GYC 2014: At The Cross

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

The Cross in Hebrews

Clinton Wahlen

1. Why Only a Cross Could Save Us (Hebrews 1-2)

This message was presented at the GYC 2014 conference at the Cross in Phoenix, Arizona.

For other resources like this, visit us online at www.gycweb.org.

It's a wonderful way to begin the new year, isn't it?

We had some very dear friends that were with us last night.

Actually, Pastor Scott Wentz is here and his family joined us and we were praying together as a group as the new year began.

And it's 1 of the most special beginnings to the year I've ever had.

I hope that the beginning of yours is just as special.

And it is as we open God's Word, as we seek His wisdom and will.

So let's bow our heads and seek that this morning.

Loving Father, thank you so much for all that you have spoken to us in your word.

Thank you for Jesus, our Savior, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despised the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Lord thank you for this precious gift, this precious message that we have.

And as we open your word and look more deeply into the book of Hebrews through these several seminars, we ask for your guidance, your spirit to be with us, to be our teacher.

Thank you that we have the privilege of learning from the greatest teacher in the universe, Jesus himself.

And that's really, you know, what I have to share with you is only what I have learned and there are many more things to learn.

You know, the Word of God, the more I study it, the more amazed I am at how deep and profound it is, that it repays, rewards richly our investigation and our study.

And so the goals that I have for our seminar on Hebrews is that we will take an unapologetic, advanced approach to the book.

I believe with all my heart that Hebrews is the most advanced book of the Bible, as I have mentioned.

What things, you know, With your knowledge of the book of Hebrews, tell me, what do you think about the book?

Where in the book of Hebrews do we find Adventist message and who we are?

Hebrews 8 I heard, where Jesus is our high priest.

It's the only place in really the New Testament where the Sabbath is described as meaning in detail is Hebrews chapter 4.

And let's just look at a number of points about this.

But first, before we get there, I want to just share with you about what it means to be a Seventh-day Adventist.

Because, in fact, we might think we know, but there was a conversation recently with someone about who a Seventh-day Adventist is, what it means to be a Seventh-day Adventist.

And this person was raised in Seventh-day Adventist church, had even graduate level study in Seventh-day Adventist University, and still was a little bit unclear in his mind as to what, when asked, what is a Seventh-day Adventist, was struggling to answer that question.

And could you say, maybe is there someone here that, how would you answer that question?

Yes, that's the foundation of all Christianity, including some Adventism.

I don't think that's exactly what you mean, but different people will give different answers to that question.

I will share with you my own experience as a Seventh-day Adventist, because I was not raised as a Seventh-day Adventist.

And when my Christian friends came to me and said, you should believe in Jesus, he died for you on the cross and paid for your sins.

And if you don't believe in him, you'll go to hell.

I thought, I'm not going to believe in God for that reason.

It was like, actually, it was like they were speaking a foreign language.

Just about everything they said did not make sense to me.

I knew that there was something called sin and the cross, but I didn't know what that meant.

I mean, if you had given me a Bible and said turn to Genesis, I would look in the table of contents.

And yet the Lord brought me to a willingness to know something about the Bible.

Someone handed me the book Great Controversy and said, pick a chapter that looks interesting and read to the end.

So I looked at the table of contents, saw the chapter The Origin of Evil and started there and read to the end.

Objection after objection that I had in my mind as an atheist started to melt away as I read page after page.

It was just as if God was there and we were in conversation.

I would have an objection, he would answer it.

Next objection arose in my mind, and in the next paragraph or page, he would answer it.

I cannot describe the powerful experience that that was for me, to come in contact with the Bible and its truth for the first time.

I had originally decided I should know something about the Bible because educated people do, But by the time I finished that book, I realized I needed to know a lot more about the Bible than I had imagined.

I found also, it was by God's providence that I lived with an Adventist family for a summer after I finished high school.

And I had the opportunity to observe family worship morning and evening.

It was very different family than I grew up in, coming from a divorced home as I did, and there was not the kind of peaceful, let's say, peaceful family environment that we would imagine as the ideal.

And yet, here I was in a family where I never heard the parents speak harshly to their children and more amazingly the children speak disrespectfully to their parents.

