See Jesus — Hebrews 2

0:03 Alright. Well, certainly wonderful to be here together this morning, and we're looking to the lord to see what he has for us. Let's just let's bow in prayer. I'm gonna lead us in prayer. And as I'm praying, if you agree with these matters, just be in agreement.

0:18 Ask the Lord for for what he has for us this morning. Our heavenly father, we come before you. We recognize you as a holy God. We recognize you as an all powerful God. We recognize you as the all knowing God, and we hold in our hands this morning a copy of the scriptures, and we would say, this is your word, God's word, your message to us.

0:44 Father, we come to you this morning as a collective group of people, and we're looking to hear from you. We ask that you would speak through your word, that you would utilize the Holy Spirit, that you would enlighten our minds and our hearts to see the Lord Jesus Christ, to understand the scripture, and to be drawn closer to you. Father, we're asking for this. We're... We are...

1:07 We need a message from you. We need what you have for us. Father, help us to remove distractions in our own minds. Help us to focus on the things that You would have for us this morning. We ask this now in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

1:22 Amen. As I approach this morning and making preparations, I I made a list. And, this is not a top 10 list or anything like that, but it's a list I wanna I wanna share with you. My list kind of comprised... Is comprised of things that that are going on or happening among our body.

1:47 Things that are happening in your life and mine, things that are happening for our group collectively. Now this is a... This is one you'll probably... This is right in in front of our faces in a way because, many are restarting... I'll give you an example.

2:05 Many are restarting college, right, or going to college for the first time. Mason, Mary, Jeremy, Ryan, Samuel, Julia, you are jumping back into to college life or going going for the first time. Now I'm not going to list names on every one of these, but I I do I want you to get the sense that there's there's probably at least one or multiple people going through these type of circumstances. That's a shift in life. As we sit at prayer meeting, often there's been these requests recently for ones that are seeking the Lord or seeking the Lord's will about something.

2:49 So some of us this morning are seeking the Lord's will. Some are adjusting to a new life situation. It's only in January when Mr. Reeder passed away. That's an adjustment.

3:05 Some of us are adjusting to new life situation in the aftermath of a divorce. Some of us are adjusting to being a single parent. Some of us are experiencing healing. The God of all comfort is ministering to our to our hearts. Some of us are starting a new job.

3:33 Devin, Colin. Some of us are looking for a job. Might be starting a new job soon. Some of us are experiencing a closer walk with God. Have you noticed that?

3:50 Some people have drawn closer to God, and He's drawn close to them. Some are just trying to figure life out. Here's one of those other things that's hitting multiple families. Some of us are empty nesters. Bosses, mings, buttresses.

4:11 Jacob moved out. The last Doan just got married. Some of them were trying to get out of the house. Yeah. Some of you empty nesters and some of you, your kids have moved back in.

4:33 Some of us are buying a house, maybe even this week, right? Could be a closing. Some of us are caring or concerned about loved ones with serious illness. I didn't quite know how to word this, but maybe you'll catch the gist of what I mean. For some of us, our spouse is in a different spot than us spiritually.

4:57 Like one's hot, one's cold. Some of you are in the process of making your faith your own. Some of us are experiencing children that are not walking with the Lord. Some of us are trying to figure out retirement. What that supposed to look like?

5:25 Now, at least one of us is facing a potential new role as mayor. There might be some other new roles that are being faced. Some of us have got marital challenges going on. Some of us are I mean, this is another one that hits a lot of us, caring for aging parents. And then there's certainly ones in our...

5:45 Among our group that are caring for a spouse. So what's God's word for us as a group this morning? Before I turn to our main... Or have you turn to our main text this morning, I wanna share want some concepts with you. The writer of the Hebrews says in chapter two and verse nine, he says, But we see Jesus.

6:43 And here's here's here's the phrase, see Jesus. But we see Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels for for the purpose of suffering to go to the cross, but we see Him crowned and glorified. So see Jesus. Look at Jesus. Remember who He is.

