What we’ve been saying - Hebrews 8:1-7 - June 7, 2026 - Rick Sutherland

Rick Sutherland opens by drawing a vivid analogy — a baby bird doesn't need flight lessons, a fish doesn't need a swimming instructor, and an oak seed doesn't need a horticulturist, because what they need is already in them. In the same way, followers of Christ carry the image of Christ within them, and the question of primacy is simply this: where do we go to find out how we are to resemble Him? The answer, Rick says, is to His words, His teaching, and His truth — which is exactly what the book of Hebrews sets before us.

Turning to Hebrews 8:1–7, Rick walks through what he calls the "executive summary" of the previous four chapters, much like the one-page overview he placed at the front of the thick travel manual he prepared for a 3,500-mile move from Fairbanks, Alaska to Flagstaff, Arizona. The text highlights three key truths about Christ as high priest: He is seated because His atoning work is finished, unlike the Levitical priests who stood daily offering sacrifices that could never permanently take away sins (Hebrews 10:11); He has entered the true heavenly sanctuary — not one made with human hands — carrying His people with Him into the very presence of God; and the covenant He mediates is better, enacted on better promises. The first covenant was always a shadow — temporary, externally imposed, and pointing forward to something perfect.

The sermon lands with a pointed application. Rick confesses that he initially framed the application around Gentile Christians finding their own "first covenant equivalent," but God redirected him. The real parallel isn't merely theological — it's personal. The Jewish believers were sliding back into ritualistic religiosity, outward compliance that shielded their hearts from genuine transformation. And Rick says plainly that this is exactly where his own heart wants to go, and likely ours as well — especially in a Southern culture where church attendance, Christian bumper stickers, and table prayers are simply part of the landscape. The call of Christ in Matthew 16 is not to that kind of Christianity. It is to forget yourself, carry your cross, and follow Him — a daily surrender that exposes every corner of the heart to be carved into the likeness of Jesus.

Sermon Transcript

Good morning, everyone.

As we think about the I won't call them kids, the young people that have graduated high school and college and are now making decisions and praying and seeking God's plan and path, I heard a really neat analogy and illustration this week. If you were listening to his radio, you might have heard it sometime during the week. But it was about all the effort and mental energy we put into finding purpose and pursuit and plan. And those are good. Those are things we've been called to do, is finding out how God will use our gifting.

But the issue is one of primacy. And as believers, what should our focus be? And the analogy that was used was that when a baby bird is born and ready to go, its mom doesn't sign it up for flight lessons. It's just what it does. When a baby fish is born, the mom doesn't go find a swimming instructor.

It's just what it does. And when a seed of an oak tree falls into the ground, it's not like a horticulturist comes by and tells it what it needs to do to grow. It's because it's in the seed, it's in the fish, it's in the bird. And as Christians, as followers of Christ, as seed of Christ, the issue of primacy is what is in us is the image of Christ. And where and how do we go to find out how we are to resemble Christ?

And we go to his words, we sit under his teaching, we find his truth, and that's what we're going to do. This morning. Our text is Hebrews 8:1 through 7.

Everything I read or quote from this morning will be the ESV unless it's otherwise Marked. So our text 8:1-7.

"Now, the point in what we are saying is this. We have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand on the throne of the majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up and not man. For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices. Thus it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. Now, if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all. Since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law, they serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent or the tabernacle, he was instructed by God, saying, see that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown to you on the mountain. But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second." - Hebrews 8:1-7

Those are the words of the living God.

Before we start on today's text, I want to remind us something that you hear almost every week. I don't think we can be reminded enough of the central message and theme. These are not messages that stand by themselves. Right? We are working our way through a book, and as we said from the very first lesson in Hebrews, it's important thematically to understand the themes of this book.

And I love how John MacArthur said it. MacArthur said it this way.

"The theme of the Epistle is the absolute sufficiency and superiority of Jesus Christ. And the point of the letter is to tell those Jews and in that community that they can put everything on Jesus Christ. They can put all of their confidence in him, all of their hope in him, and all of their trust in him. And they can drop entirely all of the old features of Judaism. For Christ is superior and he is sufficient." - John MacArthur

And that is the message of this book, that they don't need a combination of both the old and the new. They dare not hang strictly to the old, but they come to Christ, and in Christ they will find everything that they need. So remember that thematically, in 2014, going back 12 years now, I received orders to move my family from Fairbanks, Alaska to Flagstaff, Arizona.

