The High Priest of our Confession Intro Pt 1

Join me in taking out your Bibles this morning and turning to the book of Hebrews once again. I Pray and trust that you are finding this study that we have embarked upon to be both rich and rewarding and even transforming. As we learn more and more about the Jesus that is written about on these pages.

I take us to chapter three this morning. I'll begin reading in verse one.

"3 Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus, " (Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.)

Let's pray. Lord, God, our Father, almighty, omniscient, faithful and grace, mercy. Your loving kindness is without end. And how so originally, You have dispelled upon us Your loving kindness in sending Your son, Jesus Christ as our High Priest let us learn today, Lord. Let us learn today of confession. And how we can join in this group called by You to confess our High Priest. Help me, help that your word may not return void and powerfully interject itself into our hearts, even the intents of our heart, may they be made manifest. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.

We're going to suggest that the next number of chapters chapters three through nine are all about one thing. Or aspects of one role, the role and Person of Jesus Christ, our High Priest. Considering the High Priest of our confession, I began an introduction. And then I realized that I was making sub points in my introduction. And I realized my introduction was a sermon. And so you're going to get an introductory sermon this morning, to chapter three, as the profundity of the first verse was impressed upon me, I believe by the Lord, to slow down and take it in. Therefore, so everything that has come before that therefore, is now here, and to be held in our minds. I know you're doing that. And as you do that, let me read the next words. "Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling" identity beyond the Hebrew, therefore holy brethren. Hagioi 'Holy'.

We've gone from the brethren, that He is not ashamed to call us in chapter two verse 11. Because of our shared humanity, and a shared identity, because these are the ones God gave Him, whom Jesus stands before God saying, "Here I am, and the children whom God has given Me", Chapter 2 verse 13. Therefore, holy brethren, all of a sudden, we can also translate hagioi into Greek in this way. Saints, to be a saint is to be a brother of Christ. Therefore holy brother and to be a holy brethren means to be a Christian. A partaker, of the heavenly calling, not an earthly calling, a heavenly calling. How does one become a holy brethren? By partaking of the heavenly calling! I realize I'm repeating these words a lot. And I'm doing that because that's what led me to make my introduction into a sermon. The more you read these words, the more you realize there's things that need to be brought forth from these words. To be identified as a saintly brother is to recognize, not that one is completely holy in all your doings at this moment, but that by the declaration of God and the calling of God of you unto Himself in the work of Jesus Christ, that we are therefore remembering who is the propitiation for the sins of the people, that He paid the price for all your sins, past, present, and future. And so you have a holy standing before God, and then are practically being sanctified by that same God, verse 11, for both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He's not ashamed to call them brother.

The oneness standing of the fellowship of the saints, sainthood is not granted by a church, as the Roman Catholics would have it, somehow after death, performing some sort of miracles, that is errant. And it leads people astray. To be a saint is to be one who God has made such by virtue of the work of Christ, on the cross, applied to you. You positionally, stand pure before God. Therefore, you can say I am a saint, not in pride, but in worship, humble worship. God called me, He, His Son, saved me and paid the price, satisfying the wrath of God. Therefore, holy brother, partakers of the heavenly calling. That is fellowship, partaking. We're going to see this again in verse 14, chapter three, "For we have become partakers of Christ" Listen, at verse 14, "We become partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end." What confidence? I lead you back to verse one. "Therefore, holy brother in partakers of the heavenly calling," listen now, "consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus."

For the next few chapters, we are going to be in consideration, we are going to be in examination of the text we are in. The person of our  , Jesus Christ is revealed. The work of our High Priest is presented and the confidence in that High Priest who ministers to us and for us a new covenant is paramount. One of the questions that I wrote down in my study to prompt my deeper looking into this text is this. What is the connection to our confession and faithfulness? What is the connection to our confession and faithfulness because verse two, and the rest of the way through chapter three, deals with faithfulness, and the lack thereof. Therefore holy brother and partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus, Who was faithful, Who was faithful to Him, Who appointed Him, as Moses also was faithful in all his house, the faithful, appointed by God defines the apostle portion of the title of Christ. Consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession. The apostle is one who is appointed by God for a purpose, just as Jesus appointed his apostles for a purpose, but it was also on to a status, a position. The apostles have authority to speak for God, to establish His church. This is the apostle, the sent one of God, the very God to be High Priest, His position, the status that He holds with that title is going to be examined, if you will, to the minute degree, so that our understanding would be elevated along with the readers of Hebrews. So what is the connection to our confession and faithfulness? Faithfulness? First, we have to understand what it means to confess.