7:14 And listen, He was created for a purpose. We we get this glimpse of Philippians chapter two that He He He was created lower than the angels. He He He humbled himself. He became obedient to the death of the cross. He does this on our behalf.

7:31 And so he he endured the cross, and then he he is... We we see him... We don't see him on the cross any longer. Though we remember the cross, we don't see him on the cross. We see him crowned and exalted.

7:44 So we see him on the other side of tragedy. When we're in a difficult circumstance, it's helpful to see Christ and see Him gone through what He's gone through. Now, Hebrews chapter four, we read this word seen again. And it says, Seeing, therefore we have a great high priest. And it goes on to explain that He is touched with the same infirmities that we are touched.

8:17 The same trial, the same pain. And we understand that concept that nothing that you and I experience has not first passed through the heart of God. We've got a high priest advocating, standing there, interceding for us. And we're told as that chapter ends to approach boldly the throne of grace in our time of deed. See Jesus.

8:42 See our... See Him as a great high priest. And then we read over in Hebrews chapter 12. Looking looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who once again He endured the cross. He despised the shame.

9:06 He endured the cross. And now He is set at the right hand of the Father. Triumph. Triumph. The author and finisher.

9:16 See Jesus. Can you can you in the midst of whatever you're experiencing in life, see Jesus and we say, look, don't just do it because you're going through a hard time. And and we we sometimes, all of us have this tendency. I'm going through a hard time. We're just like Peter.

9:33 We step out of the boat and all of a sudden, we're focused on the waves instead of Jesus. See Jesus. We get focused on the circumstance or the hardship, and we we lose sight of Christ. But this is our reminder to see Jesus. Hey, we do it also in the times of triumph or the times of victory, the good times.

9:54 What do we do? We lose sight of Christ. And so whether we're in hard times or good times, the message for us this morning is to see the Lord Jesus Christ. See Christ. There's a song in our our hymnal that...

10:12 It's it's it's entitled, I have a shepherd. Listen listen to this first first stanza. I have a shepherd, one I love so well. How he has blessed me, a tongue can never tell. On the cross he suffered, shed and shed his blood and died that I might ever in his love confide.

10:34 And the course goes, following Jesus ever day by day, nothing can harm me when he leads the way. Darkness or sun... Sunshine, trial or triumph, what ere befall, Jesus the shepherd, my all in all. Jesus, He's the great high priest. He's also the great shepherd.

10:58 And you know, if we're following, what are we doing? We're looking. We're looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. I've got him in my vision. He he is my vision.

11:42 Then assembled together the chief priests and the scribes and the elders of the people, unto the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas. And they continued that they might take Jesus by subtility and kill him. But they but they said, no, not during the feast day, lest there be an uproar among the people. And when Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, there came unto him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment, and she poured it on his head and as he sat at meat. Verse eight.

12:20 But when his disciples saw it, they had indignation saying, to what purpose is this waste? For this ointment might have been sold for much and given to the poor. When Jesus understood it, he said unto them, why do you trouble this woman? For she hath wrought a good work upon me. For you have the poor with you always, but me you have not always.

12:45 For in that she has poured this ointment on my body, she has done it for my burial. Verily I say unto you, whether so ever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall there shall also this, that this woman hath done this, be told for her memorial to her. Then one called Judas Iscariot went unto the chief priest and said unto them, what will you give me that I may deliver him, Jesus, unto you? And they coveted with him for 30 pieces of silver. And from that time, he sought the opportunity to betray Jesus.

13:31 So as we think about life's current circumstances and the things that we're going through, I've I've told... I've I've shared, let's let's keep Jesus in focus. Let's keep Jesus in sight. And probably a a helpful way for us to do that would be to consider the things that are listed out here in the... In this portion.

13:59 You'll notice that there was a group gathered together. Verse three, the chief priest, the scribes, the elder of the people. They were in the house of one named Caiaphas, the high priest. And what were they doing? They were consulting.

14:15 They were conspiring. They were trying to think of a way to trick and capture Jesus, not only to put Him in jail, but to kill Him. It's explicit, to kill Him. So if we were to ask this question this morning, where were the hearts of these men? Where what what...