And I began to plan that move like General Patton when he moved the 3rd army across Europe. All right, our move was going to be 3,500 miles, 75 pure driving hours, because we were pulling a horse and a trailer, and inside our vehicle we had four kids and a dog. We also were carrying with us enough luggage to live out of for two months until our household goods made their way from Alaska. The other complicating factor is because we had a horse and a trailer, and because my wife is very motion sick, we couldn't take the most direct route, which involves ferries, and we had to drive east across the Canadian prairies and down into Montana. And so every night we would need a place to board the horse, a place for the six of us and the dog to stay, and we had to make plans to fuel up at the few gas stations that existed on the Canadian prairies.

That's not something you could just take lightly. Complicating this fact was the fact that we would not have cellular service on large portions of the drive. So to prepare for that, I put together a 2 inch thick manual that broke down every day, every stop, the gas stations, and had printed maps just in case we didn't have cellular service and needed a find a gas station or somewhere to eat that trip manual. 100 or something pages was a granular set of instructions choreographing that epic 14 or 15 day move. But in the very front of it, when you open the front binder, there was an executive summary.

If you guys have worked in business, you know that term. There is an executive summary that said, day one, get from Fairbanks to Tok, Alaska. All right, that's the goal. Day two, get from Tok to Whitehorse, all the way through to day 14, get from St. George, Utah to Flagstaff. In the binder, there were a hundred pages breaking down how we were going to accomplish that move.

But up front, I summarized everything that was behind it. And our text this morning starts with one of those executive summaries. It starts with the phrase, the point in what we have been saying, the point in what has been taught since chapter four. And then in our text today, those previous four chapters are summarized and the apostle Paul, or whoever you believe gave us Hebrews. I'll just say the apostle who gave us Hebrews is utilizing a tool that Jesus utilized in answering back the Pharisees.

And Jesus was answering the Pharisees in the book of Matthew, and he had just silenced the Sadducees. Now, the Pharisees came with a question. They asked him a question. And Jesus summarized all of the law and the prophets, 600,000 words of the Old Testament. And Jesus summarized, look with me at Matthew 22.

"But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question. Why? To test him. Right, to test him. He said, teacher, what is the greatest commandment in the law? And he said to them, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. That is the great in the first commandment. And a second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depends on all 600,000 words of the law and the prophets." - Matthew 22:34-40

And then we learned a few weeks back that Jesus in the Gospel of John, raised that standard and charged us that we should love others as he has loved us. So his summary of all the law and the prophets is, love God with all of your heart, your soul and your mind, and love others like Christ has loved you.

That's a pretty powerful summary. That's a pretty Big commandment for us to obey every day. And now in our text, we see the first seven chapters of Hebrews have been a study in the contrast between the titans of Judaism and then how Christ is superior to all of that.

Jesus is superior to everything in the first covenant, to the prophets, the angels, to Abraham, Joshua and Moses. But in the chapters that we've studied, these are not individual comparisons. Jesus verse. Jesus verse, like the preacher, is setting up some type of a sudden death tournament to determine who is the greatest figure in Jewish history. That's not the point.

All of these comparisons are part of the main theme that the New Covenant and its high priest, Jesus Christ, are superior to everything that came before the previous covenant. All of those peoples, all of those entities were part of that previous covenant. And Jesus as high priest is superior to the priesthood that came before him. One of the dominant themes in the Old Testament is the priesthood. And the priesthood is fundamental to the first covenant because it was the office.

It was the way that God and man were brought together through the priesthood. And so when the New Testament announces there's a new covenant, there's a new high priest. And the Jews are told, you're to leave and not return to your prior covenant. The priest of this new covenant must be shown in his superiority. And that's why we have Hebrews.

This part of the sermon in Hebrews points us back to where this section started, which was chapter 4 and verse 14. Let's read that again.

"Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God. Let us hold fast our confession, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence, draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." - Hebrews 4:14-16

And Jay prayed that over us this morning. So starting there in that section in chapter four, and then continuing into chapter five and six, and then as we studied the last few weeks, into chapter seven, the preacher continually goes back to the superior priesthood of Christ. And foreshadowing a little bit, we will continue to see this into chapter nine, into chapter ten. And the contrast continues between the first covenant and then the better covenant. And because this continues in Hebrews, this must be a central theme.

John Piper talks about it this way. He says

"when God gave Moses a pattern for a priestly and sacrificial system, the first covenant, he didn't just make it up on the spot for the Jewish people. He patterned it after glorious realities in heaven." - John Piper

We get a glimpse in the first covenant into God and his ways when we ponder the priesthood of Israel. And the way that God instituted that first covenant was with a central and functioning priesthood.

And so when God supersedes or replaces or improves on something, he does so with something more perfect and better. And this new covenant highlights the deficiencies of the Aaronic Levitical priesthood. And so let's go through and look at how the text does that in summarizing the previous chapters. First, we see that this priest is seated. And from what we can see in the Old Testament and from Jewish history, the Levitical priests were never seated, ever in their office.

God was the one who gave the plans for the tabernacle and for the temple. And if you want to go look in Exodus from chapters 25 to 40, God gave very specific items for the structure and for every item that was to be inside of the structure. And then in First Chronicles, God gave David the blueprints for the temple. And even though he told him, you're not going to be the one to build this, he gave the blueprints to David and told him his son was going to build it. And so in First Chronicles, chapter 19, David gives these blueprints to his son.

And when he does, he hands him and he says,

"all this he made clear to me, and in writing from the hand of the Lord, and all the work will be done according to this plan." - 1 Chronicles 28:19 (referenced as 1 Chronicles 19)

So the plans for the tabernacle and the temple came from God. And in those plans, there was no seat in the holy place other than one, what was it? And that was God's seat, right? There was one seat, and that was for God.

And so if you're asking yourself, okay, why are you making a big deal about the furniture? Right? Well, that's a great question. Let's see if God has anything to say about it. Hebrews 10, verse 11.

"Every priest of the first covenant, every priest, every Levitical priest, stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, right? That was the limitation of the first covenant. Those can never take away sins. But when Christ, the perfect and superior priest, has offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God." - Hebrews 10:11-12

Our priest is seated because the work is finished.

But next, where is our priest seated? We're told in chapter 8 and chapter 10, he was seated at the right hand of the majesty on high. And we have to keep remembering when we hear words like that, when phrases are Repeated this was given to a Jewish audience first. And so these phrases were filtered through the Jewish mind. And there's a really cool detail in this.

And this doesn't come explicitly from this sermon in Hebrews, but this actually comes from Jewish history. And it's an application we can draw from Jewish history that would have been in the forefront of the Jewish mind that heard this sermon first. We're talking about the Levitical priests, but the Jews knew another powerful and relevant body of men who ruled their lives. What is this? It's the Sanhedrin, right?

This was the body of 70 or 71 in Israel. And they were responsible for handing down judgments. Right. Israel sat under the judgment of the Sanhedrin. And we find in the Mishnah, which is the authoritative compilation of Jewish tradition and history, this particular, that when the Sanhedrin was assembled, there were two scribes who were always seated on the sides of the Sanhedrin.

And as each member, each of those 70 Judges would cast their vote for guilt or for acquittal. The scribe on the left would record the guilty verdicts, and the scribes seated at the right would record the not guilty verdicts, the records of justification. And our great priest, high priest, seated at the right hand of God is both the constant and continual record of our not guilty verdict before God. And he is also the exalted king, enthroned at God's right hand. Next, in our text, we see that the priest has entered.

It's a very significant event in the first covenant when the first. When the high priest would enter the holy place and then the most holy place, it was highly regulated and it was scripted. You can go look in that. In the Old Testament, they had to follow step by step. And when the high priest entered, they did not enter as an individual.

They entered in their office as high priests. Because this was a meeting once a year between God and man. And the priest entered the most holy place as a mediator, carrying the nation of Israel on their person to enter and to meet with God in his presence. Our great high priest, Jesus entered the most holy place, the very presence of God, when he ascended at his ascension. And he carried with him on his body and by his blood his elect people, us, into the presence of God.

