Build according to the Pattern

Hebrews chapter 8 and we'll read the whole chapter, 13 verses. We got up to verse 2 last time, we'll take it from verse 3, but let's read the chapter from verse 1. Now this is the main point of the things we are saying. We have such a high priest who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord directed and not man. For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices. Therefore it is necessary that this one also have something to offer. For we are on earth, for if he were on earth he would not be a priest since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law. We serve the copy and the shadow of the things, heavenly things, as Moses was divinely instructed when he was about to make the tabernacle for he said, see that you make all things according to the pattern shown you in the mountain. But now he was has obtained a more excellent ministry and as much as he also is a mediator of a better covenant which was established on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless then no place would have been sought for a second. Because finding fault with them, he says, behold the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand and led them out of the land of Egypt, because they did not continue in my covenant and I disregarded them, says the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their mind and write them on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people. None of them shall teach his neighbor and none his brother saying, know the Lord. For all shall know me from the least of them to the greatest of them. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more. In that he says a new covenant he has made the first obsolete, now that is becoming up, now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. So he has now introduced the idea of the tabernacle and chapter 9 he's going to go into a lot more detail about the tabernacle and we'll deal with that. But he has now obviously introduced Jesus as the better high priest and in this chapter he's going to show us how many things we have that are better and superior in many ways to that which they had in the Old Testament. And so in verse 3 he says, for every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices. Therefore it is necessary that this one also have something to offer. Now obviously he's referring to the fact that they offered animals that were brought as sacrifices but also as thank offerings. Remember that the sacrifices were not only sin offerings but they were also thank offerings and so they because God had blessed you you would bring something as a sacrifice to show your gratitude to the Lord. Now if Jesus then is a priest well and if they are copies of him then obviously he needs to have something to sacrifice. But he is functioning in heaven. The whole point is that the sanctuary that he is a high priest of is not an earthly sanctuary but a heavenly sanctuary. And so if he is operating in a heavenly sanctuary and as I said last week I don't believe there is a physical sanctuary. It's simply meaning the presence of God. Now if he is functioning then in the heavenly sanctuary what sacrifice is he going to offer? He cannot bring animals into heaven. I know there are many people who believe that their animals will go to heaven. There's no scripture for that. But obviously there's no room, there's no way that you can bring animals into heaven and make actual blood sacrifices. So what is he going to offer? He has offered himself. And remember that even though he made that sacrifice 2,000 years ago that sacrifice is still effectual because it is a once-for-all sacrifice. So they offered animals, they killed innocent animals that had not sinned in order to cover the sin of the sinner. Jesus gives himself. He does not take someone else's animal and kill that. He gives himself as a sacrifice and an offering. So we have a better offering. The offerings that they gave were animals. The offering that he gave is himself. And then in verse 4, for if he were on earth he would not be a priest since there are priests who offer the gifts according to the law. Now he's already established this point but he's emphasizing it again. He does not qualify to be a priest here on earth because he is not of the order of Levi or of Aaron. He is not of the tribe of Levi and so he is disqualified in that sense from being a priest here on earth. So if he were on earth he would not be a priest since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law. So there are already priests who do the job. He cannot supplant them. He cannot replace them because they are set there by the law. And obviously that sacrifice now has just been discontinued because of the temple being destroyed. But the point then he says is that they serve the copy and the shadow of heavenly things. So we spoke about this last week that Moses is shown a pattern and as I said I don't know if he was shown a drawing, a blueprint, or whether he was shown a model. The Jewish sages say that that the angel Gabriel came down and showed him a model. Well I mean that's just a tradition. There is no evidence for that in Scripture. What we do know is that Moses is