14:38 Some... Let's open the floor. Somebody got a thought on that. Where were the hearts of the... How would you describe what these hearts of these men was set on?

14:48 Anybody got a thought? Mason? Murder. Murder. Okay.

14:51 Yeah. Yeah. Good. We might even say their heart was on Jesus. But to kill Him.

15:06 Anybody got another thought? See, I've got an advantage on you. I've thought about this a little bit. Yeah. I was going say it kind of cold blooded and cunning.

15:16 Heartless, cunning. Yeah. Okay, good. What were you going say, D. J?

15:19 Selfish. Yeah. That came across. What was their heart on? Themself.

15:27 We see in other places in Scripture, they were moved with envy to get rid of Jesus. They wanted that place. They thought He was jeopardizing their prominence, their place of power. Hey, maybe they would have benefited from Westlake's Humility versus Pride. These are guys just like us.

15:56 Right? So what do we... We recognize this in just those brief minutes. We recognize that they had a heart for evil. They had a heart to kill him.

16:23 We know it's worth a year's wages. So translate that in your world like a year's worth of wage. This is what she gave. It doesn't matter if you make 50,000 and another person makes a 100,000. She gave a year's wage.

16:40 Right? So this is her gift. And so here she comes, and and she lays this at the at the at the feet of Jesus. She she opens this. She uses this to anoint the head of the Lord Jesus Christ.

16:58 So let's let's open this back up again. Let's ask the same question. Where was the heart of this woman? What? I didn't hear.

17:07 To give. Yeah. Oh oh, Mindy. Sorry. To give.

17:13 Alright. She had a... She was giving. Giving. Say again?

17:18 Honor. Honor. Gotcha. Say again? Worship.

17:24 Worshipful. Yeah. And think about worship is assigning worth, saying that someone else is worthy to receive this. Yeah. Okay.

17:36 Any other thoughts? Wait. Raise your hand so I can see who's coming. Yeah. Yeah.

17:42 Alright.

17:43 Giving the best.

17:44 Oh, that's good. That's a good thought. Yeah. Giving giving the best. Giving something of significance.

17:49 Yeah. So let's ask that was her heart on Jesus? We would say, yeah. In a good way, chief priest, hearts on... Focus on Jesus in an envy way.

18:03 Here's this woman, heart on Jesus in a very good way, giving giving her all. Now where where's the heart of the disciples? Those that are observing this action. Bob?

18:25 Yes. Right. You have you have a disciple whose heart was, I I would consider the wrong place.

18:34 Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Okay.

18:38 Good. Bob. Yeah. Okay. Right.

18:45 So focused on money. Good. Anybody else got another thought where... Look at that verse again. The the...

18:52 When the disciples saw it, they were moved with indignation. Laura, what are saying?

18:57 Their their heart was, I don't

19:00 know, missed. Okay. Indignant, but

19:05 they said, well, this one is the reason

19:07 before. Right. Yeah. Yeah. They weren't recognizing

19:12 what this is all about.

19:13 Gotcha. Yeah. Good. And we're trying to be hard on the guys. Yeah.

19:18 We're trying to really understand where's their heart in this? Where's their heart in this? Anybody got another thought? Could... Wait.

19:30 Who? Say.

19:32 I missed the parent mentioned it when I said their heart was something I think of the poor need

19:37 Yeah. Benefited Yeah. From the sale of it. Yeah. Yeah.

19:39 Yeah. Good. True. So it is it is... I think about her, you know, depends.

19:45 Not a commercial. Right. Alright. But depends, mixed. You're you're sounding like there is some good in that.

19:52 You're not like... And so... But we have to... Well, let's just... Let's think about this.

19:58 Here here they are. Here are the disciples. Here's this woman. Does this happen for us? Does this happen in our real...

20:05 In our modern day? Someone comes in. Someone someone is motivated, moved, and they've got the sincere heart for the Lord. They've got a sincerity. They're wanting to give something of value and significance to the Lord.

20:21 But others stand around and say, why are they doing that? They could have done it this way. They could... There's a lesson there. Okay?

