A Pattern of Perfection

Hebrews chapter 8, a relatively short chapter.

Hebrews 8 · chapter mention

We were going to do it all today, but we're probably not going to make it through, so

we'll probably cover the first half today.

Hebrews chapter 8, that's in the New Testament.

Hebrews 8 · chapter mention

We're kind of in what I would call the meat of the sandwich.

Really the first six chapters of Hebrews were pointing out that Jesus is superior, that

Jesus is better than everything.

And then when we get to chapter 7, the author of Hebrews really begins to make his point

that he's trying to make.

And so what we saw in chapter 7 is a real focus by the author of Hebrews to point out

that the priesthood of Jesus was superior, that Jesus is a better high priest, that the

covenant that Jesus brings is better than the old covenant.

And the author is kind of introducing us to these ideas here in chapter 7, then in chapter

8 and into chapter 9.

This is kind of the core of his message.

If we look at Hebrews like a sermon, which I think probably it's good for us to do so,

he's kind of introducing us to things in the first six chapters.

Then it gets to his main point in 7, 8, and 9, and then he kind of closes there toward

the end of the book, especially in chapter 11 with some encouragement.

And so today we're going to begin to look at Hebrews chapter 8.

Hebrews 8 · chapter mention

And the good news is that Michelle got me some new shoes yesterday, and they're very

comfortable, much more comfortable than my other shoes.

So I can stand for a lot longer.

So I may be able to preach for a few minutes extra today.

Praise the Lord.

I know y'all are glad of that.

You can thank Michelle after the service today.

All right.

Hebrews chapter 8 is where we'll start.

Hebrews 8 · chapter mention

Let's pray, and then we'll jump in.

God, we come to you today, and we thank you for your good word.

And I pray, God, that it would be good for us today.

God, it will be if we would listen.

And dear Lord, I pray that you would help me to be able to preach and teach in a way

that brings glory to you, that I'd be able to preach and teach your word, God, in a way

that we understand, that we can grow from today.

But dear Lord, that only happens if you're with us.

So I pray that you'd be with us today, that you would open our hearts and open our ears

to hear from you, dear Lord, that you would help us to lay down our worries and our sins

and our distractions today.

I pray that in these few moments that we would give you this time, dear Lord.

I pray that you'd help me not to ramble about, but to say the words that you want me to say,

God, that we would hear the words that you want us to hear.

I pray that you'd hide me behind the cross and bless each one of us here this morning.

And I ask these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Hebrews chapter 8 verse 1.

Hebrews 8:1

Now the main point of what is being said is this.

We have this kind of high priest who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the majesty

in the heavens, a minister of the sanctuary and the true tabernacle that was set up by

the Lord and not man.

Now we've briefly talked about it.

We will briefly talk about today the idea and the way that the Old Testament laid out

the sacrificial system and that there was a system that God established.

And through Moses, he gave a command on a tabernacle and how it was supposed to be built.

And certain sacrifices that had to be made and how the priesthood would be established

and how the high priest would make those sacrifices.

And these were things that were established by God, but they were performed by man.

They were earthly in some sense.

Now these were beautiful things that God gave us.

And this was the way that God intended for things to be done in the Old Testament.

But they were always pointing forward to Jesus Christ.

And the author of Hebrews has been telling us through the whole book, and you've heard

it a lot of times, is that he wants his audience to know that Jesus is better.

He's better than the old sacrificial system.

He's better than anything that there is in the world.

He's better than anything that had come before him.

And there's nothing that comes after him that will be better than who Jesus is.

And so the author has been building up and he made this point in chapter 7.

He began to spell these things out and he sums it up again here in chapter 8.

The main point of what I'm saying is this, is that Jesus is above, that Jesus is seated

at the right hand of God, that Jesus is seated on the throne because he's victorious.

We saw this at the very beginning of the book.

The author tells us the same thing, he brings out the same point.

And here in chapter 8, he's bringing it back up again, that Jesus is not an earthly priest.

He's not like the earthly priest.

He's not serving in an earthly sanctuary.

He's not offering sacrifices of animals.

But Jesus as our high priest is victorious.

He's a better high priest and he's seated with God.

He's in the presence of God.

And as we saw a couple of weeks ago, he is there interceding for us, for those who have

put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

Jesus as our high priest who is atoned for us, intercedes for us.

He's seated at the right hand of God and he's saying, this one's mine.

This one is covered by my blood.

He is the one that intercedes for us in the midst of our struggle, in the midst of our

life, in the midst of our temptation, in the midst of our sin.

We have one who is in the very presence of God and seated at the right hand of God.

And therefore, he is above all these things we see here.

And he is greater than everything that we see.

And the author of Hebrews says, and the main point of what I'm telling you, don't miss

this point, is Jesus is better.

We've seen that term time and again throughout Hebrews.

He's better.

He's better than the angels.

He's better than Moses.

He's better than Abraham.

He's better than the law.

He's better than the sacrifices.

Jesus is better.

And that's the main point.

And what makes Jesus better?

Well, let's continue on into verse 3.

For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices.

Therefore, it was necessary for this high priest also to have something to offer.

Now if he were on earth, he wouldn't be a priest since there are those offering gifts

prescribed by the law.

So this was a very important part of the priesthood, is that the priest must have something to

offer.

Now what the priest would offer would be the sacrifice of animals.

And we'll talk more about that when we get into chapter 9.

He spends a lot of time talking about that.

But what the priest would do is that they would offer these animals.

And what was this for?

These were sacrifices to atone for the people's sins.

This was what the job of the priest was, to make atonement for the people.

And so Jesus coming and being our high priest must be like the other high priest and that

he must have something to offer.

But what the author of Hebrews tells us is he's not like the other earthly priest.

Now Jesus was uniquely qualified to be our high priest in one way, in that he could do

the things that no other earthly priest could do.

He was uniquely qualified to be perfect, to make perfect atonement for our sins.

But then on the other hand, Jesus was not qualified at all because the law stated that

the priest would come from the tribe of Aaron.

And the author of Hebrews has already pointed out, well, wait a minute, Jesus didn't come

from, or excuse me, the tribe of Levi.

He is supposed to come from the tribe of Levi, but Jesus didn't come from the tribe of Levi.

He came from the tribe of Judah.

And so the author of Hebrews has been trying to make this point for his audience who were

consumed with the law and doing things of the law when they needed to be focusing on

higher things and better things, that is Jesus Christ.

Now we don't fall into that trap, probably, of wanting to sacrifice animals for our sins.

I hope we don't.

I'm sure we probably don't.

But we still may get caught up in the trap of religion or the trap of living by the letter

of the law.

You see, the people that Jesus often encountered were very religious people, but they weren't

all people who were seeking to serve God.

They were seeking to be made right by following the letter of law.

Hey, here's what the law stated.

Here's what the Old Testament said.

So we're going to try to follow this law and find justification in the sight of God through

the law.

And they were very religious, but they were never going to earn favor in God's sight,

and their sins were never going to be covered by the law.

And so God sent Jesus Christ onto the scene, and Jesus began to preach and to teach and

do miracles.

And many of those people who are religious rejected Jesus.

Now we may look at those in scripture and say, well, I would never do that.

Well, we must be careful, because it's very easy for us to fall into that trap of religion,

to get used to coming and sitting on the pew and to get used to doing churchy things and

to get used to saying the right phrases and the right words and to think that we're living

a good life because we're doing all the outward things.

But God doesn't look at the outward things, and this is really scary for us.

This is really scary.

Now we may come to church today, and you may be doing the outward things.

You may be saying, oh, brother or sister, I'm going to pray for you, and oh, I'm going

to put money in here to help these poor people, and oh, I'm going to do this, and oh, I'm

going to do that, and I'm going to be here every Sunday, and I'm going to make sure to

pray, and I'm going to do all...

I'm going to read in Sunday school and all these things that we do.

But we're not fooling God if those are the only things that we're doing.

We can't just do those things.

Now to do those things is good, and it is right to help people in need and to come together

and to worship and to gather.

But if that's all we're doing, that's not enough.

And for many of the people that Jesus encountered, that's all they were doing.

They were playing a part.

They were playing a role.

They were hypocrites.

They had a mask on, so to speak.

They were acting out a part.

But God doesn't care so much about what we do on the outside if what we do on the inside

is not right.

So what God does is he looks at our heart.

We need to be those whose heart is in the right place, that we do the things that need

to be done.

Now we won't fall into that trap of wanting to sacrifice animals for our sins, probably,

but we might fall into the trap of religion, into the trap of thinking we are justified

by our outward actions.

And that's what this audience here in the book of Hebrews was part of their problem.

They were wanting to go back to the old way of doing things.

They were wanting to be sanctified, and they were wanting to be made right in the eyes

of God by following these things.