shown some kind of pattern, some kind of model, whether it's a physical 3d model or whether it's a drawing. And remember that with God the possibilities are endless. God could have just imprinted in Moses's mind. God could have just given Moses a flash of understanding and he could have seen it. I struggle with making things out of my head. I need a picture and I'm not very good at drawing. But people who are very good at drawing, people who are artists, are able just out of their minds, they're able without any reference, without any picture or anything else, they're able to draw a picture or a schematic for a machine or something. We had somebody in one of the churches in South Africa who made a living out of building machines and he would see just a picture of a very complicated machine made somewhere else in the world and he would look at the thing and he would go and make another machine like that. He just had the ability to have this in his mind and then to follow that. So God could have given Moses that imprint, could have given him that idea without him actually physically seeing something. So that's not the point. The fact is that God instructed Moses and gave him the plan. So the point also then is that what they had in the Old Testament was a copy and a shadow. We've spoken about this so many times. The shadow is so much inferior to the reality. And so they serve in the copy and the shadow. They serve really in the inferior thing, which is not the reality. The reality is heaven. So they serve the copy and the shadow of heavenly things. Now he says, as Moses was divinely instructed when he was about to make the tabernacle, for he said, that's God said, see that you make all things according to the pattern shown you in the mountain. Now this is absolutely essential for us to come to terms with, to come to grips with. God says to Moses, you need to make it, not just more or less, but make all things according to the pattern shown you in the mountain. That pattern was not just a rough idea. It included every dimension of every piece of furniture. It included the dimensions of the holiest of all, the dimensions of the holy place, the dimensions of the outer court, the height of the fence, every detail. The dimensions were given to him. They're in the Old Testament. The materials that he was to use was given to him. In some cases, the source of those materials was given to him. For example, the laver was to be made out of brass, but it wasn't just any old brass. It had to be made out of the mirrors. Remember, they didn't have glass mirrors like we have today. They would use a polished piece of metal. When I was in the Air Force, one of the things that was part of your kit was a little piece of stainless steel, which was polished, and that's what you used to shave in, because obviously when you're out in the field, you can't carry a glass thing. It'll break. And so they would have, and they generally were very much like hand mirrors that women use today, round with a handle, but made out of brass and polished very highly so that you could see your face. Now, the laver was to be made specifically out of that brass, because there's a principle, there's a lesson in that. And so every detail had to be made according to the pattern, and Moses builds it exactly as God told him. In fact, if we go to the last chapter of Exodus—keep your finger in Hebrews if you're following along—but Exodus chapter 40, and a good deal of Exodus, the last half of Exodus, deals with the building of the tabernacle, but the last chapter tells us about the completion of it. In verse 16 of Exodus chapter 40, Thus Moses did according to all that the Lord had commanded him, so he did. You can see exactly the same words that is quoted in Hebrews. He did it exactly as God had told him. Now in verse 19, and I'm just going to jump through verses here, but he spread out the tent over the tabernacle, so the the tabernacle itself had walls, but it had four layers of covering over the top. So he, in verse 19, he spread out the tent over the tabernacle, and put the covering of the tent on top of it, as the Lord commanded Moses. And then in verse 21, he brought the ark into the tabernacle, hung up the veil of the coverings, and partitioned off the ark of the testimony, as the Lord had commanded Moses. Verse 23, and he set up the bread in order upon it before the Lord, that's the table of showbread, as the Lord commanded Moses. Verse 25, and he lit the lamps before the Lord, as the Lord had commanded Moses. The fifth time in verse 27, and he burnt sweet incense on it, as the Lord had commanded Moses. Verse 29, he put the altar of burnt offering before the door of the tabernacle of the tent of meeting, and he offered upon it the burnt offerings, and the grain offering, as the Lord had commanded Moses. Verse 32, whenever they went into the tabernacle of meeting, and when they came near the altar, they washed, as the Lord had commanded Moses. Seven times, the number is significant, seven times it says, as the Lord had commanded Moses. He had done everything to the letter, to the detail, as God had commanded him. Now in verse 33, we're still in Exodus chapter 40, verse 33, and he raised up the court