20:32 And and maybe this jumps back into the whole Humility versus Pride series of like, why am I being critical of another person's sincere offering to the Lord? That's something we need to be aware of. Hey, you know what? I wish we could have read in in this little passage, and the disciples praised the Lord for this woman's display of her generosity to the Lord and her display of love. I wish we might have read in there, and the disciples did likewise.

21:06 They brought to him offerings worthy of himself. But what we read is they were filled with indignation, criticism. So where was their heart? I'd say that it was distracted. Now the the disciples get kudos for being with Jesus.

21:33 Okay. Right? I mean, they're they're with Jesus. They're following them. They've left all.

21:37 They've been following him for three years. They've stuck with him. Okay? So that... Do we...

21:41 They get credit for that. Their heart is for the lord. They're looking. They're trying to understand. But Jesus has told them four times that He's going to the cross, and they didn't get it.

21:51 This woman who's breaking this box of ointment, got it. She knows who He is. She understands who He is. She's willing to give all she has for Him. The disciples were distracted.

22:30 The disciples didn't even understand the trial or crisis that they were in. Their Messiah was getting ready to be crucified. They're getting ready. Now this is chapter 26. We kept on we keep on reading, and and you'll see that Peter's gonna deny Christ.

22:46 Judas is gonna betray Him. The the Judas' betrayal is going to put this like really weird thoughts in the other the other 11 are going think, how could, what? What's happening? We thought, you know, that all this is going to happen. It's a stress.

23:02 It's a strain. It's a it's it's pressure. It's a problem. We thought it was gonna be Messiah. We thought it was gonna reign.

23:10 We thought it was gonna set up his kingdom. This is this is what they're going through. And you know what? They're distracted. They had argued before about who's gonna be the great.

23:18 Wait a minute. Before? No. After this. After this, they're going to argue who's going to be the greatest?

23:24 Who's going to sit on his right hand? They're distracted. See Jesus. See him as the one who's completed... We...

23:39 See him as the one who's completed the cross, see him as our great high priest, see him as the author and finisher of our faith. But you know what? After we see Him with our eyes, looking unto Him, we need to... Our heart needs to be turned toward Him. He needs to have our heart.

24:12 And so when I'm in the midst of a trial, I keep my focus on Christ. I give him my heart. You know what? Some of these things that we read as we opened up, as we thought about some of these things, like if we're... We've got a loved one.

24:31 I know Bob, your sister, right, she's got stage four cancer. And and so, like, you you look at a situation like that, man, there's opportunity to to minister. There's opportunity to give. And how should I approach this? How should I approach this life circumstance?

24:59 If we'll keep Christ in focus, if we'll keep Christ in focus, if we'll give Him our heart, if we can if we can serve Him, like with no reserve, so to speak. No no no reserve. Like letting Him take over, saying, look, this is what I've got. I've got to offer. I'm willing to give it all.

25:21 You know, as I'm thinking back through this woman, we said it was a year's wages. Again, a question for the audience. What's money for? I know it's a broad question. What's money for?

25:41 What

25:44 money does is it ascribes work.

25:47 So money

25:48 is value, and so value is what we ascribe to

25:53 individuals. Gotcha.

25:54 And we use money or or ascribe two things, and we use money to pay for that. So it ascribes work.

26:01 Ascribes value. Alright. Stuff. Stuff.

26:05 Which should fall right into your message here because to take a look at what this what this woman did.

26:10 Yeah. Has

26:10 tried the work of of of one Yeah.

26:18 Amen. Oh, amen. You'll know. Alright. You can't volunteer somebody else, Colin.

26:27 Oh, what's money for? Buy food. Alright. We've heard this little saying, what money makes the world go around. Right?

26:37 But really, would you agree with this? Money is a tool. It's a tool. It's a resource. But it's also a distraction.

26:52 It becomes a distraction for many of us. The disciples were distracted about the worth of this could have been sold for something else. Judas was distracted by money. In fact, we hadn't got to him yet. We say, if we ask that question, where was Judas' heart?