And what the author of Hebrews says is you need to be following Jesus.

You need to listen to Jesus.

You need to follow Jesus.

So he says, look, Jesus is better than your old way of doing things.

Jesus is better than your old high priest.

Jesus is uniquely qualified in that he can do things the earthly high priest could not.

So Jesus was not qualified by the letter of the law, and that's the point that the author

of Hebrews makes.

Okay, he didn't come from the tribe of Levi because he's better.

There was an old way of doing things, but a new way has come.

A better way has come.

A perfect way has come in Jesus Christ.

And so when Jesus comes as our more perfect high priest, he comes not to offer the sacrifices

of animals, but Jesus comes to offer himself as a sacrifice.

And this is a key theme in the book of Hebrews.

This is a key theme throughout scripture.

This is a key theme to becoming a Christian today is that we acknowledge and that we recognize

that Jesus, the son of God, was nailed to a cross for our sins.

He sacrificed himself.

He willingly stood there and allowed them to beat him and to mock him and ultimately

to nail him to a cross when at any moment it was within his power to say no more.

But Jesus offered himself as a sacrifice.

And so Jesus came to make atonement for our sins as a good high priest would do.

But Jesus made atonement by sacrificing himself.

And so Jesus is better.

Jesus is better, the author of Hebrews tells his audience.

He's unique in every way and he's better than everything you've ever known.

Therefore trust in Jesus.

That's a good message there for us today.

Therefore trust in Jesus.

I don't know what you're trusting in today.

Maybe you're trusting in Jesus.

Maybe you're trusting in your career.

Maybe you're trusting in things of the world.

Maybe you're trusting in your wealth.

I don't know what you're trusting in today, but if we're not trusting in Jesus, we're

trusting in the wrong thing because Jesus is better than everything that's around us.

And that's what the author tells his audience here in Hebrews.

Verse five.

These serve as a copy and shadow of the heavenly things.

As Moses was warned when he was about to complete the tabernacle, for God said, be careful that

you make everything according to the pattern that was shown to you on the mountain.

So what are we to make of some of these things that we see in the Old Testament?

We see a lot of stuff in the Old Testament and particularly in the context of Hebrews.

The focus is on the tabernacle and eventually the temple and the priesthood and those who

would serve.

But what is the significance of all this?

We see so much emphasis on this in the Old Testament.

You go back and you look at Exodus around chapter 34 and you read there for several

chapters and it is some of the most boring reading you will ever do.

It's hard read.

That's why a few years ago when we preached through the book of Exodus, we skipped those

chapters because it gives such intricate detail.

Now, I'm not saying it's bad stuff.

I'm just saying that it's really, really specific detail.

And this is detail that God has given and shown to Moses, here is what you need to do.

Here is how I'm going to interact with you.

Here is how the relationship between me and my people is going to look.

And so he says, here's what you're going to do, Moses.

You're going to build me a tabernacle.

And then God proceeds to in those chapters to give very specific details.

Everything is the specific measurement.

Everything is specific length and specific size and laid out in a specific way with specific

kinds of materials.

And it goes on and on and on and on for chapters about all of these details.

And it's not a very exciting read, but there must be something to it.

There must be something to the fact that God paid so much attention to all of these details.

He didn't just say, y'all go out there and pitch tent and every once in a while, y'all

come offer some sacrifices there and that'll be good enough.

God said everything must be done in a specific way.

And so the tabernacle and the priesthood and the sacrifices and the offerings, all of these

things were done in a specific way.

And what was the purpose of these things?

Well, the author of Hebrews tells us that in verse five, he says, these serve as a copy

and a shadow of the heavenly things.

So what we see on this earth so often, especially in scripture, especially when we talk about

the tabernacle, what we see is that these things were a copy, a copy of what?

A copy of heavenly things.

They're a shadow of heavenly things.

Now, when we look at a shadow, we see the outline of something without being able to

fully grasp the detail of it.

And so what we see in the beauty of the temple and the sacrifices is we see just a brief

outline.

Now, in all the beautiful, wonderful, extraordinary amount of detail that we have about the temple

and about the sacrifices and about the priesthood, we still only kind of get a glimpse of what

God's trying to tell us in that.

So the tabernacle and the priesthood, they were a copy.

They were a shadow of the things to come.

That is, they were pointing us to something that was going to be better.

They were never intended to be the end all be all.

But yet these things that we see so often in the Old Testament were pointing us to Jesus

Christ.

They were pointing us to the way that God intended for things to be done.

They were pointing us to a perfect way.

They were an earthly symbol of heavenly realities.

Now we see the beauty of God.

We see the love of God.

We see the grace of God.

We see the beauty and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

And all of these things that we see in the tabernacle and the priesthood and the sacrifices

were pointing us to who Jesus was going to be.

That Jesus was going to be the ultimate fulfillment of these things and that ultimately we will

see these heavenly realities.

But today we only see a little bit of the shadow.

Even though the shadows that were pointing to Jesus Christ have been revealed in Jesus

Christ and we see Jesus Christ in some way and we know Jesus Christ in some way, one

day we will see the heavenly realities of seeing Jesus Christ in his fullness.

Now we see when we go back to Exodus and God begins to explain all of these details to

Abraham as to, excuse me, Moses as to how to make this tabernacle.

He gives him these details and he tells him, follow the pattern that you have been shown.

Now it's interesting language.

It says that several times, the patterns that you have been shown.

Now I don't know what Moses saw.

I don't know what he saw.

I don't know what God revealed to him.

But there was something that was revealed to Moses on the mountain.

There was something that Moses saw that God showed him and it showed it to him in the

heavens, something that he saw in the heavens, something that was revealed to him, something

that was a heavenly reality.

God revealed this to Moses.

He showed this to Moses and he says, now take what I have shown you and make this on earth.

I want you to take what you've seen in heaven and I want you to give people a glimpse of

what it's going to be.

I've given you a pattern and you need to follow that pattern.

And that's exactly what Moses and the people of Israel did.

They followed the pattern.

They built the tabernacle.

They started offering the sacrifices.

They established the priesthood.

All of these things was a pattern of what is to come.

Now what Moses saw, I don't know.

When we get to heaven and we in the presence of the Lord, will there be some type of tabernacle

type set up like we see on earth?

Did Moses copy that and there will be something along that line in heaven?

I don't know.

Perhaps what Moses saw was simply symbolized by the things we see on earth.

When we look at the tabernacle, we see all kinds of things that are there.

Perhaps these are things that we will see in some form in heaven.

Perhaps the things we see in the tabernacle in this language in the Old Testament are

symbolic of what heaven is going to represent.

If you've never looked up a picture of the tabernacle, you can look it up.

Google it.

Not right now.

After service.

You get your phone out, you can Google it.

Look out the tabernacle of the Old Testament and it'll show you.

It'll show you the dimensions and the measurements and it'll show you everything.

You enter through the east gate and when you go in, there's an altar there that the animals

would be burned on the altar.

Then there would be a basin there that the priests would use to clean up and to wash.

Then you would enter into this building.

It was kind of a long rectangular shaped building.

In the front part of the building, it was two-thirds of the building.

When you'd walk in, you'd see a table there and it would have some showbread on it.

Then you'd see a lamp stand that would be there and an altar of incense.

Then you would see a big veil that would be two-thirds of the way through the back of

the room.

Behind that veil would be the Holy of Holies.

In the Holy of Holies would be the Ark of the Covenant.

Probably not like it was on Indiana Jones.

Get that out of your mind.

I don't know, but maybe not.

In the Ark of the Covenant were the stone tablets with the Ten Commandments and was

Aaron's staff that budded and a jar of manna.

These were things, as you read through the Old Testament, it is said, okay, now put this

into the Ark of the Covenant as a remembrance.

It was on top of the Ark of the Covenant, there was two cherubim, these angelic-like

creatures whose wings met in the middle.

It was in here that the high priest would go once a year to make atonement for the sins

of the people.

Only the high priest could go there because there in the most holy place was where God

resided, where God would come down there onto the Ark of the Covenant and be there amongst

the people.

This is what's spelled out for us in the Old Testament.

So Moses saw something.

He was revealed something that God showed him and said, make the tabernacle in this

way.

Perhaps we will see some form of those things in heaven.

Maybe they're just pointing us forward to what Jesus was going to be and the realities

of heaven.

That Jesus was going to be the one who was placed on the altar, on the cross, to make

atonement for our sins.

That there's a basin there for cleansing and that through Jesus Christ our sins have been

clean and washed as white as snow.

That there's bread there to remind us that God is the one who provides for us.

That there's a lamp there to remind us that God is the one who lights our way.

The bowl of incense as we see on a couple of occasions in scriptures and the Psalms

and in Revelation that represent smoke goes up representing the prayers of those who pray

to God.

And there in the most holy place was access to God where only the high priest could go

and only once a year.

These things were a shadow.

They were a copy.

They were pointing us forward to something.

And the author of Hebrews says, listen, these things that we see are pointing us forward

to Jesus Christ.

And that's why it's so significant that when we see that Jesus was crucified, that the

moment that he took his last breath, that the scripture says the veil and that place

was torn from top to bottom.

Because we're no longer separated from God.

Because the high priest Jesus Christ has gone before God and given us his life as a sacrifice

once and for all.

So now we have access to God.

We've received the Holy Spirit and we have access to God and we can pray to God and we

can seek God and we look at these things that were a copy and a shadow that were pointing

us forward to Jesus Christ that were a pattern of heavenly things.

You see these things that we see in scripture, they're a pattern of what God intends.

And we see the reality of the greatest part of that pattern of the atonement for our sins

in Jesus Christ.

We see that Jesus has fulfilled all the things that need to be fulfilled.

And in the pattern of fulfillment of what was established through Moses, Jesus has fulfilled

all those tasks of the high priesthood, all those tasks of the sacrifices.

And there are so many things we see in scripture that should be a pattern for us.

God told Moses make this as a pattern so that people can understand that these can be earthly

symbols of heavenly realities.

And there are other things I believe that God gives us as Christians as patterns that

should be earthly symbols of heavenly realities.

When we look at our relationship with Jesus Christ, what do we see that referred to as

in scripture?

We see it referred to as a marriage.

We see that Jesus Christ is the groom and we are to be his bride.

And that, brothers and sisters in Christ, is why marriage is so important.

And I preach hard on marriage a lot, probably more than some of you like.

But I preach on that because I believe it's a pattern that we do not need to take for

granted.

It is a pattern that shows us the relationship of what it means to be in relationship with

God, to be in relationship with Jesus Christ.

It is a pattern on how we are to live.

It is a pattern for us men to look at Jesus to say Jesus gave everything for his bride.

It is a pattern for the bride to say I'm going to be obedient to my husband.

I'm going to be faithful to my husband.

And marriage is such a beautiful and a wonderful thing.

And we should show the world the pattern of God's love and the reality of God's love through

our marriages.

But our culture doesn't hold the same view of marriage that scripture does.

Our culture doesn't hold a very high view of marriage at all.

But we as Christians must hold a high view of marriage.

It represents the relationship between us and Jesus Christ.

And so we need to know and we need to understand the importance of that.

We want to be those who stick by our husbands and sticks by our wives.

And when we say forever till death do us part, we mean it for better or for worse.

And we want our marriages to be a pattern, to be an example that when the world sees

us as Christians, that they would see the love of Jesus Christ.

So we see in scripture that there are some earthly symbols that God gives us as heavenly

realities because one day Jesus is going to return, the groom will return for his bride.

And oh what a beautiful marriage that will be in heaven.

And so we need to understand that the things we do in this world need to keep in mind how

God has established things and what God calls us to.

We see another beautiful example of a pattern I believe and that is in the relationship

between a parent and a child that so often times in scripture we see God referred to

as the father and we are referred to as his children.

There's a pattern there.

There's some instruction there.

There's some symbolism there.

As we look at how God treats his people that we need to learn from God as parents that

we would be good mothers, that we would be good fathers, that we would hold our children

accountable, that we would teach them the right way, that we would encourage them, that

we would correct them.

God is our father and we as parents in this world need to strive to follow the example

of God that we would be a good father and a good mother for our children.

So we see these patterns.

We see this symbolic language that affects us.

We see here in the book of Hebrews that there's so much emphasis placed on the tabernacle

and on the priesthood and on the sacrifices because it points us forward to something

better in Jesus Christ as so many things in scripture does.

God gives us a pattern to live by.

The scripture is full of patterns that we should live by to represent who God is and

to live in the way that God calls us to live and we need to check our lives today and we

need to say, is my life patterned after that of Jesus Christ?

Is my life a pattern that's worthy to be followed?

A pattern is only good if it's followed.

If you don't follow a pattern, it's not going to work out.

Now I know back in the day when I was a kid, I remember I'd go to Walmart and my grandma,

she'd go back there, they'd have a whole rack full of patterns.

It'd be hundreds of patterns in there and you'd get that pattern and it might be a

dress and you'd lay that pattern out and it was this transparent paper so you could

see, okay, here's where everything needs to go, here's where you need to make this line

and here's where you need to cut this line and here's how you need to sew it together

and if you follow that pattern, then what would result would be something beautiful.