And I became, you know, I thought vegetarianism was a little bit weird and odd.

But then when I started to realize that this was really delicious food and actually I ate better as a vegetarian I think than I had eaten my whole life up to that point.

What I'm trying to get at is that truth is a package, and the more truth we have, the more pieces we fit into the puzzle or that package, the bigger the picture of truth and who God is and his plan for us that we understand.

Salvation really is a preparation for heaven and for eternity.

What we believe and practice affects our whole life.

Sabbath, food, dress, health, everything is a part of that package.

And I had the opportunity to see how it worked in this family setting.

I was also, through the great conversation and other books, introduced to Ellen White and her writings by reading them for myself.

And I can't underscore enough how important that was for me.

Ellen White from the beginning was a friend because she introduced me to who God is really, that God is love.

And the love of God and the truth of the Bible are the most powerful, powerful elements in the universe.

And I hope that however you might have been, what your experiences were with Ellen White and her writings, that She will be a friend for you too.

And even in my many years of study of scripture and the original languages and doctoral studies in New Testament, I find that, you know, I had some professors in Adventist colleges that would have kind of the attitude that Ellen White confines us and confines our thinking.

But I found just the opposite, I have to say.

You know, She would bring out details that I didn't see in scripture.

And then when I went back to scripture, I'd say, yeah, it's there.

Just an example, a couple weeks ago, I was listening to a sermon.

But the pastor, it was a beautiful Christmas sermon about the shepherds, but you got the idea that these shepherds were some worldly people that were dishonest and didn't care anything about God.

That's not actually the picture that we have, especially in the Sower of Ages.

They were searching, looking for the Messiah and for his coming and expecting that the time was near.

2. Really Resting in the Cross (Hebrews 3-4)

This message was presented at the GYC 2014 conference at La Crosse in Phoenix, Arizona.

I know that some are still coming in, but time is limited, and we want to make the best use of the time that we have.

We had quite a wonderful first hour looking at Hebrews chapters 1 and 2, And we're going to move on, beginning in chapters 3 and 4 in this seminar.

Let's just, before we begin, let's bow our heads for prayer.

Loving Father, thank you so much for Jesus, the Word made flesh, who dwelt among us, who lives for us today at your right hand.

In our first seminar, just by way of the briefest summary, we found that it was essential, the cross was essential for saving us because only 1 who is equal with God, vertically reaching his throne, and 1 who is horizontal, fully human, could touch our humanity and experience our temptations, could sympathize with us.

Only 1 who is fully divine, fully human could save us.

As we come to Hebrews chapter 3, it again begins with Jesus.

Hebrews chapter 3, where, therefore, holy brethren partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high priest of our confession.

We'll deal with that more in Seminar 3 about leadership.

We'll come back to these verses in chapter 3.

Consider the apostle and high priest of our confession, Christ Jesus, who was faithful to him who appointed him, as Moses also was faithful in all his house.

For this 1 has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses inasmuch as he who built the house, that is Jesus is the creator of course, he who built the house has more honor than the house.

For every house is built by someone, but he who built all things is God.

And Moses indeed was faithful in all his house as a servant for a testimony of those things which would be spoken afterward.

But Christ as a son over his own house, whose house we are, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end.

So as Moses was leader of the house of Israel.

Jesus now is leader and head of the house of new Israel.

Yet as Paul says here, Jesus has more honor than Moses.

Just as the 1 who made the house has more honor than the house.

Moses didn't create Israel, God created Israel.

God brought it into existence through the Exodus, bringing them out of Egypt, leading them into the promised land, leading them through the wilderness.

And as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10, it was Jesus who led them.

It was Jesus who was that rock in the wilderness with them.

Why does Hebrews talk about it at this point?

Because like Moses, Jesus is leading his people, he's leading us through the wilderness of this sinful planet to the heavenly Canaan.

And so the warning in Hebrews 3 and 4 is very serious for us too.

So that we do not follow after Israel's bad example by hardening our hearts and rebelling against the Lord.

You know, Paul has also in 1 Corinthians 10, a very similar message.

