In his recent book Soul Keeping, John Ortberg talks about being with friends at an open-air street fair when they spotted a mechanical bull that tries to buck people off. They guy operating the bull said, “Watching it isn't nearly as fun as riding.” So John told the bull operator that he wanted to ride. The operator took one look at John’s middle-aged body and asked, “Are you sure?” John Ortberg said, “That guaranteed that I would not back down.”
The operator explained that the bull has 12 levels of difficulty. “It might not be easy,” he said, “but the key is you have to stay centered on the bull. You have to follow the bull. You have to shift your center of gravity as the bull moves.”
So John got on the bull and it started slow, and then it started moving faster and jostling around. John was holding on real tight. Then he remembered the operator’s advice and loosened up. The bull kept moving faster and jolting and bucking and jumping. John was hanging on sideways. His arms were flailing around all over the place, but he hung on and finally the bull slowed down and stopped. John was still on the bull. “It wasn't pretty, he said, “but I made it!” He imagined how surprised the operator of the bull would be that he had triumphed. So John looked over at the operator, who only shook his head and said, “Nice job. That was level one.” (John Ortberg, Soul Keeping, Zondervan, 2014, pp. 98-99)
Some people are not as good as they think they are. In fact, the truth be told, all of us have a long way to go before we reach the beautiful perfection of Christ.
The question is: How do we move on towards that perfection? How do go on to Christlike maturity? How do we truly become a better person? Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Hebrews 7, Hebrews 7, where the author is describing how to “go on to maturity”, a discussion he starts in Hebrews 6:1.
Hebrews 7:18-19 For on the one hand, a former commandment is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness (for the law made nothing perfect); but on the other hand, a better hope is introduced, through which we draw near to God. (ESV)
If you want to become a better person, don’t depend on the Law. Don’t rely on the rituals of religion. Don’t trust in some list of do’s and don’ts. That’s because the law is “weak” and “useless” to make anyone “perfect” (or mature)
Benjamin Franklin settled on 13 virtues, by which he sought to better himself. They included:
Silence: “Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.”
Frugality: “Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; that is, waste nothing.”
Industry: “Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.”
Tranquility: “Be not disturbed at trifles or accidents common or unavoidable.”
He set up a book with a page for each virtue, lining a column in which to record “defects.” He chose a different virtue to work on each week, noting every mistake he made every day. Then he , starting over every 13 weeks in order to cycle through the list four times a year. For many decades, Franklin carried his little book with him, striving for a clean 13-week cycle.
He never made it, but as he made some progress, he found himself struggling with yet another defect: pride. And pride the worst character defect of all, because it is the source of all sin. Philip Yancey says, “Even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome [pride], I should probably be proud of my humility.” (Philip Yancey, What's So Amazing About Grace, Zondervan, 1997, p. 34; www.PreachingToday.com)
Trying to live by a list of rules never made anybody a better person, so don’t live your life that way.
Instead, depend on Christ, who alone has the power to bring you close to God. Rely on Jesus, the only way to draw near to God.
You see, Jesus provides “a better hope” than any law. Trying to keep the law keeps you away from God, because you can never measure up to His absolute standard; you always fail. However, Trusting Jesus gets you closer to God, because He never fails! God swore to it. He is a priest forever!
Hebrews 7:20-21 And it was not without an oath. For those who formerly became priests were made such without an oath, but this one was made a priest with an oath by the one who said to him: “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, ‘You are a priest forever.’” (ESV)
The Old Testament priests became priests simply by right of succession. They were born into it. Jesus, on the other hand, became an unfailing, permanent high priest, because God swore to it.
Hebrews 7:22 This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant. (ESV)
The Old Covenant said: obey the law and you can get close to God; obey the law and you will be blessed. The problem was that none of us could obey the law, so none of us could get close to God; none of us could receive His blessing. So Jesus comes with a better covenant. In fact, He is the guarantor of that better covenant.
Rick Warren put it this way: There are two ways the Bible says you can get to heaven. Plan A is to earn it. That's the performance plan. And to earn it you only have to do this: never sin and always do what's right for the entire time that you live. Just be perfect.