Confession here is the Greek term homologia. From homologeo. It is a compound word homo, meaning the same or the same as Logos. The second portion of this compound word means very simply, word, the same word, or the same speech, or the same way to say something. For Logos. Also, lego means to say, to say, the same thing. Church history has revealed that down through the ages it has been necessary for pastors, elders of churches to come together to settle biblical questions so that the unity of confession may be held throughout the church. Some of you know these confessions also as Creed's, such as the Nicene Creed, the Chalcedonian Creed or confession. We in the United States for many decades now, and perhaps even for, I think I can safely say, for perhaps at least 120 some years, have gotten away from confessional Christianity. Confessional Christianity in that there are some basic truths that we repeat with regularity and we teach to our young ones coming up until they are adults, such that they have these unifying sameness of sayings, to stand on, to guard their life and their thinking. We can call it a mini theology, if you will, where the truth of the Bible is made into concise statements, so that we can then know if we are confessing the same things or not.

There was a problem with the Trinity, not in God's mind, but in the minds of men. And we will admittedly, proffer the weakness of men, myself and you and all included in understanding just what Trinity is. How is it that God is one? But yet three persons, how he is one in essence and yet three distinct persons with distinct functional roles? There was a problem with homoousius and homoiousius. Homoiousius have the same essence or substance, as opposed to a new teaching that came on. Homoousius have similar or like substance, or essence. Is Jesus just similar to God the Father? Or is Jesus the same as God the Father, in essence, that was the argument, from that came a confession, I shall not give it to you today. I've got an introduction to preach. So our confession, notice this is owned by the writer, and all Christians, therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession. Were we all together those who are the partakers of the heavenly calling? Who are the holy brethren? Say the same thing about our High Priest.

It means to agree on the same words or sayings. It is regrettable that we have gotten away from learning even in some cases to parrot the right words. And some people would proffer, well, if you just teach them to parrot it, to memorize it, it doesn't get into the heart. Well, it's for certain that it may not get into the heart, but it's even more certain if they don't know the right words, it's not going to make it to the heart either. And the shepherding of a heart of a child is similar to the shepherding of the heart of an adult. What are we agreeing on? For that's what this means, to agree on the same things. There is a legal connotation to this word, a legal meaning. A man in the legal setting, agrees with another statement. He is making homologia if he concedes something in a legal argument, okay, now I see it. I agree with you. I once had an opposing view. And now I am of the same view, you now have homologia. The confession is this. You were right. And I was wrong. But now we agree together. In a sense of a legal contract. Even when you write a contract, we both have to agree. For instance, when you walk into the banker, there's going to need to be some agreement on the monetary unit. I'd like to get a loan for my house. And the banker says, Well, how much is the house? And you say, Well, it seems to be about 50,000 duckets. The banker says, Well, how much is that is in dollars? You say? Well, I don't know. I need duckets. Well, first we're gonna have to agree on what unit of exchange we're going to use here. That perhaps you could say, well, I want bitcoins. Help me Jesus. I don't know what that is. But if we can't agree on what the value of one of those things is, our contract is going to be in question because we are not saying the same thing. And we had a different understanding of the requirement at the end. Well, I paid you 50,000 duckets. Well, the house cost $100,000, ...50,000 duckets. wasn't close to that. So guess what? You're in breach of contract. But I didn't understand. Too bad. The courts are going to help you say the same thing. And agree to pay. And so there is a legal connotation.

There's a religious use also, A religious use of this word. It is a binding of oneself with an oath. With an oath! There's a similarity to the court setting again. Wherein you make an oath. Sometimes you're asked, Do you swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth? So help you God? I do! I do. So help me God. Meaning if I lie, God help me. I'm under the judgment of God for not telling the truth or not speaking rightly. According to my oath, my oath should be the truth, the whole truth. So this word confession.

Confession is to say the same thing. And there is a legal connotation in that it must be in accordance with what the contract is or what it says, agreeing on the terms thereof, and also a binding of oneself in an oath. The High Priest of our confession. But how would the Hebrews who are reading these words, interpret High Priest of our confession? That is one of the primary places where interpreters can go awry in applying the text before they understand how the text was understood by those to whom it was written. This was written to the Hebrews, it has a Hebrew flavor. All the Old Testament quotations are of a certain type of Hebrew history. This is targeted at the Hebrews of what we would call the dispersion, those who were dispersed among the Greek speaking world. Because all of the Old Testament quotations in Hebrews are from what is known as the LXX, or the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. We have an English translation of the Hebrew Bible in our Old Testament, they had a Greek one. So it is written to those who are dispersed among the nations of the world. And in the Septuagint, in the LXX, we find the uses for homologia to translate a number of Hebrew words. The first of those Hebrew words is yadah. Yadah, is generally then translated in our English Bibles as praise. But in their Bibles, they would find homologia. Also, the Hebrew word nadar. Nadar would also have been translated by the Greek word homologia, for the Greek but for us, we find the word to make a vow. Vow. I find that in Jeremiah 44:25. The Hebrew word subah, in the Hebrew Bible, would have been translated and was translated by the Greek Septuagint. With homologia, which we have in our Bibles as to swear in Ezekiel 16:8.

Let me take you to the through these verses. First the praise word for Yadah. In Job, chapter 40, verse 14, my New King James version does a job on it, but not as good as one as I would like. But let me read that first and then give you Young's Living Translation, a paraphrase, which I think does a better job with homologia, and the New King James Job 40:14. This is God speaking to Job and confronting him, that he is not God, but God is God. And reminding him that if he was able to save himself with his own hand, if Job was able to save himself with his own hand, then God would then confess or praise him, listen to this, "Then I will also confess you," God says to Job "that your own right hand can save you." There we have the idea of confession, but a praise word here in the Young's Living Translation, which is a paraphrase and they are okay to use as they help us to understand. It reads, "And even I, I do praise thee for thy right hand, giveth salvation to thee." The same idea there, if you could save yourself, you're worthy of praise or worthy of confession. The vow idea of homologia comes to us in Jeremiah 44 Verse 25, let me read what that says. "The Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, saying, 'You and your wives have spoken with your own mouths, and fulfilled with your hands, saying, We will surely keep" (here it is) "keep our vows that we have made to burn incense to the Queen of Heaven and pour drink offerings to her." So here is where they are being confronted by Jeremiah and by God for worshipping a pagan goddess to whom they had made a vow. And so God comes back through Jeremiah and pronounces upon them. Yes, you actually are going to keep what you promised. Now I am vowing it, listen, you will surely keep your vows and perform your vows.

So the idea homologia confession as being praised, and also being a vow that is taken, the idea of an oath, as well as carried forward to Ezekiel 16:8, when we find this word in Ezekiel says, speaking for God, when God had picked up Israel when she was nothing, but a newborn child abandoned, and took her up for his own, using that as a metaphor for his care of them. He says, "When I pass by you" in verse 8, "and looked upon you, indeed your time was the time of love, so I spread my wing over you and covered your nakedness." Yes, listen, this is God saying, so I swore a homologia. I swore an oath to you and considered and entered into a covenant with you. And you became mine, says the Lord. Back to our Hebrews chapter three. Let's read that in a little bit.

Consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, of our praise, the High Priest of our vow, the High Priest of our oath, and we're starting to understand what we're doing here. And why it is that we will even study the next six chapters. Again, let's move on the Greek Septuagint LXX uses another term another compound term exomologia, which has been used in many cases, it is believed by the Greek scholars to sort of temper the legal aspects that we find with homologia and homologia is so associated with the courtroom, and its precision and its legalness. Even those translators then would insert exomologia, in certain places, as a matter of fact, a number as many as 120 times for the Hebrew term Yadah. Even there, it shows the Western idea and thought that somehow, if you enter into any kind of a legal term, with the idea of what a Hebrew term for praise is, you've somehow ruined it. We need to think like Hebrews, not like Greeks. In this wise, the Greek idea of praise, was not divorced from the legal setting. With the making of oaths or vows, it was absolutely tied to it. And let me make that case. Let me make that case from the Scriptures. And the use of the Hebrew Yadah. For praise, we find this in Psalm 18:49. "Therefore," the Psalmist says, "I will give thanks to you, oh, Lord among the Gentiles, and sing praises to your name." Yadah as a praise to the name of God, but as soon as you said the name of God, you have just entered in to a contract, if you will, of naming God as to who and what He is. If I'm going to praise your name, I need to know what your name means. What is the content that is fed into the name of God?

In First Chronicles we have another usage of the Hebrew word, the word yadah, translated in their Greek Bibles as exomologia. Chronicles 25 Verse 3. "Of Jeduthun, the sons of Jeduthun: Gedelia, Zeri, Jeshaiah, Shimmei, Hashabiah, Mattithiah six, under the direction of their father Jeduthun who prophesied with a harp" isn't that interesting? No time to do too much there. But think about that. "Who prophesied with a harp to give thanks and to praise the Lord." Second Chronicles, as another instance, "And Hezekiah pointed the divisions of the priests and the Levites according to their division, each man according to his service, the priests and Levites, for burnt offerings and peace offerings to serve and give thanks and to praise in the gates of the camp of the Lord." The Hebrew Yadah means praise.

But it also means to confess, we find the same Hebrew word translated, again with the Greek word, but we have these ideas added into it, which is consistent with Hebrew thinking, both praise and confession. Psalm 118, beginning in verse one, "Oh, give thanks." There's our word. That means to confess, "Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good." What are we doing when we give thanks for His goodness, we are confessing His goodness, for His mercy endures forever. And then here we have the aspect of confession that goes along with the giving of thanks, idea. Let Israel now say His mercy endures forever. Let the house of Aaron now say His mercy endures forever. Let those who fear the Lord now say His mercy endures forever. What are they all saying? The same thing about God, about His person, that He is merciful and His mercy endures forever, therefore He is good. Confess to the Lord, for He is good. In Psalm 107, verse one again, the idea of thanks and confession together. Oh, that men would give thanks, or confess to the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men. Confessing what God has done, is giving thanks and praise. In Psalm nine, verse one, "I will praise You, O Lord, with my whole heart." And notice what it's coupled with. "I will tell of all Your marvelous works. I will be glad and rejoice in You. I will sing praise to Your name oh, Most High." Again, the works of God are brought forward, both praising and confessing who He is, and what He does. In Psalm 119, verse 21, we read," I will praise You, for You have answered me" listen, "and have become my salvation." It is a confession that God is his salvation, his savior, it's a confession of truth and praise.