So our presence before God is no longer predicated on fallible and sinful men, human priests. But the foundation of our presence before God is the perfect and sinless great high priest. Because Jesus is the only one who can't be found wanting or lacking before the throne of God, the Levitical priest of the first covenant offered temporary shadow sacrifices here on earth. But Jesus made the complete, perfect and final atoning payment on the cross. And then, having overcome sin forever here on earth where it festered, he ascended to the heavenly throne, bringing his finished work with him to ever intercede for his elect.

And I love this point. As king and priest, he entered into God's presence to declare his victory over sin in the very same place where the cosmic rebellion was birthed.

Our priest is seated. He has entered. And next we see that he has entered the true tent or the holy place. Repeatedly this morning we're going to discuss how everything that the Levitical priests did was but a shadow of the perfect. It was only a shadow of what was to come.

And their location, their tabernacle and their temple were no different. They were meticulous. The blueprints were divinely given by God, but they weren't perfect. They were still a shadow of the heavenlies. Man set up the tent, the tabernacle in the wilderness.

And we said God had given the commands and the plans. But anything that we do, anything that man does, even in perfect obedience, can never compare to anything created by the one who is perfect and incapable of error. And we don't have to work very hard to draw this out of Scripture because God says it plainly to us. Chapter 9.

"But when Christ appeared as a high priest, of the good things that have come, the better covenant then through the greater and more perfect tent. Why? Because it's not one made with hands. It's not of this creation. Verse 24. Christ has entered not into holy places made with hands, which are but copies of the true things. Christ has entered into heaven itself. Now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf," - Hebrews 9:11, 24

let's consider two truths this morning and then the implications of those two truths. The first is God is the sovereign architect of all things. He does not. He cannot make mistakes.

Secondly, the incarnate Jesus was, was here on earth to do the will of the Father, and he could not disobey because the Godhead cannot be divided against itself. So Christ in his deity could have called and commanded angels to come and save him, but in his perfect fulfillment of the law, he could not disobey God. So those two truths lead to this conclusion. And this is the brightest and most concrete evidence that the first covenant was temporary and had to be replaced. It's this.

The incarnate Christ could not have been a priest on earth. The one who gave the law could not have mediated that covenant here on earth. God's first covenant had established that the Levitical priesthood would be of men of Levi, right? So Jesus was disqualified by blood. And why was that?

Because God had made Jesus of the tribe of he was of Davidic ascent, qualifying him to be a king, but not a Levitical priest. The earthly priesthood was filled by sinful temporary Levi born men. And Jesus didn't qualify on any of those merits. He superseded all of those. So the only human to ever perfectly fulfill the law, and the one who gave the law again, was not qualified to mediate the law within the confines of that priesthood.

So the Levitical priesthood then was only temporary. It was a partial remedy that pointed to something perfect and eternal. And Jesus didn't come to fit into this system of temporal sacrifices. He came to end it and supersede it. The covenant where Jesus was both king and eternal priests, whose sacrificial work was completely and absolutely final is the covenant of grace that we are in.

But what was the system that the Jews knew their covenant, their Levitical priesthood, that Jesus was replacing Israel had this priestly system. God had given it to him. And it functioned on two basic principles. The first was that man was fallen and sinful. That's still true today, right?

That has not changed. Because we're sinful and our sin separates us from a holy God, a God who can't tolerate sin. Our, our sin requires a payment, an offering, something to atone on behalf of our sin to God. And this was the role of the Levitical Aaronic priests. They would offer that temporary atoning offering to God.

And then the high priest once a year would offer atoning sacrifices on behalf of the whole nation. That started with the proposition though, that because that Levitical priest themselves were fallible and had sins of their own to confess and atone for. The process started with that priest making sacrifices on his own behalf before he could enter into God's presence in his office on behalf of the people. And in that priestly office, the priest had to have something to present to God to seek atonement. And if Jesus was going to be the final, perfect and forever high priest, he too must have something to offer to God that was atoning.

And because he was sinless, he had no need to atone for his own sin. He was able to offer his own blood, having perfectly fulfilled the law, and he was completely unblemished by sin. And he was able then to make an atoning sacrifice that no Levitical priest could ever bring before God.