He goes through, and we won't take the time to look at this passage because our passage is Hebrews 3 and 4, but I just wanted to point out the parallel because Paul in Hebrews is talking about the same thing as he does in 1 Corinthians 10 where he goes through the experience of Israel in the wilderness and he says in verse 6, now these things were our examples to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted and so on.

Neither verse 8 commit foreign occasion as some of them committed.

Verse 9, neither let us tempt Christ as some of them also tempted.

Verse 10, neither murmur ye as some of them also murmured.

Verse 11, now all these things happen unto them for examples, and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.

So what was written then about their experience in the wilderness is instructive for us upon whom the ends of the world are come.

This is the same message as in Hebrews chapter 3 and 4.

Now you might think, well, we can't, we wouldn't make the same mistakes as Israel did.

Surely we have their example to learn from.

You know, we see their experience and what it led to.

And more than that we have, more than they had, we have the New Testament.

We have Jesus and his life and his word through his apostles.

The 1 thing we learn from history is we don't learn from history.

We may, if we are not careful, repeat the mistakes Israel made.

In fact, it's already happened to a certain extent, we could say, because we are still here.

We should not be still here, but we're still here.

We're told that Jesus could have come back 170 years ago, had Adventists, after the great disappointment in 1844, held fast their faith and followed on unitedly in the opening providence of God, receiving the message of the third angel, and in the power of the Holy Spirit, proclaiming it to the world.

They would have seen the salvation of God.

The Lord would have wrought mightily with their efforts.

The work would have been completed, and Christ would have come, ere this, to receive his people to their reward.

It was not the will of God that the coming of Christ should be thus delayed.

For 40 years did unbelief, murmuring, and rebellion shut out ancient Israel from the land of Canaan.

The same sins have delayed the entrance of modern Israel into the heavenly Canaan.

In neither case were the promises of God at fault.

It is the, notice this, the unbelief, the worldliness, the un-consecration and strife among the Lord's professed people that have kept us in this world of sin and sorrow so many years.

That's a statement that is well worth pondering over for some time, but we don't have time to dwell on it.

Israel wanted to turn back to Egypt, And we have to keep in mind what Egypt was at that time.

Egypt was the most civilized place on the planet.

All we have to do is look at Egypt, modern Egypt today, and look at the contrast.

You would think that modern Egypt today would be even more advanced, right?

But as 1 person said, who was on a tour with me of Egypt, you know, looking at the buildings that were crumbling, she said, I can't tell whether the building is going up or coming down.

And we didn't go to look at those buildings.

We went to look at the pyramids and the palaces of Karnak and the tombs of the kings and queens, the pharaohs of Egypt, and the glories of that civilization.

It was a very advanced civilization, and it was comfortable there.

Good food, and all the living comforts that went with the most advanced nation in the world.

And Somehow yet, they somehow in the wilderness, when they were relying on God for their water and their food, they came to forget that, that they were slaves.

And so Egypt in scripture epitomizes unbelief.

Yet, over and over, what do we read in the books of Moses?

And so Hebrews, by contrast, encourages us to hold our confidence firm and steadfast to the end.

Verse 6, but if we hold fast the confidence and rejoice in the hope firm unto the end.

Verse 14, for we are made partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end.

How can we avoid following the misguided example of Israel?

Fourth volume of the testimony is page 150.

Thus, they manifested their disrespect for God and for the leaders he had appointed to conduct them.

They took matters into their own hands, feeling themselves confident to manage their affairs without divine aid." The words of Hebrews 3 verse 15, sorry, verse 14, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end are important.

That word if, it could be translated if and only if.

In other words, there is a fairly strong probability that believers today will repeat Israel's mistake unless they hold fast their confidence.

If and only if we hold fast our confidence and rejoicing firm to the end will we be saved.

He never forces us to stay in his presence any longer than we are willing.

It's not an on-again, off-again experience because the Holy Spirit convicts us when we sin.

3. The Cross in Leadership (Hebrews 5-7)

As I said to the first seminar group this morning, happy new year.

Those of you who are, how many have not been to the first or second seminar?

So, well, welcome to seminar number 3, the cross and leadership.

