Project 119: Hebrews 3:1-6
| Project 119
"Fix Your Thoughts on Jesus"
What occupies your thoughts the most in this season of the year? If you’re honest, it’s more than likely the gift you anticipate receiving on Christmas Day. That’s understandable. There’s something special about being on the receiving end of something good we do not deserve. But what if your obsession with material gain—even at this special time of the year—kept you from receiving the best gift of all?
The writer of Hebrews takes that approach as he directs his readers not to lose sight of Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest to whom we confess (Hebrews 3:1). Much of the instruction to this point in the letter has focused on the superiority of Jesus. Jesus is greater than the angels (Hebrews 1–2). He is also greater than Moses, the one through whom God worked to reveal His Commandments to His people.
Both Moses and Jesus were sent by God to lead His people. Moses, of course, was the one whom God had appointed to lead the children of Israel from their Egyptian bondage to freedom in the Promised Land of Canaan. Meanwhile, Jesus was God’s Messiah, His Anointed, who through His death on the cross delivered us sinners from an even greater bondage to an even greater rest—one that assures us of everlasting life. While Moses was a servant in God’s redemptive purpose, Jesus was God’s Son, incorporating us into the people of God that nothing will ever be able to tear down or destroy.
When I was a teenager, I worked in my father’s store, spending most of the Christmas season assembling bicycles, tricycles, and wagons. It was enjoyable work, but at the end of each day, I’d end up with a little stack of loose parts that never made it onto any of the items I was assembling. I’ve often wondered if those parts were necessary and if what I put together stayed together.
God is assembling a people through whom He intends to put the world to rights. If we follow Jesus and hold onto the courage and hope we have in Him, we join in that important work and participate in God’s work of redemption. If, however, we lose our focus and forget the most important piece of all, nothing we do will last past the first of the year.
As Jesus was faithful, let us be faithful also. Then, we will be assured a place in God’s house and a spot at the heavenly table where joys immortal will flow.
Hebrews 3:1-6 (NIV):
1 Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest. 2 He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house. 3 Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. 4 For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. 5 “Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house,” bearing witness to what would be spoken by God in the future. 6 But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory.