In 1726, at the age of 20, Benjamin Franklin created a system to develop his character. In his autobiography, Franklin listed his thirteen virtues by which he sought to better himself.
- Temperance. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
- Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
- Order. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
- Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
- Frugality. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.
- Industry. Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
- Sincerity. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
- Justice. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
- Moderation. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
- Cleanliness. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation.
- Tranquility. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
- Chastity. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.
- Humility. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.
He set up a book with a page for each virtue, lining a column in which to record “defects.” He chose a different virtue to work on each week, noting every mistake he made every day. Then he, started over every 13 weeks in order to cycle through the list four times a year. For many years, Franklin carried his little book with him, striving for a clean 13-week cycle. (http://www.thirteenvirtues.com)
He never made it, but made some progress. To become a better person, we must not trust in some list of do’s and don’ts. We cannot depend on the Law or the rituals of religion.
That’s where we begin our time in the word today, the Hebrew people are stuck in rituals and religion, feeling secure because that’s the way their culture, family and community lived. But the writer of the book of Hebrews helped them see that the law and the Hebrew priests are “weak” and “useless” to make anyone “perfect” (or mature)
The Old Covenant commanded people to obey the law to get close to God; obey the law and you will be blessed. The problem was that no one could obey the law perfectly so that meant no one was able to get close to God;
Hebrews 7:18-19 “For on the one hand there is an annulling of the former commandment because of its weakness and unprofitableness, for the law made nothing perfect; on the other hand, there is the bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God.”
Trying to live by a list of rules never made anybody a better person and no one can live life that way. But through Jesus Christ we can have the power to change our life. Through Jesus we are drawn near to God.
For us and the Hebrew people, Jesus provides “a better hope” than the law. In fact trying to keep the law keeps us away from God, because through the Law we could never measure up to this absolute standard and we will fail. However, through Jesus we are drawn to God because He never fails! Above all God swore to this new covenant as He is a priest forever!
Hebrews 7:20-21 And inasmuch as He was not made priest without an oath (for they have become priests without an oath, but He with an oath by Him who said to Him: “The LORD has sworn And will not relent, ‘You are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek’ “)
The Old Testament priests became priests simply by right of succession. They were born into it. Jesus, on the other hand, became an unfailing, permanent high priest, because God swore to it.
Jesus brought to us a better covenant. In fact, He is the guarantor of that better covenant. Because He is a perfect priest able to bring us to God, God promised this in His oath.
“There are two ways the Bible says you can get to heaven. Plan A is to earn it. That’s the performance plan. And to earn it you only have to do this: never sin and always do what’s right for the entire time that you live. Just be perfect.
Since none of us would ever qualify under plan A, God offered plan B, which is this: Trust Jesus Christ when He says, “I am the way, the truth and the life. Nobody comes to the Father except through me.” – John14:6. Jesus is the only perfect person who ever lived, because He is God. Through faith, we can have a relationship with Him; and be blessed through His goodness.
Ron Dunn took his young son to a carnival one time for his birthday. His son picked six boys to go with him, so Ron bought a roll of tickets. Every line he’d come up to, he’d pull off seven tickets and give them to all the kids. However, they got to the Ferris wheel, there was an eighth little kid with his hand out.
Ron said, “Who are you?”
The kid said, “I’m Johnny.”
Ron said, “Who are you, Johnny?”
Johnny said, “I’m your son’s new friend. And he said you would give me a ticket.” (Rick Warren, “What Difference Does Easter Make?” Leadershipjournal.net, 4-10-06; www.PreachingToday.com)
The way to get to heaven is through the Father’s Son’s goodness. We must come through Jesus Christ, He is the guarantor of a better covenant, the “better way” to God.
Let me put it another way, Jesus is the executor of God’s last will and Testament. Now, a will doesn’t’ take effect until the death of the person who made it. Jesus, as God, died on a cross to put God’s will into effect. Then three days later, He arose from the dead; and now, He is going to make sure that the terms of God’s will are carried out.
Do you want to know what is contained in God’s last will and Testament, this “better covenant” that verse 22 talks about?
Hebrews 7:22 by so much more Jesus has become a surety of a better covenant.
This “New Covenant” is described in Jeremiah 31 during the old Covenant.
The Bible says, “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke…” (Jeremiah 31:31-32).
The Old Covenant written on stone, the Ten Commandments burned into the rock by the finger of God Himself.
“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me [personally], from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more” (Jeremiah 31:33-34).
Through Jesus, the new covenant is a covenant which guarantees the forgiveness of sin, a personal relationship with God, and God’s law written on the heart. In other words, God’s law becomes a part of your very being, the driving force of your life; we don’t need a list of do’s and don’ts.
The Arctic Tern is one of the most remarkable birds in the world. It migrates farther than any other bird, leaving its nest within the Arctic Circle in late August and traveling all the way to Antarctica. Then, in the spring, it returns to the Arctic Circle again – an annual round trip of more than 11,000 miles!
Why do they do it? God placed within the Arctic Tern an instinct, an internal desire that drives them to make the long journey every year. (Bible Illustrator #2584, 10/1993.10)
In the same way, God wants His law to be instinctive within you. He will be an internal desire that drives you to full and complete righteousness, a driving force that moves you to full maturity. And that doesn’t come from a list of rules. That comes only from a living and vital relationship with Jesus Christ.
He is the guarantor of that “better covenant,” the One who insures that every believer is forgiven, will be drawn to God, and grow to full and complete maturity.
In Philippians 1 we read, “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” -Philippians 1:6. In other words, Jesus will make us fully mature, ready to enter into the very presence of God.
The law couldn’t help us do that, But Jesus can, because He has the power to draw us near to God.
Furthermore, we can rely on Christ, who has the power to perfect us. And we can count on Jesus, who can deliver us from any and all sin, in any and all trials.
Hebrews 7:23-25 Also there were many priests, because they were prevented by death from continuing. But He, because He continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood. Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.
Jesus is a permanent high priest and intercedes for all time! He has the power to save to the uttermost, completely and continually because he has power over death.
Steve Winger from Lubbock, Texas, wrote about his last college test, it was a final in a logic class known for its difficult exams:
Because the test was difficult, the professor told us we could bring as much information to the exam as we could fit on a piece of notebook paper. Most students crammed as many facts as possible on their 8-1/2 x 11-inch sheet of paper. But one student walked into class, put a piece of notebook paper on the floor, and had a graduate logic student stand on the paper.
The graduate student told him everything he needed to know. He was the only student to receive an “A.”
When following the law or religious traditions our attempts to earn eternal life fall far short, but we have Jesus, the eternal high priest who will stand for us. (Leadership, Vol. 15, no. 4; www.PreachingToday.com)
We have Jesus, the High Priest who always intercedes, and we have Jesus who can save us now, continually and forever completely. Jesus made it possible to become a better person! Jesus has the power to bring you to God, and has the power to save you completely.
Rely on Jesus, your sinless and faultless minister. Trust Jesus Christ, the greatest, strongest, and PUREST High Priest of all time.
Hebrews 7:26-28 For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens; who does not need daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the people’s, for this He did once for all when He offered up Himself. For the law appoints as high priests men who have weakness, but the word of the oath, which came after the law, appoints the Son who has been perfected forever.
JESUS CHRIST, YOUR POWERFUL PRIEST.
Rely on Jesus, your effective minister. Trust Jesus Christ, the greatest and strongest High Priest of all time. But not only that, if you want to grow towards perfection…
JESUS CHRIST, YOUR PERFECT PRIEST.
Jesus is the Perfect High Priest absolutely without sin! All the other priests had to offer sacrifices for their own sins before they could offer sacrifices for other people. And those sacrifices were only temporary fixes; they had to be offered daily.
Jesus, on the other hand, offered Himself as the perfect, permanent sacrifice, once for all and took care of all sin for all time!
2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “For our sake [God] made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” On the cross, God treated Jesus, the sinless one, as a sinner, so He could treat us, sinful people, as sinless.
It’s the guarantee for anyone of us to become righteous. We can’t achieve it on our own. God made a New Covenant and He would make us righteous in Jesus for us. By Jesus interceding for us, God declares us righteous.
Elyse Fitzpatrick describes one way to look at Jesus’ sinless life of obedience to His Heavenly Father. She says, “Jesus lived approximately 33½ years, or 1,057,157,021 seconds. In every second the average human being’s brain has 100 billion neurons all firing around 200 times per second, giving a capacity of 20 trillion firings per second. If we want to know how many conscious decisions Jesus made to obey his Father’s will, multiply 20 trillion by the number of seconds he lived: 1,057,157,021. The equation would look like this:
20,000,000,000,000 x 1,057,157,021, this equals a very large number! 21,143,140,420,000,000,000,000.
“Jesus Christ never made one decision, consciously or unconsciously, in all those innumerable split seconds that wasn’t completely consistent with loving his Father and His neighbor. And His obedience wasn’t merely an outward performance. He always did the right thing, and He always did it for the right reason. During His lifetime of constant, unwavering obedience, from infancy all the way to death, He wove a robe righteousness sufficient to cover millions and millions of us. Yes, even you.” (Elyse M. Fitzpatrick, Comforts from Romans, Crossway, 2013, pp. 97-99; www.PreachingToday.com)
There is a big difference between Jesus and all other priests. The old priests refused to touch anything unclean. But Jesus touches and makes the unclean holy! (Mark Galli, Jesus Mean and Wild: The Unexpected Love of an Untamable God, Baker, 2006, p. 44; www.PreachingToday.com)
Jesus is the great High Priest so we can become a better person, without depending on keeping the law; Jesus Christ, is a powerful and perfect High Priest.
A pastor named Bruce Thielemann wrote, “Quite frankly, I’m sick to death of ideals. I have so many ideals and I’ve been so frustrated by them, I really don’t care for any more. What I’m looking for is a Savior – not someone who will just tell me what I ought to be, but someone who will forgive me for what I am, and then with His very love will enable me to be more than I ever believed I could be. It’s exactly that that Jesus does as our intercessor.” (Bruce Thielemann in “Telltale Tears” 1986 Preaching Today; www.PreachingToday. com)
Jesus is the intercessor and most powerful, perfect High Priest. He will work to the uttermost to make you into the person you never believed you could be. It all is found in Faith in Him. He is the way, the truth and the life and how you are able to come to the Father. – John 14:6.
By faith an Old Testament believer followed the Law which pointed to the perfect priest coming in the future. But now, we by faith understand Christ’s fulfillment of the Law and His superior priesthood able to:
- Save us from our sins for eternity once for all.
- Save us from our sinfulness each day as we trust Him to give us the power to change!
The tragic mistake today, for us, would be to return to any kind of religion, religious system or priesthood.
Why would we do that when we have a Perfect Eternal High Priest?
As the end of verse 19 encourages, let’s draw near into a close relationship with Him alone today, Help others in your life to see that it is only Christ that you follow. I remember the day I realized that awesome truth at Crescent Lake Bible camp when I was a young man.