The confession of sin and praise go together in the Hebrew mind and need to come into our Greek Western minds as well. It's kind of strange to our ears, isn't it? That we would say praise. Sometimes they say praise and it's supposed to be emotional, right? Praise, emotion, good feelings, all those kinds of things, but they are empty emotions, unless they are informed by the same thinking, as God has told us to think about Him, and what is praiseworthy about Him. You can say praise praise, praise God, God God all day, unless you say why it has no same content that edifies. What is your confession? What are you confessing? Praise goes together with confession of content. The linguist who I was reading this week, G. Von Rad. I think he's German. He said, and I quote, "In Israel, the praise of God is always linked with a definite past action of God." I'm gonna read that again. Von Rad says, "in Israel, the praise of God is always linked with a definite past action of God with a saving event in history, or even with an act of", hear me, "or even with an act of judgment.", Even with an act of judgment. Even, he goes on to say "even accepting a justly imposed judgment." The one who praises confesses his transgression and he clothes that clothing and he clothes what he says, in the mantle of an avowal, of a vow, giving God the glory. He says the same thing God has said about what God has done or what God has judged to be either right or wrong. That is a confession, that is also praising God. It's some of these examples I have for you today. The first comes from Joshua. In particular, how even this confession and praise should come with even one of the harshest judgments of God. In Joshua, chapter seven, the walls of Jericho have fallen down in chapter six, according to God's will, and the actions of God people following that will, however, God had dictated to the people that they were not to touch any of the accursed things, of the people of Jericho. And any gold or silver that was taken was supposed to be offered to God to His temple. No one was to keep anything from the city of Jericho, but many of you know the story. One man named Aiken kept a beautiful Babylonian robe, a wedge of gold, and a bunch of silver that he buried in his tent. Therefore, Israel lost the battle at AI and his sin was exposed. And all the tribes were brought forward. And this family of Aiken was marked out. And then Joshua says these words to him that I think are very valuable for our understanding of homologia, and the idea of confession, and praise together. Now Joshua said to Aiken, "My son, I beg you, give glory to the Lord God of Israel," Give glory to the Lord God of Israel, and in other words, praise Him. And he says, and make confession to Him. Make confession to Him, and tell me now what you have done. Do not hide it from me. You know what Aiken does? He praises God and makes confession. I took these things, I buried them in my tent, he comes into full agreement with God, that he was in sin, and deserves whatever punishment comes to him from God. That is a confession of truth, that agrees with God, it walks hand in hand, with the judgments of God, they are speaking the same things. Aiken actually did that. Then all of his family, and him and all his animals died. But he died confessing truth and glorifying God. I don't know what the ultimate destination of Aiken was, but he died well. He praised God by saying what God says.

Ezra, another sin of the people. They were marrying foreign wives, after they had come back out of captivity, we're confronted by it. And now in Ezra 10:11. we read "Now therefore, make confession to the Lord, the Lord God of your fathers, and do His will. Separate yourselves from the peoples of the land and from the pagan wives." Von Rad again, this linguist tells us, and I quote him, he says, "When the one who is praying, confesses in his Thanksgiving that God is right, and so recognizes his own fault and the rightness of the punishment that has followed it, the lawsuit against him is closed." That's confessional Christianity, to agree with what God believes, to agree with what God has said, to walk hand in hand speaking what God speaks with our mouth together, as those who are the holy brethren and partakers of the calling. The heavenly calling. Repentance and confession belong together and the prayer of repentance has a confessional quality that is a form of praise. We have a built in need to praise God. We recognize it. But how we praise God is very important to how we live and how we can stand or fall. Praise must be content filled and confessional of real truth. Whether or not we've participated even in all things ourselves, sometimes we need to confess that we as a people are sinful. As a form of prayer and praise.

I give you an example from Daniel himself. And Daniel chapter 9, verse 3. Daniel who we would hold up as being probably the holy of the holiest of all men. We know of no great infraction that he ever committed before God, only a long standing service to God. And he has praised this and confesses to be among the ones he confesses. Daniel 9:3. "Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplication, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes. And I prayed to the Lord my God and made" (here's our word) "confession. And I said, Oh, Lord, great and awesome, great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him, and with those who keep His commandments, we have sinned, and committed iniquity. We have done wickedly, and rebelled, even by departing from Your precepts and Your judgments. Neither have we heeded Your servants, the prophets who spoke in Your name to our kings and our princes, to our fathers and all the people of the land."