And that is why again, this was an inferior shadow of the perfect priesthood that was always, always planned by God to replace it. You've heard me say a couple of times, and we'll continue to talk about shadows. Shadows. Well, what does that mean? Let's make sure that we all have the understanding of the usage and the way that we're using it in relation to the book of Hebrews.

MacArthur again talks about it in this way. He says

"shadows have three inherent limitations. They're less significant than the object casting them. They're temporary until the substance arrives, and they imperfectly resemble their source." - John MacArthur

So we know what they're cast from, we know what they represent, but they just have inherent limitations.

And these limitations as it relates to this first covenant in this priesthood operate across multiple dimensions. The earthly tabernacle and the temple were made by humans from earthly materials. And then the sacrifices that were offered were offered by fallen humans, the results of fallen creation, and they were temporal. Comparing that to Christ, who was sinless, he was not fallen, and he's entered a place that was not made with human hands. So the gap between these two covenants exists both in quantity and in quality.

One, the first is temporal and corrupted by sin, and the other is eternally is eternal and belongs in the heavenly realm.

And then look at this, the other huge gap that the first covenant, the other huge gap is the fact that the first covenant produced external conformity. The sacrifices were in obedience to God. Yes, but those laws were written on stone and not on our hearts. They compelled obedience, but they didn't change hearts. And Christ's atoning blood secured our redemption.

And through the work of the Spirit, our hearts of stone are transformed into hearts of flesh. The first covenant, the shadow, demands external conformity, but the better covenant and the better priesthood produces changed hearts. But though that first covenant was temporal and it was but a shadow, it wasn't without divine purpose. Because that first covenant, what did it do? It pointed to Christ.

It pointed to God's future plan, something better. And the Old Testament believers who longed for something better and trusted that God and Christ were their hope. The Bible says they were saved by faith, just as we are.

The final phrase that we're going to look at this morning is found in verse seven.

"For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second." - Hebrews 8:7

And said, another way is, if the covenant of law had been perfect, we would have no reason to hope for and look for a more perfect covenant. Verse 7 in our text plainly says that the first covenant had at least one fault. So it's Important for us to look at and understand what that fault or faults might have been.

And to do that, we're going to need to dip a little bit into the Greek, the word usage, and then also a little bit into the text for next week. Verse 8. First, in verse 7, both verse 7 and verse 8 have a form of the Greek word for fault, but they're different. In verse 7, the Greek word is amymtos, meaning faultless. For if that first covenant had been amymtos, there would have been no occasion sought.

For a second, we find the prefix e, or meaning not in front of that Greek word, meaning to blame. The way that this is written and used in verse seven does not mean that God instituted something that was corrupt or something that was flawed. But it means rather that by its very nature, by the very nature, God instituted this first covenant. It had limitations. And the first covenant never existed in a form that was capable of providing the ultimate solution.

Never. It always pointed. It always pointed. We know and understand this where we're from because we can look back, right? That's a much different position than the people who lived under this first covenant.

We can look back and see, oh, yes, it was pointing to something better and greater. We have the whole Bible when verse eight, we're told again that fault has been found. But that word usage there is memphi, meaning blaming, finding blame. And in this verse with this usage, the preacher and the author is using a present participle, and he's using that to show where the fault can be found. In verse 8, says, the fault was found with them, them, the people under the covenant.

And we interpret each portion, each passage of the Bible through the whole lens of the Bible, the whole Revelation that God has given about himself. And what do we know? God cannot lie. He doesn't make mistakes. So it's a simple question.

If there's agreement between two parties and one of them is God, where's the fault going to lie? It lies with us, right? Fault lied with us. And that's why the first covenant was always temporal and always pointing to a perfect and final solution. Because the covenant of law created this system of rules and bondage, and those laws demanded a penalty of death and temporary atonement over and over.

And that covenant, again, was written on stone. It was written and rigid and must be complied with, but it was not written on hearts.