27:09 Sold 30 pieces of silver. That's... And so... Hey, let's just... A little...

27:17 Maybe this is a little kind of a sideline lesson in this for us is that, like, money is is just something. It's a tool. It's a resource. It can be used. Right?

27:28 Use it. She used it for the Lord. We we understand the principle. It's all the Lord's anyway. We understand that.

27:39 But sometimes we get distracted, and we, like, we start getting a little stingy. We start holding on to it. It becomes our focus. I mean, it's needed. It is a needed resource.

27:52 So maybe just check yourself, recalibrate that. Hey, God, am I using this resource... Am I using money the way you want me to use it? How do you want me to... And like, here this woman, none of it...

28:03 Raise your hand if you've got an alabaster box of ointment sitting at home. None of us have that. Right? So what are what are we supposed to take from this? How are we how do we bring something of significance or worth to the Lord?

28:21 Heart attitude. That's good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

28:26 I mean, I understand. Yeah. Come on. Obedience. Obedience.

28:31 That's right. Yeah. Good. Bob? Yeah.

28:36 God loves a cheerful giver. Yeah. Hey, do you... Did you catch this? This woman's act, with her heart turned to the Lord, as she makes her way to to the Lord Jesus, and she gives her offering, he says these words.

28:55 Will be everywhere the gospel is preached. This will be mentioned as a memorial to her. Wow. That God... How can I bring a gift to God that He would say, I am so satisfied with this that you will be mentioned as a memorial?

29:15 That that this act will be mentioned for memorial and will live on. I think we seek the Lord on this. I think we seek the Lord for the answer. I can't give you that answer. It's not...

29:28 It's different for all of us. But you... God wants your heart. Would you give him your heart? If you give him your heart, you're looking at Jesus, you're staying focused on Jesus, you give him your heart, you said, Lord, I want to honor you.

29:41 I want to worship you. I want to see you crowned and honored. I see you high and lifted up. I'm in the midst of my circumstance, but I'm I'm entrusting it to you. I see you as my great high priest.

29:52 I'm coming to you in my great time of need. I have this thing that's waiting me down and distracting me, but I'm turning it over to you. And then all of a sudden, we we start living life in a different way. Material possessions don't have a claim on us. Discouragement doesn't have a claim on us.

30:10 We seek Jesus. We're looking to him. We're following him. He's my shepherd. I shall not want.

30:22 He leads me beside the still waters. He's restoring my soul. His ministering to you will overcome any life circumstance that you're in. He'll bring you through to the other side. See Jesus, give him your heart, but then look around.

31:05 That list I read at the beginning, we're all going through these things together. Some of them are hard. God's got you in place to help your brother and sister. You might have an alabaster box that's gonna meet your brother or sister's need. Remember, see Christ, give him your heart, Look around.

31:47 Hey, you know what? The good things on that list? Celebrate with them. We're gonna have one big old housewarming party for Devon and Chili. Celebrate the successes, and be there for each other.

32:25 Happy Labor Day. Let's let's pray. Heavenly father, we we're we're looking at your word. We're we're wanting to we're wanting to learn. We're wanting to see what you have for us.

32:42 That's what we asked for at the beginning. Father, we pray that we would take our eyes off of self. We pray that we would look we're looking to Christ. Give us this courage to to see Christ as a shepherd. Give us this courage to to to have this, like, image of him with his staff in hand, and he's leading us.

33:17 Father, let us keep in step with our shepherd. Father, we pray... We we we want to pray for those that are going through trial today. We pray for those that need a message of hope or encouragement. We pray for ones that are experiencing a hard time.

33:37 We we just... We ask for for comfort to them. We ask for healing. We ask for help. Father, we're asking that you would bring to our mind ways that we could minister to one another among the body.

33:49 Father, we're praying for wisdom that you would let us know how to use our resources that you've entrusted to us. We pray that you you would give us clear wisdom on how to use the money, how to use our time, how to use the spiritual gift that I have to profit the body. Father, we're committing this to you. We ask these things now in Jesus Christ's name. Amen.