things.
Paul starts out by referring to us as holy brethren. Out of all of the earth, we have been selected to be holy. He is reminding us of who we are and to whom we belong. We do not belong to the world; we belong to God the Father and Jesus Christ. We are called with a heavenly calling; and because of that, we should consider the High Priest of our profession and the path that we are called to follow. Christ is both our High Priest and our Apostle. Then, as an example to us and all of mankind, we are to notice that He is faithful to His Father who appointed Him. Because of this, He was counted worthy of more glory than Moses.
He goes on to say that every house has a builder. The term house not only means a place where a family lives, but it means the family itself. We, who are called today, are the house that is being built in Jesus Christ. We, out of the entire world, have been selected to build a Family that has never existed before, the Family of God.
Just so that we will have the confidence, He tells us in verse 4 that the One who built His house, or Family, is Jesus Christ, under the direction of the Father. He is the One who is building it with each one of us. He tells us, past and present, that Moses was faithful in all His house, as a servant, but that Jesus Christ as a Son is over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and rejoicing of hope firm to the end. We can just read over the word confidence and not give it much thought. The confidence to which we are to hold fast is the liberty of access to God the Father. Of all the people in the world, we have access to God the Father. We must not drift away.
The Israelites only had physical houses, but we have a spiritual house that can give us far greater stability, if we allow it. Now, we could go to Matthew 7 and plug in the parable of the two builders and apply the houses there to our lives, and that does fit. But there is another way to apply the house symbolism, which we will see in Hebrews 3, if you would turn there:
As with so many things, the symbol of the house points us back to Christ as well. He has built and is building a spiritual house, and we are that house, as long as we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end. We are that house because we are in Him. Jesus promised that the gates of the grave would not prevail against the church - this house. The individual members die physically, but this house has continued for some 2,000 years. It has a sure foundation.
This does not mean that this house is always tranquil inside, because it consists of still-imperfect people, and the carnality that remains tends to cause friction. But in the long view, the house is far more stable than anything that spiritual Egypt can offer because it is founded on and upheld by the Son of God. The spiritual house is a shelter from the storms that rage outside. So, part of our duty is not to bring corruption, symbolized by leaven, into either our own homes or into this spiritual house, but to prioritize feeding on the Bread of Life and helping other members of the household do the same.
Now, within the imagery of the house or dwelling, there is an intriguing contrast with Tabernacles. Please turn back to Leviticus 23:
There is another little reminder. If Christ was faithful, why cannot we be faithful? He was faithful in His sufferings.
Christ is greater, better, superior to Moses! Whoever the author was, he handled this very delicately - very nicely. He could have caused offense by seemingly putting Moses down. Moses was held in very high regard by the Hebrew people, but here was One greater than Moses. And yet he was able to put it across in such a way that he showed that Moses, indeed, was faithful; but he was faithful as a servant within the house of which Jesus Christ is the Builder.
But notice the word confidence in verse 6. In Hebrews 4:16, the exact same word is translated boldness! These people were not rejoicing. And they were not bold any longer. Their apathy had them just sort of lying there, taking life in. They were observers, but they were not doers. They were neglecting what had been given to them. And so here is an exhortation: Be bold in overcoming and growing. Be confident in doing those things. And rejoice in the greatness of the message that we have been given.
Like I said, you cannot receive a greater message than the one that you have been given. It just is not possible to hear any news that is any greater than what God is preparing for His children.
Hebrews 3:7 begins an exhortation about what we should do - what we should extend our boldness and our confidence in.
The New Testament describes Jesus as faithful and He is called a merciful and faithful High Priest. He fulfills that role finally and ultimately in the service of God to make expiation for the sins of the people, according to Hebrews 2:17. Now Jesus Christ is faithful in Moses' role. He surpasses and fulfills the faithfulness and loyalty of Moses in building and ruling the house of God, the household of God, the church of God.
The servant owns nothing, is heir to nothing, has no authority, and no right to control anything, and is himself wholly at the will of another. A son, however, is the heir of all, has a prospective right to all, and is looked up to by all with respect. But the idea here is not merely the Christ as a Son, it is that as a son, He is placed over the whole arrangements of the household and is one to whom all is entrusted as if it were His own.
We belong to the Family of God the Father and Jesus Christ. And Christ is the consummation of God's determined loyalty to His gracious covenant relationship with His people. He is loyal to the Father and the Father to Him. We have the wonderful opportunity to be part of this faithful and loyal Family. The training ground for it is here and now in our own households and in the household of God.
That is how much difference there is between Moses and Jesus Christ. Moses was simply a servant, and he served in the house that was built by another. Jesus Christ built the house. And He is the Son of the Owner. He has the power, and the glory, and He gets the greater of everything, because He is the Son, and not just a servant.