all around the tabernacle and the altar, and he hung up the screen of the court gate, and so Moses finished the work. Verse 34, then the cloud covered the tabernacle, we spoke about the cloud on Sunday, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. So the point that Exodus is making is that Moses does everything exactly as God tells him, and when he finished it, God descends, and his glory fills the tabernacle. In other words, there is a direct connection between God's presence and Moses' obedience. In God's presence and Moses doing exactly what God told him to do. There are many things in the tabernacle, and we'll speak about this when we get to chapter 9, whenever that is, but there are many things about the tabernacle that we could say, well, we have a better idea. For example, the first thing you would see when you came in the door, or in the courtyard, would be the altar of sacrifice, and it was a mess. Hundreds and hundreds of animals were being sacrificed every day. There was blood, there was just filth, there was just mess, there was the smell of burning flesh, and we would say, well, this really is an eyesore. We don't need this here in where we come into God's presence. Let's move it around the back, and let's do all this dirty stuff out there. That, from a human point of view, would be a good idea. That would be the way we would design it. I've never been, I've seen many churches, I've never seen a church where you come in the front door and you come into the restroom. The restrooms are always hidden somewhere, and this would be the equivalent, because this is, I mean, this is far worse than the restroom. Restrooms generally are pretty clean. The altar was really a bloody and a terrible place, but had Moses done that, God's presence and God's blessing would not have descended, because there was a reason why the altar had to be where it was, and the reason was, remember, the altar represents the cross. We'll speak about this when we get to chapter 9. The altar represents the cross, and the point is that you cannot come into God's presence unless you come through the cross. You cannot come in the Old Testament into God's presence unless sacrifice has been made for your sin. That's the first thing that must be addressed, and unfortunately today we move the cross away, we move the idea of atonement away, and we say, well, just come into God's presence. And in fact, churches advertise, come as you are, and obviously they mean more than just come whether you're wearing a t-shirt or a tie. The point is that you can come with your sin and you can hold on to your sin, and even if you've been a Christian for how many years and you continue to live in sin, just come. It's fine, it's no problem. No, the principle is the sin has to be dealt with at the very door before you come into the presence of God. And so everything had to be done exactly the right way. These things are pictures of the church. They are pictures of Jesus. Obviously we said that's the primary picture. The tabernacle is primarily a picture of Jesus, but it is also a picture of the church. Every detail of the tabernacle can be interpreted in the light of the church. How do we do that? Let me illustrate that very quickly. So the first thing you come to is the cross. The first thing that anyone coming into the body of Christ must be confronted with is the gospel, the atonement for their sin. That's the number one thing. The next thing you come to was the laver, which spoke of washing, speaks about sanctification, being cleansed. And again in the churches today we have removed the laver. We say sanctification doesn't matter. You can continue in your sin year in and year out, day after day, month after month. It doesn't matter. No, you could not get into God's presence unless you stopped by the laver and you washed and you got cleansed. Not just that the sacrifice was made at the altar, but that the splatters of blood and whatever dust was on your feet was washed off so that you were holy to come into God's presence. Today people will come into God's presence and they'll handle God's Word when they are liars and they are cheaters and they are adulterers and drunkards. And we wonder why God's blessing doesn't descend upon the church, because we've changed it all. Even on the outside is the fence. You could not just come in. You had to come through the door. Jesus is the door. You had to come through the cross. You had to come through sanctification. Today we've removed the fence and there is no separation between the church and the world anymore. And you can come in the old way and we wonder where's the blessing and where's the glory of God. And then you come into the into the holy place. On the left was the lampstand, the seven-branched lampstand, speaking about fellowship. Because John says if we if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. Right in front of you was the altar of incense, which spoke of prayer. And on the right-hand side was a table of showbread, which spoke of communion. Now remember it says in the book of Acts chapter 2 and verse 42 that the New Testament Church continued steadfastly in the Apostle's doctrine. The Apostle's doctrine is the is the because Jesus says we are cleansed by the washing of the water of the Word. When people don't come to the studies, when people don't come to church to hear the Word of God, they are not cleansed by the Word. There's no miraculous thing just by listening to me that your sins are going to be dealt with. But hopefully you hear and you respond and you repent and you are cleansed. So the teaching of the Word of God is what cleanses us. Jesus says cleanse them by your Word. Your Word is truth. So the labor cleanses. They continue steadfastly in the Apostle's doctrine, in breaking of bread, the table of showbread. Apostle's doctrine, breaking of bread, fellowship, the lampstand, and in prayers, the table of the altar of incense. And so in those four pieces of furniture when you come in, you have the life of the church. It's already described. The tabernacle itself is made up of boards. The boards are made of acacia wood, ordinary thorn bushes, but they're overlaid with gold. The church is made up of people who are human flesh, but we have upon us God's character. We've been made holy. We've been made acceptable in his presence. He's given us his nature. And so while we're human, we're covered with divinity. We're covered with gold. They stand in sockets of silver, silver speaking of God's redemptive work. We stand in the redemption that comes through Calvary. The boards stand next to each other, and they are tied together with staves, with poles, five poles, five poles representing the five ministries of the ascended Christ, Ephesians 4, verse 11, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. These are they that keep the church together, that keep the boards together. And so we can go on and on and on and on. Every detail represents the church. Every detail represents the individual believer. Just think that we consist of an outer court. We consist of a holy place, and the holiest of all, body, soul, and spirit. Now, if God's presence would not have descended, you say, well, you're speculating that God's presence would not have descended. Well, in fact, later on, the glory of God departed. You remember that Eli names one of his grandsons Ichabod, because the glory has departed. God has left. God's no longer in the tabernacle, because they had messed things up. And I don't want to get into those details right now. Later on, the glory of God comes again, because Solomon builds a new temple, and he builds it according to the pattern. This time, the dimensions are not the same, but the principle is still the same. And again, it speaks about the fact that the glory of God descended upon that tabernacle. And then somewhere along the line, God's glory left. Now, folk, if we're not building our church according to the divine instructions, we will never have God's blessing. And if we don't build our lives on God's pattern, you will not have God's blessing in your life. And if you don't build your family according to God's pattern, you will not have the glory of God in your family. There are Christians who cry and say, I don't know what's happening to my family. Well, what's happened to your family is that you've not lived the life that God has asked you to live. You've not designed yourself and your family around the things of God. You've designed them against human ideas, human patterns, human principles. And God says, I'm not in it. You're on your own. What a terrible place to be. And so, see that you make all things according to the pattern shown you in the mountain. God has shown us a pattern. He's shown us a pattern for our lives. He's shown us a pattern for the church. He's shown us a pattern for how we relate to our bosses and do our jobs in the secular world. He's shown us a pattern for every detail of our lives. And the instruction is, do it as I'm told you. Because we don't, we run into trouble. I don't need to tell you about building IKEA furniture and not following the instructions. It's never going to work out. All right. So, verse 6, but now he has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as he is also mediator of a better covenant. So, we have a better high priest. We have a better sacrifice. We have a better sanctuary. And I didn't touch on that, but our sanctuary is not this building. Our sanctuary is in heaven. The book of Ephesians says that we are seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. We meet with God in the Spirit, not in an earthly sanctuary. And so, we have a better sanctuary. But he also has a better or more excellent ministry, insomuch as he is also the mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises. Now, we've spoken somewhat about the promises. We'll come back to those. But now he's going to speak about the covenant. So, he has connected the priesthood with the law, but he is now also connecting the priesthood with the covenant. And he's introduced this idea of a mediator. We know what a mediator is. It is someone who goes between, someone who stands between two parties. And the priests were the mediators of the old covenant. They stood between God and the people. Before the priesthood was established, Moses would do that. He would go into God's presence. God says, I'm done with these people. Destroy