Hebrews 3:3-6
Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. 4 For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. 5 “Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house,” bearing witness to what would be spoken by God in the future. 6 But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house.
As we continue with the theme Jesus is Greater, we see what else Jesus is greater than in this passage. We have seen that Jesus is greater than the angels, the devil, the Old Testament, Moses... but now we see that Jesus is bigger than religion. Let me explain by looking at a passage in Genesis where God appears to Jacob in the famous "Jacob's Ladder" account.
He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13 There above it stood the Lord, and he said: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. 14 Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. 15 I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”16 When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” 17 He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”18 Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. 19 He called that place Bethel, though the city used to be called Luz.20 Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear 21 so that I return safely to my father’s household, then the Lord will be my God 22 and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth.”
What we see in this passage is a God coming down from Heaven to give man a promise of blessing, no strings attached. Unconditional love for a scoundrel. What did Jacob have to do? Believe it, receive it, and go back to sleep. What did he do instead? In math we called it an "if - then" equation. He said that if God would watch over him, bless him, give him a good future, then Jacob would worship Him and tithe. And not only that, he built an altar to honor the place where it all happened and named it Bethel which means The house of God. This is religion - doing things for God so that He will bless you and honoring the place (the church) more than God. When I ask people "Are you a Christian?" at least half the time they will tell me, "I go to such and such church". Unfortunately you can see what will inevitably happen - when God doesn't come through on His perceived part of the bargain, then the deal is off. It is a man centered deal. That's religion. The writer of Hebrews warns the hearers that they are in danger of this. They are worshipping a place and the founder and leader of the place rather than the one who is in and over the place and founder. The conclusion of the Jacob story is seen in Genesis 35.
Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you, and purify yourselves and change your clothes. 3 Then come, let us go up to Bethel, where I will build an altar to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone.” 4 So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods they had and the rings in their ears, and Jacob buried them under the oak at Shechem. 5 Then they set out, and the terror of God fell on the towns all around them so that no one pursued them.6 Jacob and all the people with him came to Luz (that is, Bethel) in the land of Canaan. 7 There he built an altar, and he called the place El Bethel, because it was there that God revealed himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother.
When he wrestled with God face to face and realized that God could have dissintegrated him if He had wanted to yet let him live, He came to grips with the Holiness of God and that this life wasn't about him but about God. God didn't exist for Jacob but Jacob existed for God. This brought about getting rid of all other gods and worshipping and following one God. This meant going where He tells you to go. Notice he renamed the place. It was no longer "The house of God" but el Bethel - "The God of the house of God"
The writer of Hebrews says to stop their religious worshipping of the law, the temple, the leaders but worship Jesus who is greater than all that stuff. Are we in danger of doing what the Hebrews were doing?
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