Since none of us qualify for Plan A, God came up with Plan B, which is this: You trust Jesus Christ when he says, "I am the way, the truth and the life. [Nobody comes to the Father except through me.]" Jesus was the only perfect person who ever lived, because he was God. He came so we could know what God is like. And by trusting and establishing a relationship with him, you get in on his goodness.
Rick Warren’s friend, Ron Dunn took his young son to a carnival one time for his birthday. His son picked six boys to go with him, so Ron bought a roll of tickets. Every line he'd come up to, he'd pull off seven tickets and give them to all the kids. When they got to the Ferris wheel, all of a sudden there was an eighth little kid with his hand out.
Ron said, “Who are you?”
The kid said, “I'm Johnny.”
Ron said, “Who are you, Johnny?”
Johnny said, “I'm your son's new friend. And he said you would give me a ticket.”
Ron asked Rick, "Do you think I gave him one? Absolutely." (Rick Warren, “What Difference Does Easter Make?” Leadershipjournal.net, 4-10-06; www.PreachingToday.com)
Why? Because Johnny came through Ron’s son. And that’s the only way any of us get in on the Heavenly Father’s goodness. We must come through Jesus Christ, His Son. He is the guarantor of a better covenant, a better way to God.
Or to put it another way, Jesus is the executor of God’s last will and testament. Now, a will doesn’t’ take effect until the death of the person who made it. So Jesus, as God, died on a cross to put God’s will into effect. Then three days later, he arose from the dead; and now, He is going to make sure that the terms of God’s will are carried out.
Do you want to know what is contained in God’s last will and testament, this “better covenant” verse 22 describes? Well, it is the “New Covenant” described in Jeremiah 31.
There it says, “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke…” (Jeremiah 31:31-32).
That was a covenant written on stone, the old covenant, the ten commandments burned into the rock by the finger of God Himself.
“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me [personally], from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more” (Jeremiah 31:33-34).
The new covenant is a covenant which guarantees the forgiveness of sin, a personal relationship with God, and God’s law written on the heart. In other words, God’s law becomes a part of your very being, the driving force of your life, not just a list of do’s and don’ts.
The Arctic Tern is one of the most remarkable birds in the world. It migrates farther than any other bird, leaving its nest within the Arctic Circle in late August and traveling all the way to Antarctica. Then, in the spring, it returns to the Arctic Circle again – an annual round trip of more than 11,000 miles!
Why do they do it? Did congress pass a law? No! God placed within the Arctic Tern an instinct, an internal desire that drives them to make the long journey every year. (Bible Illustrator #2584, 10/1993.10)
In the same way, God wants His law to be instinctive within you. He wants it to be an internal desire that drives you to full and complete righteousness, a driving force that moves you to full maturity. And that doesn’t come from a list of rules. That comes only from a living and vital relationship with Jesus Christ.
He is the guarantor of that “better covenant,” the One who insures that every believer is forgiven, gets close to God, and grows to full and complete maturity.
Philippians 1 says, “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6). In other words, when Jesus comes again, you will be perfect; you will be fully mature, ready to enter into the very presence of God Himself.
No law could do that for you. Only Jesus can, so depend on Him. Depend on Christ, who has the power to bring you close to God.
Furthermore, depend on Christ, who has the power to save you completely. Rely on Jesus, who can deliver you fully from any and all sin, in any and all trials.
Hebrews 7:23-25 The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. (ESV)
Jesus, your permanent high priest, prays for you all the time! That’s why He can save you to the uttermost, i.e., completely and fully.
Philip Yancey, in his book on Prayer, says, “The New Testament's only glimpse of what Jesus is doing right now depicts him at the right hand of God ‘interceding for us.’ In three years of active ministry, Jesus changed the moral landscape of the planet. For nearly two thousand years since, he has been using another tactic: prayer.” (Philip Yancey, Prayer, Zondervan, 2006, p. 88; www.PreachingToday.com)
I’m encouraged when people tell me they’re praying for me. But here, the Bible tells me that JESUS is praying for me! And Jesus is praying for YOU too!
James 5 says, “The prayer of a righteous person has great power” (James 5:16). Well, imagine the power that Jesus’ prayer has when He prays for you! No matter the trial, no matter the test, He is praying that you will pass it with flying colors; He is praying that you ace the exam as you grow through the trial.