them. Moses would come, and he would plead for the people. And so, the priests were the mediators. Jesus is our mediator. And of course, this is where many people have it wrong, because they expect the pastor or the priest to be the mediator, to be the go-between, to be the one who stands between us and God. I can never stand between you and God. That would be a blasphemous thing to do, because no man can take the place of God in your life. Your connection is with him directly through Jesus Christ. And so, he is the mediator of a better covenant, which is established on better promises. Now, he's going to introduce the covenant, and I want to deal with that before we close tonight. For if that first covenant—now, we've seen this idea before. If that which they had was good, well, then there would be no need for anything else. If the priests in the Old Testament were good enough, we didn't need Jesus. If the sacrifices were good enough, we don't need the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus. If the sanctuary in the Old Testament was good enough for us to come into God's presence, well, then we don't need a heavenly sanctuary. And so, if the law was good enough, we would not need a new law. And now, he's got to the covenant. So, the first covenant. Now, remember that there are many covenants in the Old Testament. God makes a covenant with Noah. He makes a covenant with Abraham. But here, he is specifically speaking of the covenant that he made with Israel at Mount Sinai when he gave them the law. How do we know that? Because he says so in a few verses. Let me jump down to verse 9. So, he's referring to the covenant that was made with Israel when he brought them out of Egypt. Now, what was that covenant? Well, the covenant, he brought them to two mountains. And the one mountain represented blessing and the other one cursing. He says, if you keep my commandments, I will bless you. If you don't keep my commandments, I will curse you. And he says, now you choose. You want blessing or you want cursing. Of course, the problem with those verses in Deuteronomy, I think it's 28, I don't remember the exact chapter. But Deuteronomy, the problem with that is that modern prosperity churches love the blessings part. And they'll quote those verses of blessing. I will give you rain. I will give you children. I'll bless your harvests and all of these kinds of things. Your enemies will be running from you. Those kinds of things. They love to quote those verses. But in fact, they only make up about 5 or 10 verses out of a 50 verse chapter, 50 odd verses in that chapter. The rest of the chapter contains the curses. Now, if you're going to claim the blessings, you have to claim the curses. Because the contract was not, it wasn't, you know, every contract has good points and bad points. There are certain things that if you have a contract to rent a house, the good point of the contract is you get to stay in the house. The bad point is you've got to pay rent. Now, you can't say, well, yeah, I want the good part. I want to stay in the house. I don't want to pay the rent. No, that's the deal. The deal cuts both ways. And the covenant that God made with Israel cuts both ways. If you keep my commandments, I'll bless you. Don't keep my commandments. I'm going to deal with you. And so that was the covenant he is referring to. So, if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. So, did God make a mistake in making the covenant? Well, it wasn't God who made the problem, had the problem. But verse 8 says, because finding fault with them, with the people, he says, behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant. So, what was the problem with the covenant that God made with Israel at Sinai? The problem was the people's unwillingness, and I wouldn't say inability, because God would not make a covenant that you cannot keep, but their unwillingness to keep their end of the bargain. And, of course, we see what happened to Israel. God, they go through these periods, and, you know, the history of Israel is like the graph of the stock market. It goes up, and it goes down, and it goes up, and it goes down. It goes up when they're obeying God, when they're not worshipping idols, and they're serving God, and they're keeping his commandments. They're blessed, and things are going wonderfully, and they're victorious in battle, and there's rain, and there's harvests, and crops, and animals, and everything is going great. And then they forsake God, and they go after idols, and they do all sorts of other bad things, and they just plummet, and they're taken into captivity. The enemy beats them up, everything goes wrong. They have droughts, they have famines, pestilences, all sorts of things go wrong. Then they turn to God, things go up again, and then they go down, and that's the history of Israel. So that was the problem. So finding fault with them, with the people, he says, behold the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah. Now notice this is specifically made with Israel and Judah, but we are also the beneficiaries of that. On what basis? On the basis that if we believe, we become sons of Abraham. As Gentiles, we're not entitled to God's