Stop there and just recognize that Daniel is putting himself in with this group of people, the Israelites and he says we, you know, a proud man would say, Well, I didn't do it. I stood strong in Babylon. I'm a believer. They deserve it. I don't. He confesses that as a people, they have sinned. That's a man who recognize he's as a sinner as well. And he praises God for who He is, and what He has done. And the result of their sin has placed Daniel, under the punishment of God, rightly so. Because of the sin of the people who have had the prophets, doesn't that remind you of Hebrews chapter one? How did this begin? Hebrews chapter one God who had various times and in different ways spoken time past to the fathers by the prophets. Daniel is saying, we wouldn't listen to the prophets, we wouldn't agree with the prophets, we wouldn't say the same thing, make the same confession, and praise the same praise and walk the same way. And we are in punishment. And Hebrews is beginning to remind us that there is One higher than the prophets who has come here to do this. Confess the things that are being taught, has in this last day spoken to us by His Son. He's spoken by His Son and who is this Son? He is the High Priest of our confession, and we need to learn what to confess so that we can be in agreement with God, so that we can walk hand in hand with who God is, and our High Priest as what He is. Like Daniel.

Back to Daniel chapter 9:8, "Oh, Lord, righteousness belongs to You, but to us shame of face, as it is this day to the men of Judah--to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and all Israel, those near and those far off and in all countries which You have driven them, because of unfaithfulness which they have committed against You." Skipping down to verse 18. Listen to these words. "Oh my god. Incline your ear and hear; open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city which is called by Your name: for we do not present our supplications before You because of our righteous deeds, but because of Your great mercies." He is confessing not their worthiness, but God's praise worthiness in His mercy. Verse19: "Lord, hear, Oh Lord, forgive, oh Lord, listen, and act. Do not delay for Your own sake, my God, for Your city and Your people, who are called by Your name."

Whose name are we called by? Hebrews 3. "Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession. Christ Jesus." How should we think as New Testament believers? How should we understand this confession? I believe it's in the same way. Let me highlight just a few. Jesus Himself uses homologia and exomologia. And he does it this way. Combining again, the meanings of praise and confession together in Matthew 11:25 "At that time, Jesus answered and said, I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth," there you have it, I thank you. There I speak the same about you, "Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. 26 Even so, Father, for so it seems good to You in your sight." He agrees with what God has decided to do. He confesses, as He praises and thanks Him. We find Paul doing the same thing. As he brings in even an Old Testament Psalm 18 quotation into the book of Romans chapter 15. In verse nine, Paul says, "and that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy, as it is written, For this reason," here it is, "I will confess you among the Gentiles, and sing to your name. And again, he says, Rejoice, O Gentiles," with his people, rejoicing, praise, confession, the same thing.

The content of praise is confession. There is a very strong and frequent usage that means to confess sins openly, even in public, in the New Testament, as well. Most of you are familiar with First John one, verse nine. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins." So we both have a confession of our condition, and a confession of His faithfulness to forgive, walking hand in hand with the truth of the Bible. "And to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Another confession. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. So every man must say, to be in harmony with God to walk and say the same things with God, we must say all of us, I'm a sinner. And he who says, I am not a sinner, or I have no sin, then does not walk with God saying the same thing. He is out of sequence with God, he does not agree with God, he is broken with God, he is not praising God. He is denying God. There's no praise in that. Mark, chapter one, verse five, "Then all the land of Judea, and those from Jerusalem went out to him, and were all baptized by him in the Jordan River." What were they doing? This is with John the Baptist, confessing their sins. It is James who brings us across the grill of God's truth. When he says this, "Confess your trespasses to one another." What, is that in the Bible? Yes, it is. I didn't write it. I just preach it. And we all try to live it. "Confess your trespasses to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed." There is sin. There is sin that we all have when we confess we're all sinners, you know, that should mean in our relationship with each other. mercy, grace, understanding we have a High Priest who understands our weaknesses. We have a High Priest who is tempted at all points just like we are. And having been tempted in these ways as a man, He is able to help those who are tempted. And so we come along and we pray for one another, knowing that we've been tempted and failed, their attempted and failed, we confess our trespasses and we bring each other up and say, do what God does. Say what God says, and be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. This is the mark of conversion. This is the mark of conversion, Christian. A new life of faith confesses the need of a Savior.