Just a very quick synopsis of seminar 1, we looked at why Jesus had to be both fully God and fully human in order to save us, and this is the burden of Hebrews 1 and 2.

In Hebrews 3 and 4, we saw that real rest of the Sabbath is a spiritual rest from our works and some of the details that are brought out there in terms of the necessity of faith rather than unbelief expressed in Israel's history in order to enter the promised land and how that applies to us who believe we are on the borders of the heavenly Canaan.

And now, so chapter 5 then, we're going further in Hebrews and we will deal with leadership issues, which I think they seemed pretty significant to me and I hope you'll find the same way.

Let's bow our heads for prayer before we begin.

Loving Father, thank you for your word and the light that it brings us as we study deeply, seek to know you better and your will for us.

So we ask for your Holy Spirit, without whom we can learn nothing, but through whom we can learn more than anyone of the great men of the earth can teach us.

May you be our teacher and guide in this time together, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.

Before we actually look at Hebrews 5, I think it's helpful for us to review what, a few verses in Hebrews chapter 3, because, especially since so many of you were not in the second seminar where we covered this, it's a foundation really for all spiritual leadership that is Jesus himself.

And it speaks about Jesus in Hebrews 3 verses 1 and 2.

And so let's just read these verses together.

Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high priest of our confession, Christ Jesus, who was faithful to him who appointed him as Moses also was faithful in all his house.

It's interesting that Jesus is called not only high priest, but apostle.

And we will look at these 2 offices, Apostle and High Priest, in detail in order to understand better how Jesus exemplifies what it means to be the leader of Israel.

So I ask a question, when did Jesus become an an apostle?

It's interesting to me that he was not self-appointed.

In order to answer this question, we need to look actually somewhat carefully at the Gospels.

So we're going to take a little excursion back to the Gospels for a little bit of time here because what Hebrews, what Paul writes in Hebrews here is really predicated upon Jesus teaching about himself and also about his setting apart of the apostles.

So let's first mention that the word apostle in Greek is apostolos and it comes from the verb apostello which means to send on a mission and examples of the verb apostello to be sent on a mission in connection with Jesus in the gospels, 1 is in Matthew 21, 37, the parable of the vineyard.

You know, the Lord of the vineyard sent servants and they beat some and stoned 1, another killed another.

And then finally he said in verse 37, but last of all, he sent unto them his son saying, they will reverence, they will respect my son.

And Jesus points this out in detail in John chapter 5.

The early chapters of John deal with the Judean ministry of Jesus, which we actually don't see much, if any, at all of it in the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

But John in the early chapters deals a lot with Jesus' ministry in Judea and Jerusalem.

And so he is challenged by the Jewish leaders about his authority to heal and cause this man to bear his burden on Sabbath.

You know, he was sick for 38 years and healed by the pool of Bethesda.

And this ensues into a great controversy of Jesus and his authority.

And beginning in verse 31, notice what he says, if I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true.

If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true.

There should be a divine witness to Jesus as the apostle or the 1 sent from the Father.

And so then he goes through the various evidences for him being a genuine apostle or 1 who is sent.

Beginning in verse 32 and carry on through verse 35, he refers to John the Baptist, which everyone, of course, at that time accepted was a genuine prophet of the Lord who had genuine message from heaven.

Even Jesus at the end of his ministry again refers to John the Baptist's authority.

Was it from heaven or from among men in order to justify his own authority?

And they didn't want to answer because they knew if they, you know, They would be in trouble if they accepted John's witness, but not Jesus, because John witnessed to Jesus.

He then in verse 36, Jesus says, But I have greater witness than that of John For the works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father has sent me." Again, the verb apostello is used.

And so the miracles that Jesus worked were an evidence that he was from heaven.

You know, later on in John 9, the man born blind, he said, you know, if this man were not from God, he could do nothing.

Wherever was it ever recorded that a man born blind was ever made to see.

And so the miracles that Jesus performed were of course not for his own benefit or to justify who he was, but because of illustration of the healing power of God to heal us from sin and make us whole, completely whole, to restore us into his image.

And so as a subsidiary evidence then he points to miracles.

He says, you know, even if you won't believe what I say, believe the works themselves.

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