covenants. But as sons of Abraham, as children of Abraham, and Paul goes into this into great detail in the book of Romans, that if we believe, then it is the same faith that Abraham have, and on that basis we become sons of Abraham. And so we're entitled, so we're adopted into the family, as it were, and entitled to the blessings of God. Now I want you also to notice, and we'll do one more verse, but at the bottom of the screen, the covenant with the house of Israel, and with a house of Judah. Remember that the kingdom consisted of the ten northern tribes, two southern tribes. The ten northern tribes were always worse spiritually than the two southern tribes. That northern tribes were carried into captivity hundreds of years before the southern tribes. The northern tribes are never restored to the land. They never returned from captivity. The southern tribes returned, and it's recorded for us in the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and so on, and they rebuild the temple. And so when Jesus comes, when he came the first time, he came to people who are called Jews, not Israelites, but Jews. Why are they called Jews? Because they're of the tribe of Judah. Judah, the senior of the two southern tribes. And so at that stage, Israel ceased to exist. When Jesus came, there was no more Israel. There was just Judah. And so they became Jews. But now he says, I will make the covenant with Israel and with a house of Judah. So he's going to restore his covenants with both houses, with both, you can't call them tribes, both kingdoms. All right. Now verse 9, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they did not continue in my covenant. And I disregarded them, says the Lord. Sorry, I said one more verse, two more. So they did not continue my covenant and I disregarded them. In other words, I forgot about them. I wrote them off. And we know that that is true until the end time. Verse 10, for this is the covenant. And I'm going to just introduce this and then come back to the start of one here next week, Lord willing. Well, this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their mind and write them on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people. A very different law. Remember the law in the Old Testament was written on tablets of stone, the 10 words, the 10 commandments. He says that law is no longer going to be external. That's the problem with legalism and legalistic churches. For them, the law is external. It's here. But Jesus will write that law upon our hearts. And of course, this is the problem when Christians just seem to have an inability to do the right thing. It's a sure sign that they don't have the law written on their hearts, which means that they're not really saved. Because if we are really born again, this is what he will do. We will know instinctively what the right thing to do is. He goes on in the next chapter, and we'll speak about that later. You will no longer need anyone. Now, it doesn't mean that there are no ministries. We know in the New Testament there are teachers that teach us. But you will not need anyone to tell you, this is right, this is wrong, because you will know. And so we need to ask that question. Are we part of the new covenant? Is the law written upon our hearts? Do we instinctively do the right thing? Or does the pastor have to beat us up before we'll do the right thing? Do we have to be shamed into doing the right thing? Do we have to preach until we're blue in the face to get people to do the right thing? Or is that law written upon our hearts? Father, we pray that this may be a reality, Lord. First of all, that we may build according to the pattern that you've shown us. Lord, that we may build this church, that we may build our families, our marriages, our relationships, and above all, our lives, according to the pattern. And Lord, that pattern is Jesus. At the end of the day, that's what it boils down to. Lord, that as people see us, they will see a picture of Jesus. As they see our church, they will see a picture of Jesus. As they see our families, they'll see a picture of Jesus, because he is the model. He is the pattern. And Lord, I pray that this may be real for us. Lord, that we may strive after following every detail of those things that you require of us. Lord, we thank you that those things are written upon our hearts, and that if we are born again, we know what's right. And yet, Lord, so many times we refuse to do what we know we ought to do. Help us, Lord, in our weakness. Help us to be those who are able to know the truth, who are able to know your law, and Lord, who are able to obey it. Lord, that we may not be like Israel of old, who you set aside because they could not come in line. But Lord, that we may be those who bring our lives in line, and that we may know your blessing in every way. So, Lord, we pray, help us to understand, above all, Lord, help us to apply these things in our lives. It's one thing, Lord, to know and to understand. It's another thing to live these things, and we pray that we may live them indeed in Jesus' name, I pray. I pray that you'd go with us, keep us, and protect us, and bring us together again safely on Sunday. We ask this in Jesus' name.