Steve Winger from Lubbock, Texas, writes about his last college test, a final in a logic class known for its difficult exams:
To help us on our test, the professor told us we could bring as much information to the exam as we could fit on a piece of notebook paper. Most students crammed as many facts as possible on their 8-1/2 x 11-inch sheet of paper. But one student walked into class, put a piece of notebook paper on the floor, and had an advanced logic student stand on the paper.
The advanced logic student told him everything he needed to know. He was the only student to receive an “A.”
The ultimate final exam will come when we stand before God and he asks, “Why should I let you in?” On our own we cannot pass that exam. Our creative attempts to earn eternal life fall far short, but we have Someone who will stand in for us. (Leadership, Vol. 15, no. 4; www.PreachingToday.com)
We have Someone who is always praying for us, and we have Someone who can save us fully and completely. So, if you want to become a better person, depend on Him! Don’t depend on the law. Depend on Christ, who has the power to bring you close to God, and who has the power to save you completely.
DEPEND ON CHRIST, YOUR POWERFUL PRIEST.
Rely on Jesus, your effective minister. Trust Jesus Christ, the greatest and strongest High Priest of all time. But not only that, if you want to grow towards perfection…
DEPEND ON CHRIST, YOUR PERFECT PRIEST, as well.
Rely on Jesus, your sinless and faultless minister. Trust Jesus Christ, the greatest, strongest, and PUREST High Priest of all time.
Hebrews 7:26-28 For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself. For the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made perfect forever. (ESV)
Jesus is the Perfect High Priest absolutely without sin! All the other priests had to offer sacrifices for their own sins before they could offer sacrifices for other people. And those sacrifices were only temporary fixes; they had to be offered daily. Jesus, on the other hand, offered Himself as the perfect, permanent sacrifice, which once for all took care of all sin for all time!
2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “For our sake [God] made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” On the cross, God treated Jesus, the sinless one, as a sinner, so He could treat us, sinful people, as sinless.
It’s the only way any of us get in on God’s righteousness. We can’t achieve it on our own. Instead, we need Jesus to do it for us. So depend on Him if you want God to DECLARE you righteous and then begin the process of MAKING you righteous in His sight.
Elyse Fitzpatrick describes one way to look at Jesus' sinless life of obedience to His Heavenly Father. She says, “Jesus lived approximately 33½ years, or 1,057,157,021 seconds. In every second the average human being's brain has 100 billion neurons all firing around 200 times per second, giving a capacity of 20 trillion firings per second. If we want to know how many conscious decisions Jesus made to obey his Father's will, multiply 20 trillion by the number of seconds he lived: 1,057,157,021. The equation would look like this:
20,000,000,000,000
x 1,057,157,021, which equals
21,143,140,420,000,000,000,000 (a very large number!)
“Jesus Christ never made one decision, consciously or unconsciously, in all those innumerable split seconds that wasn't completely consistent with loving his Father and his neighbor. And his obedience wasn't merely an outward performance. He always did the right thing, and he always did it for the right reason. During his lifetime of constant, unwavering obedience, from infancy all the way to death, he wove a robe righteousness sufficient to cover millions and millions of us. Yes, even you.” (Elyse M. Fitzpatrick, Comforts from Romans, Crossway, 2013, pp. 97-99; www.PreachingToday.com)
Wow! Why would anyone go to anyone else to find righteousness before God?
There is a big difference between Jesus and all the other priests. The old priests refused to touch anything unclean. Jesus makes the unclean holy! (Mark Galli, Jesus Mean and Wild: The Unexpected Love of an Untamable God, Baker, 2006, p. 44; www.PreachingToday.com)
So, if you truly want to become a better person, don’t depend on the law; depend on Christ, your powerful and perfect High Priest.
Pastor Bruce Thielemann once said, “Quite frankly, I'm sick to death of ideals. I have so many ideals and I've been so frustrated by them, I really don't care for any more. What I'm looking for is a savior – not someone who will just tell me what I ought to be, but someone who will forgive me for what I am, and then with his very love will enable me to be more than I ever believed I could be. It's exactly that that Jesus does.” (Bruce Thielemann in "Telltale Tears" 1986 Preaching Today; www.PreachingToday. com)
Please, let Him do it for you! Trust Jesus with your life today, and let Him make you into the person you never believed you could be.