So, because He is greater, He is more worthy of honor, and of attention. So when we have something that Moses said, versus something that Jesus Christ said, they are not going to disagree, but what Jesus Christ said is the governor for what Moses said.
Do you understand what I mean here? What Jesus said is the bedrock on which everything else sits. He is the chief cornerstone, as you will recall. The prophets and the apostles hang together on Him. He is like the keystone of an arch. The arch will fall without the keystone being in place. And it is the keystone that everything is balanced off of.
So, when there is something in the Old Testament that we do not understand, if we find what Jesus said on that subject, that should be the baseline of our understanding. Then, we go back to the Old Testament and see how that fits in with what Jesus said. Jesus is the key. He is the One who is the most important.
Turn with me to Hebrews 3. The church is both God's home on earth and our home as members of His household.
We see there a qualification of each one of us, even each household, has to be part of that household of God.
Jesus is contrasted with Moses as a Son over God's house. Moses was no more than a member - of the house. He was essentially one with all others. Christ has an innate superiority. He is the Son and as such is over the household.
The spiritual or symbolic sense of household shows us united by God's election and salvation through Jesus Christ, therefore, we are included in God's household of faith mentioned in Galatians 6:10.
The spiritual household is first of all a relational image, a large and extended family including various associates and household servants known affectionately as brothers and sisters, or in general brethren.
But closely related is the architectural imagery of the church as pillar and foundation of the truth. In contrast to the pagan temples and even the stone Temple in Jerusalem, we are a spiritual house, built by Jesus Christ with living stones. In this house of God is the pillar of the truth.
And so he goes through the rest of chapter 3 and on into chapter 4 showing why they did not make it into the Promised Land, which he calls, God's rest.
So, what he does is stick faith and hope together. And, he says that if we want to make it into God's Kingdom - God's rest - we have got to continue in faith, hope, confidence, and rejoicing in the hope. They have got to be firm, enduring, or strong to the end. It has got to be something big enough, great enough, real enough, and vivid enough to carry us all the way through, because, frankly, the Christian life is difficult at times. Not always. But, just going through all the normal ups and downs of life Christianity can be hard to adhere to. If we have confident faith, and enduring hope, we can get over those rough spots. That is what he is getting at here.
Now Paul called himself a wise master-builder. But Jesus Christ is the wise Master-builder. And He builds by means of His Spirit, His Word, His interventions, and His gifts.
Jesus did a much better job that John did, but something interesting happened along the way. Jesus preached to thousands of people during His ministry. Now, I am going to leave you today with a question that I will answer at the beginning of my next sermon.
What strange thing happened along the way to this Man - the greatest Man; the greatest Builder who ever walked the face of the earth - what happened? What amazing turn of events occurred that one would hardly expect to occur to the One who had more glory - deserves more glory - than any person who has ever lived?
Now we know who is working on us. It is our High Priest, Jesus Christ.
Brethren, the church is indestructible because God said so. The gates of the grave will never prevail against it. We are each a living stone in it and we have the responsibility to stand strong in the confident hope that we have in Christ that we too will be firm.
There is one question that I have not asked. Why until morning are we to stay in the house? We are to hold fast till then, when the Day Star arises with healing in His wings, till the Light of the world arises, or our death occurs, whichever comes first.
Add this to the list that I gave you the last two sermons.
I do not know that for sure, but I think that what happened was because he was God's greatest prophet, God did not want him known by the name of a foreign god, and so his name became known forever as just Moses the son, which is very, very interesting. If you go back to Hebrews 3 there is a very significant thing there, that Moses is a forerunner of Christ.
Is that not very interesting that Moses' Egyptian name would be son, and he was a type of Jesus Christ, who is the Son, and both of them were considered faithful in their house? That is kind of interesting.
Also, Jesus Christ is faithful in Moses' role; He surpasses and fulfills the faithfulness and loyalty of Moses in building and ruling the house of God - the household of God - the church of God.
The writer of Hebrews goes on to say that the children of Israel continually tested God's faithfulness and loyalty, and always God was faithful to His covenant, and He was loyal to those who were loyal to Him. But they suffered from the human trait that comes out of rebellion - unbelief.
You can see that in Paul's mind Moses was almost incomparable with any other human being, only Christ would compare to him. The term I feel encompasses the kind of leadership that God wants from us is what Moses had in spades. He was faithful, his outstanding characteristic. Whatever God called upon him to do he was faithful in carrying it out. He was a leader.
The lesson we can learn from Asa is to be zealous and faithful all our days. Nothing, like the life of Asa, could be more tragic than giving up just before the finish line.