One of the best examples and explanations of this and what was and what came is found in Galatians from the apostle Paul, starting in verse 16. I'm just going to read through this, it's very plain

"Now. The promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. This is scripture speaking. It does not say and to offsprings referring to many, but referring to one and to your offspring, Scripture tells us, is Christ. And this is what I mean. The law, the first covenant came 430 years after these promises had been made to Abraham. And it does not annul a covenant that was previously ratified by God so as to make that promise void. For if the inheritance came by the law, it no longer comes by promise. But God did give it to Abraham by a promise. So then, verse 19. Why then the law. The law. The first covenant was added because of transgressions until the offspring who is Christ should come, to whom the promise had been made and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. Now, an intermediary implies more than one. But God is one. Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? It certainly is not. For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. But the Scripture, the words of that first covenant, imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those of us who believe now. Before faith came the better covenant. We were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then the law was our guardian until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian. For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek. There's not slave nor free. There is no male and female. There's no first covenant, second covenant. We are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise." - Galatians 3:16-29

Paul continues this in Romans, chapter 8. He speaks plainly of our condition under the new Covenant.

"There is therefore now no condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus for the law of the Spirit of life. The new covenant has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. And for sin he condemned sin in the flesh." - Romans 8:1-3

Alright, give me a couple minutes. Now to recap this and to try to seek application for us. We have been through months and months and months. You've heard some of the same terms, the same premises, the same theology taught from different angles and directions. That's because God has given it to us multiple times.

And at this point in Hebrews, if you were to raise your hand and say, I get it, Christ is the perfect high priest of the new covenant. And the Jewish audience was constantly in danger of slipping back into their own ways, I get it. I would say, yes, that's a pretty good summary of what we've been studying for the last couple of months. But trusting in God and his infallibility, he did not inspire and preserve this just for that audience, those communities. This is for his church yesterday, today and tomorrow.

So there has to be application. And I was trying to think of how to apply this text today, this executive summary of what we've been Studying now in 4, 5, 6, and 7, and how we as mainly lifelong Gentile Christians, what would our first covenant analogy be?

And I was thinking about that for far too long and then all of a sudden, wham. God showed me, you've got it all wrong. And I was like 3,700 words into preparing for a lesson is not when you want God to say, hey, you're off base.

But I was off base in realizing what the Jewish believers were sliding back into. It wasn't that they were merely sliding back into a first covenant of law and sacrifice. The issue was that they were sliding back into a system of ritualistic religiosity that demonstrated outward compliance and shielded their hearts from being transformed into Christlikeness.

And that that is how I am exactly like those first century Jewish Christians. That is why this is applicable for us. My wife and I remark often we moved way north and way west. Then we lived for six years out west, and then we both came back home to the south, where we're from and the difference in living in those places, Alaska, Arizona, and then here in the South. It's remarkable that everyone in the south goes to church, prays at family gatherings, has a Christian T shirt or a bumper sticker.

It is part of our culture. But how many of us are Lay my life and my dreams down and pick up my cross and follow Christ Christians.

That's the question that makes this book exactly what I need to preach to myself and what I need to hear preached to me Sunday after Sunday, because my heart wants to retreat into outward religiosity and shield my heart from being carved up and changed into the image of Christ Jesus very plainly tells us in Matthew, in chapter 16, Jesus, our high priest, the mediator of this covenant, turned to his disciples and said,

"if any of you want to come with me, you have to forget yourself. You have to carry your cross and follow me. If you insist on saving your own life, you're going to lose it. But if you're willing to lose your life for my sake, you will find it. Will you gain anything if you win the whole world and end up losing your life? Of course not. There is nothing you can give to regain your life. For the Son of Man is about to come in the glory of his Father with his angels. And then he will reward each of us according to our deeds." - Matthew 16:24-27

And our prayer this morning is that Jesus will protect each of us from that sinful desire we have to retreat into outward religious compliance.

And instead we will press forward into exposing every nook and crevice of our hearts so that we can be made into the likeness of Christ. Jesus, your words from the Father for us and by your Spirit are to make us into your image.

And I pray that you will protect us and open our eyes when we want to change the terms of the covenant and make the Christian life and church and living in a place where it's easy to be a Christian into a system of outward compliance and a cloak of Christianity rather than a heart that daily sacrificed on an altar where we are changed into your image. Protect us, Jesus, and by your word, sustain us and equip us. Thank you for your spirit. Thank you for our time together this morning as your saints continuing to see and understand how you are better, you are superior, and you are our eternal high priest and king. For our good, making us into your image. It's in your name we pray. Amen.