It'd be a beautiful dress or whatever you were making.

Well, God's word is full of patterns that point us to Jesus Christ, patterns that show

us how to live.

They're right here in front of us in black and white in God's word but the question you

have to answer today is are you going to follow the pattern?

Are you going to follow the pattern of living that God has set before you?

Are you going to follow the pattern of living of Jesus Christ, the way he lived, the things

he said, the things he did, the way he treated people?

What a beautiful pattern for us to follow.

Scripture is full of patterns and instructions and guidelines that God calls us to follow

and when we follow the God's pattern, something beautiful comes from that.

We have a beautiful relationship with God.

We have a beautiful something about that.

There's a joy that comes from that.

There's beauty that comes from that.

When we follow the pattern of righteous living but when we don't follow the pattern of Scripture

and we begin to do things our way and we begin to do what we want when we want to do it,

we make a mess.

We have something that doesn't resemble the kingdom of God and the word of God in any

way and then we sometimes go out into the world and try to tell others about God when

the pattern of our life, the result of our life is not worth following.

So we want to be those who follow the pattern of God's word so that our life can be a pattern

for others to follow, a pattern that points people to Jesus Christ.

All of these things, so many of them we see in Scripture, are a copy and a shadow of what

was to come but Jesus is the reality and we see a glimpse of that today.

We have more understanding of Scripture today because we have the privilege to see Jesus

Christ than many who come before us in the Old Testament but even still, even though

we have so much beautiful detail, we still only see a shadow of what is to come for all

of eternity.

But the more we begin to follow the pattern of living that is set before us, the more

we try to pattern our life after that of Jesus Christ, the more that that shadow begins to

be filled out, the more details we can make out, the more we can understand the word of

God.

The author of Hebrews wants his audience to know one truth and that is Jesus is better.

If we don't know that truth by the time that we get to the end of the book of Hebrews,

then either he didn't do a good job or I didn't do a good job.

But we need to know a truth, Jesus is better.

Our life needs to be patterned after Jesus.

Our decisions, the things we do, need to be focused on Jesus.

Let's pray.

Father God, we come to you today, we thank you for your good word.

God, I pray that we would recognize the reality of the risen Jesus, that we would know that

Jesus is so much better than anything else that we have ever seen or ever known.

God, maybe there are some today that do not know the reality of Jesus.

I pray that today that they would.

Maybe today, God, they've fallen into that trap of trying to be made right by their own

actions and their own works, dear Lord.

But God, I pray that today that they would, they'd stop trying to do it on their own and

realize that Jesus has done everything that they need for them, dear Lord.

That he has offered a more perfect sacrifice, the most perfect sacrifice.

That he is seated at your right hand, dear Lord.

That he is victorious today, victorious over sin, God.

That's the one thing that we cannot overcome apart from Jesus.

So I pray, God, that there are any that do not know who Jesus is today, that they would

come to Jesus and put their faith and trust in Jesus this morning.

God, I pray that as we read your word, even the stuff in the Old Testament that might

be kind of tough to read, stuff that we say, God, why'd you give us all these details,

dear Lord?

They point us to Jesus.

I pray that we would never fail to see that, that everything in your word points us to

Jesus.

God, I pray that everyone in here would be pointed to Jesus today.

That those who don't know you would repent of their sin and put their faith and trust

in Jesus Christ.

God, I pray that we would look at your word, that you would, we'd see the patterns that

you call us to, the instructions that you give us, dear Lord.

That we would follow the pattern of living that you have laid out for us.

That we had followed the example that Jesus has given for us by giving his life on the

cross, dear Lord.

I pray, God, that maybe there's some in this room and they're yours and maybe they're struggling

in some way today.

Maybe there's something going on.

Whatever it may be, dear Lord, I pray that they would seek you.

I pray that they would come to you today.

I pray that they would find joy and peace and strength in you this morning.

God, I pray that your Holy Spirit would just work through these few verses that we have

read today.

That we would rejoice in who Jesus is.

That we would be reminded, God, that you are the one who cleanses us through Jesus Christ.

You are the one who has provided for us through Jesus Christ.

God, I pray that you'd be a light for our life today and that even in this moment, God,

that our prayers would go before you, dear Lord.

I thank you for these words and I pray that you just would bless them.

And I ask these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.