As we look at this section of scripture before us today, it is important, as I underscored last week, that we keep these verses in context. That is, that we make sure we study this passage within the greater framework of what has been said so far. And as I indicated last week, the context of this passage, I believe, is the spiritual maturity of the believer. Spiritual maturity so far in Hebrews has been likened to a house that is built up on a solid foundation, or a plant that has grown to produce fruit, or a person

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When studying the Bible, it’s important that you keep the passage that you are looking at in context with the preceding passages. That’s an important principle regardless of which book you may be looking at, but it’s particularly true in the study of Hebrews. Hebrews is really one long message, or sermon. And so the chapter separations are not our friends. Fortunately, the author repeatedly reminds us to keep it all in context by the use of the word “Therefore.” As someone once said, when you see the word “therefore” it’s important to see what it’s there for. And in

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I’m going to try to do two things today that are probably inadvisable.  The first is that I’m going to attempt to cover the entire chapter in this sermon.  It’s only 14 verses, so it’s not impossible, just probably not advisable.  The second thing I’m going to do is attempt to exegete it in reverse.  I’m going to start with verses 11-14 and then afterwards I will do 1-10.  Now I do that because even though I may not be following the text chronologically, I think I am honoring the sense of the text.  I think that the author of

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  As we begin this study today in Hebrews, I think it may be important to ask the question, what is a priest?  Practically all religions utilize a priesthood.  And yet in the Protestant Evangelical tradition we don’t use priests.  We have a pastor.  We have certain officers such as deacons.  But we don’t have priests officiating in the sanctuary.  And so it might be necessary to explain why, and explain what the Bible says about priests, as a precursor to our study today. According to the common understanding of both Greeks and Hebrews of the time when this epistle

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  I hate to give the devil his due, but I think it was the Rolling Stones who said, “You can’t always get what you want, but you get what you need.”  That statement is true here this morning in regards to our subject before us.  It’s perhaps not what we would want to hear, or would want to consider on this Sunday morning, but it’s what we need to hear. It’s like when we feed our children, we don’t always give them what they like to eat,  we sometimes need to give them what they need.  What is good

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I would like to ask you a rhetorical question today, but one nonetheless I want you to consider carefully in your hearts.  The question is this; does God care about orthodoxy?  Now a few churches that perhaps are no longer really orthodox may have co-opted that word as part of their title.  And that is not the kind of orthodoxy I am referring to.  What I mean by orthodox is that which is right, or true. So the question is does God really care about what is right or true, or does He just want people to think about Him

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The book of Hebrews is a very challenging book to preach from, if not the most challenging of the New Testament, with the possible exception of Revelation.  Part of the difficulty in preaching it is that it is itself presented as a sermon, and so to bite off a passage and try to present it as a stand alone message is difficult.   The passages are designed to build upon the previous passage, and the whole book is series of arguments built one upon another, which reaches it’s grand summation in chapter 12.   But if there is a constant

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I presume that if I were to ask you why you came to church today, you would answer something along the lines that you are here to worship God.  The next question though I would ask is, what is worship?  And to that I suppose I might get a great variety of answers.  Worship seems to have a rather loose description today in ecumenical circles.  I had a friend that recently passed away, and she had never been to our church, but she had heard of it.  She lived outside of DC, but never came to this area to the

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  In ancient times, there was a type of warfare that was often employed, which is illustrated in the familiar story of David and Goliath.  Everyone here I am sure is familiar with this story.  But what I want to emphasize from the story is the manner in which the battle was fought between the Philistines and the Israelites.  Goliath was the dread champion of the Philistines.  And everyday he would come out and taunt the army of God and challenge them to put up a man who would fight him.  And if you remember, he offered the Philistines to

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Today I just want to examine these first four verses of chapter 2.  I don’t want to rush over this very important application and the question that Hebrews provides here in this section.  And so we are going to go word by word and line for line, to make sure that we get the full import of this message which was written to the early church, because it is applicable to the modern church as well, if not even more so. Chapter 2 starts with the phrase “for this reason” or depending on your translation, it may say “therefore,” which

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