As a confessing sinner, now set free from sin, we confess we're sinners. But also in the New Testament, we have confession of the Incarnate Son of God, publicly. Praise, Praise. Praise Him, praise Him. Jesus our blessed Redeemer. That's content. Where else is that heard? And is it heard? From our lips? publicly? First Timothy 6:12. "Fight the good fight of faith." Paul says to Timothy, "lay hold on eternal life to which you were also called and have confessed, the good confession in the presence of many witnesses." To live a Christian life is to live the public life to confess and praise God. It is not just to do it in silence, but to do it publicly. In Romans chapter 10, verse eight we read, "But what does it say? The word is near unto you, in your mouth and in your heart." That is the word of faith which we preach that if you confess with your mouth, the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart, that God raised Him from the dead, what? you shall be saved. For with the heart, one believes under righteousness, and with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation, there is no salvation without Confession. I'm a sinner. Save me, oh, Savior of God. For I cannot save myself. I cannot like Job ask God, can you save yourself? If you can save yourself by your own right hand, then I will praise you, God says. But we say we are not worthy of praise. We are not worthy of honor. We honor You who saves us, and then put our hand over our mouth when we think to question God as Job did. We confess the High Priest who belongs to our confession.

We're going to learn what that means in the coming weeks. Hebrews praises God for His past historical actions. Hebrew idea of confession of faith. It's also present in the New Testament. But particularly with the idea of obedience, obedience. public demonstration of obedience is praise and confession of true belief. Praise and confession have to believe, let me say this in another way, praise and confession of true belief is equal to a public demonstration of obedience. In some sense, we can say baptism is a form of confession and praise. Praise for what God has done in calling us in saving us, confession that with Jesus Christ in His death, burial and resurrection, we also die and are raised again to newness of life. It's a confessional statement that pronounces what we believe about God, and what we know to be true about our salvation. I asked earlier. What does confession have to do with faithfulness?

Let me say it this way. Number four in your notes, confession is praise in the outward expression of obedience. That's the context of chapter three, Hebrews. Faithfulness, who is faithful to Him, who appointed him as Moses, Moses was also faithful in all his house. Faithfulness, is obedience. Confession alone is not enough in the Old Testament or in the New Testament view of homologia. Confession must be found with the praise of obedience to the truth, confessed. Titus 1:16. "They profess to know God, but in their works, they deny Him, being abominable, disobedient, disqualified for every good work." Some people can say the right things, but if they don't do the right things, then what they say isn't lined up, doesn't walk together, isn't homologia with what they do.

First, John 2:23, "Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father, either. He who acknowledges" or homologia, he confesses "the Son has the Father also." The two are one, you can't have the Father without the Son, you can't have the Son without the Father. And some people try to do that. It can't happen. You're not walking hand in hand with God. You're in disagreement. Word confession is found without obedient praise and action. And I mean, encompassing the whole of life, then legal judgment of God remains upon the man. Then the legal judgment of God remains upon the man. Let me, let me say what Jesus said and agree with it. Matthew 7:19 "Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits, you will know them. Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name, and then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness." You are not in homologia with me. You are not saying what I say, and doing what I do, and obeying what I've said.

Shall we consider the High Priest of our confession? Christ Jesus. What confession and praise can we render so far from the book of Hebrews? Jesus is the Son who speaks for God as Father. Jesus is the Heir of all things and the creator of even the ages of time. Jesus is the Son that is better than all the angelic hosts, having throne and dominion and is unchangeably ageless, and sits at the right hand of Majesty on high, we can confess in chapter two that Jesus is a human made lower than the angels like unto us. So he calls us brethren, like unto us for suffering, defeating the devil and the fear of death, and making propitiation for the sins of the people. We confess Jesus suffered as a man being tempted, and so is able to give aid to those who are tempted. This is confessional Christianity. And now from Chapter Three on we will learn what to confess about our High Priest, that when we say high priest, it no longer will be some ancient idea locked in the Hebrew Bible, but will be opened up in the book of Hebrews. To become for us an anchor for the soul, both sure and steadfast who enters behind the veil.

Let's pray. Our Father, show us, your son, our High Priest, teach us that we may confess and praise the truth about our High Priest Jesus. And may we do so faithfully and obediently for thy glory until thy kingdom comes? We pray In Jesus name, amen.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai