Jesus Is Greater | The Crescendo

Good morning everyone. Congratulations on making it in.

And it's the snow of which I'm sure we are all tired, but also

I've been monitoring the weather apps intensely and we're going

to get a hot a heat wave next week.

So excited about that. If we haven't met already, my

name is Mandy. I'm on staff here at the Garden

Church, and this morning I'm very excited to be kicking off

our new sermon series on the Book of Hebrews, which is such a

rich text, so I hope that you all will come to love it as much

as I do. Hebrews is very complex, and

it's very unique in the way that it presents ideas and makes

theological arguments. And Hebrews is unapologetically

and expressively Worshipful. The author, who is anonymous, is

devoted to elevating the name of Jesus and kind of examining from

every angle how magnificent he is and why he alone is worthy of

our worship. However, if you have been

following along with our Lent guide and reading through

Hebrews this week, you might already feel a little bit dazed

and confused. That's perfectly normal.

I just want to validate you if you've been reading it, because

Hebrews is often named as one of the most challenging books in

the New Testament to read and to interpret.

And I kind of feel like it should come with a warning

label. You know, like warning may cause

dizziness and disorientation due to a high volume of New

Testament quotations. I'm kind of serious though,

because for example, Hebrews chapter 1 and 2, which is what

Hebrews 1 · chapter mention

I'm covering today, actually contains 11 different passages

from the Old Testament spanning from Psalms to Deuteronomy to

Isaiah. So it's kind of intense.

But here's a great example of why this can prove tricky for us

as modern day readers. If you look at your passages,

you'll notice that there is a an excerpt from the beginning of

Hebrews chapter 1 and an excerpt from the end of chapters 2.

Hebrews 1 · chapter mention

So what about all the missing verses in between?

Well, I can summarize them for you in just one sentence.

Jesus is greater than the angels.

Cool. Sermon over.

No, just kidding. But basically the author has a

ton of passages that he lists from the Old Testament that are

about angels and about Jesus relationship and how he's

greater than the angels. And when I read this, I'm kind

of like, well, I agree. Like not saying that I disagree,

but also like, why does that matter?

And that is the question that we'll be looking to answer today

because throughout the book of Hebrews, the author basically

argues that Jesus is greater than the angels and the prophets

and Moses and Joshua and the priesthood.

And we might read these things and be like, yes, Amen.

We are on board, but maybe none of them feel particularly

significant to us. So it's easy to say that Jesus

is greater. But for the original readers of

the book of Hebrews, these things represented their

culture, their history, their hope, their understanding of

God. And so when those things are

challenged, we tend to get really uncomfortable.

So this is the conversation that we're invited into today.

It's not just about angels or prophets or the law.

It's about how we view God, how we relate to Him, and whether

we're holding anything else in our lives above Him.

And that's why Hebrews can still speak to us today, because it is

a revelation of the God who loves us and who is inviting us

to trust in his salvation. So as you get started, let me

just pray for us now that God would help us to receive his

love and step into that trust. Lord Jesus, we thank you for the

gift of Your Word, and we thank you for bringing us together

here this morning. God, we want to learn from you.

We ask that whatever else is going on in our lives, whatever

else is maybe occupying our thoughts, that you would help us

to just lay those things at your feet.

God, we want to receive from you this morning.

We want to draw nearer to You. We want to set aside anything

that might be an obstacle between US and You so that we

can just be fully in your presence, God, fully in the

presence of your love, fully trusting in your power, fully

trusting in your ability to save us, to offer us everything that

we need. God.

So we just want to come before you this morning and ask that

you would speak. Holy Spirit, we thank you for

being near to us. We thank you that you do speak.

We thank you for your grace. Open our hearts and ears this

morning in Jesus name, Amen. All right, so again, as we get

started, let's return to our big question, kind of the favorite

question of every three-year old, you know, which is why, why

did the author write the book of Hebrews?

Why do these topics matter so much that he was willing to

invest time and energy and ink and papyrus to write out these

arguments? And there's kind of a question

behind that question, which is who, Like who was this book

written for and what were the challenges that were facing

them? Well, the title of the book is

Hebrews for a reason. The first readers were Hebrews.

They were Jews, and their lives were shaped by the Torah, by the

law of God. And so, you know, they grew up

being taught the texts of the Old Testament.

So these Hebrews, as I'll refer to them, we're also second

generation Christians, meaning they were not alive when Jesus

walked the earth. Instead, they learned about

Christianity kind of second hand from the testimonies of

eyewitnesses or, you know, from the stories and teachings that

would one day become the New Testament.

So in that way, we might have something in common with them.

They chose to believe in the gospel of Jesus, not by sight,

but by faith. So these Hebrews also faced

persecution in their time, mostly in the form of what you

might call social dishonor. So they were like, ostracized by

society because of their faith. They suffered verbal abuse,

maybe even loss of property or income.

They were marginalized. And over time, this seems to

have, like, worn down their stamina.

So many of these Hebrew Christians were struggling in

their faith. They had maybe stopped attending

church gatherings. They were compromising on their

beliefs. They were tempted to return to

their Jewish roots because Judaism was more accepted, so

it'd be easier. So they were tempted to kind of

water down the gospel of Jesus. So maybe they weren't, you know,

dramatically rejecting Jesus and who he is, But they were kind of

slowly drifting away and, like, caving in to social pressures.

So This is why the letter to the Hebrews was written, to

encourage a community of weary Christians who are struggling in

their faith in Jesus. So what does the author want to

say to them? His core message, again, could

be summarized in a single phrase.

Jesus is greater. 13 times throughout the book, the author

uses the Greek word for greater or better.

Jesus is like lifted up as the fulfillment of everything that

the Old Testament writes about, everything that God's people

have been waiting for. So the author is like exhorting

his listeners, hold fast to your faith in Jesus, no matter the

challenges facing you because Jesus is greater and there's no

other savior but him. So today, as we explore chapter

1 and two of the book of Hebrews, there's kind of three

main ideas that I want us to focus on.

And because this book is all about the greatness of Jesus,

all three are essentially invitations to worship.

Because that's what Hebrews is about, elevating the name of

Jesus above everything and everyone in our lives.

So here are the three invitations I have to offer you

today #1 worship Jesus as he is number 2.

Let Jesus lead the way. I was actually really tempted to

make that one, let Jesus take the wheel, but it was too corny.

I couldn't do it. So it's let Jesus lead the way.

So close and #3 leave your fears nailed to the cross.

So #1 worship Jesus as he is. So I mentioned that most of the

verses throughout Hebrews chapter 1 and 2 are Old

Hebrews 1 · chapter mention

Testament quotes and they're either about angels or they're

about Jesus kingship and kind of the relationship between the

two. So angels seem cool enough,

right? Like they play like key roles at

major moments in biblical history.

But if I were writing like a theological letter to encourage

my fellow Christians in their faith, I would probably mention

angels about 0 times. Like, it's not a core part of

how I think about the world. It's not something I was raised

with. So it is kind of perplexing for

me that the author of Hebrews just like dedicates so much air

time to them. So what is going on here?

Why does it seem important? Well, in the era between the Old

Testament and the New Testament, Jewish theologians had given

increasingly important roles to angels.

One Bible scholar says that angels were regarded as the ones

through whom God gave the law and knowledge.

They thought that they served as mediators between humanity and

God since they stand in his presence.

And some even held that angels governed the world.

So this time, angels were given like this very elevated position

in the eyes of many. And that's not all.

Jewish Christians are also criticized and misunderstood by

kind of the larger Jewish community.

They were seen as heretics, like, dangerously misguided and

disloyal to the teachings of the Old Testament.

And they were often accused of worshipping a second God.

So that's like, you know, a misunderstanding of who Jesus

is. They saw him as, oh, you're

worshipping a second God. And so this was kind of part of

the social pressure that they faced from their own family and

friends and neighbors. And so one compromise that some

Christians had made was to say that Jesus was merely a great

Angel. You know, it seems to solve the

problem if someone is accusing you of Poly polytheism.

Like Jesus still gets to be a powerful divine being, but he's

no longer God himself. And you don't have to explain

the Trinity or like wrestle with how it's possible for Jesus to

be like fully God and fully human.

Like, you're just kind of done, right.

So as we hear this, like, maybe it feels relatable to you.

Maybe it doesn't, might depend on how you feel about angels,

right? But here is the heart of the

problem. And this might be something that

we can relate to. The Hebrews were tempted to

reshape God's identity into something that made their lives

easier. Going to say it again.

The Hebrews, So the first readers of the book of Hebrews

were tempted to reshape God's identity into something that

made their lives easier. That is a real temptation for us

as humans to try to like, edit God's nature so we don't have to

be challenged by it. For instance, you know, we may

like God's mercy, but we're uncomfortable with his anger at

sin. We may approve of his

righteousness, but we don't like it that he dispenses grace so

freely. We like that he offers to help

us in our time of need, but we don't like that he calls us to

die to ourselves, to leave our old life behind, to take up our

cross and follow him. And the parts that we're

uncomfortable with might vary depending on our personality or

our culture and our background. But more likely than not, we do

have this in common with the Hebrews.

We struggle to let God be God without trying to change him.

I remember when I was in seminary, the first theology

class that I took, we did three weeks in a row just on the

doctrine of the Trinity. Like the idea that there is like

one God who exists eternally as 3 distinct persons, Father, Son,

Holy Spirit. And I'll be honest, when I read

the syllabus I was like 3 books in three weeks.

Kind of seems like overkill to me, but looking back I have a

deeper appreciation for it. Not because I necessarily

understand the Trinity better, maybe I do, maybe I don't.

But one of my big takeaways was this.

We don't get to decide who God is.

We don't get to decide who God is.

God's identity, his threeness, his oneness, His other

attributes are not under our jurisdiction.

And if our view of God is shaped by our preferences or like our,

you know what's easier for us to kind of hold their handle?

But that's not God that we're looking at.

That's an idol. Because any God that we can

control is not real. It's merely a false God of our

own making. We don't get to decide who God

is. We do get to learn who God is.

And by his grace, God chooses to reveal himself, to make himself

known to us, but we don't get to, like select which parts of

him we like or prefer the ones that don't disrupt our

lifestyle. So on one level, we might

sympathize with the readers of Hebrews because, you know,

claiming that Jesus is God introduced like, all sorts of

complications into their lives. Like it felt hard to explain.

It challenged them to fully surrender their old ways of

thinking and to embrace like this new revelation of God that

was kind of full of mystery and scandal.

That's how Jesus was often held. And I mean, the idea that Jesus

is fully God and fully human is mind boggling, right?

Like that Jesus is somehow like the creator of the known

universe, and yet he also took on flesh and walked among us.

That Jesus holds the word world together by the power of his

word. And yet simultaneously he like,

sat with people and spoke to people and like, showed up at

dinner parties. Like if thinking about those two

things together makes your head hurt, I have good news.

That is how it's supposed to feel.

God is bigger than us. God is not supposed to be fully

comprehensible by our human brains.

His complexity does not bend to our whims.

He we don't get to simplify him when there are parts of him that

we don't understand. He's greater than us, and that

is a wonderful thing. So the Hebrews were struggling

with this pressure to make God more acceptable to their

critics, easier to handle. How might we face a similar

struggle today? Like when have we been tempted

to edit God's identity? Maybe we're scientists and we

feel the pressure to change God's miraculous nature.

Like we want to kind of make it more predictable and more

logical. Maybe we're capitalists and

we're tempted to downplay Jesus teachings on greed and

generosity. We live in a pluralistic

society, right? Like many different beliefs,

maybe we are. We feel a pressure to say that

Jesus isn't the only way, the truth and the life.

We might feel uncomfortable with a myriad of things like Jesus

emphasis on grace, his sexual ethics, his teachings on the end

times. And so we might want to kind of

try to reshape those things to make others feel more

comfortable or to make ourselves feel more comfortable.

But essentially we would. We replace the real and living

God with a dead and useless idol.

We lose the goodness and the wonder of worshipping a God who

exceeds the boundaries of our imaginations.

If any part of this is convicting to you, I know it's

been convicting to me as I've thought about it.

Here's our invitation again. It's simple.

Worship Jesus as he is. That is what the author of

Hebrews is calling us to. Remember who it is that you

believe in. Like turn back to Jesus and

proclaim his glory. Just listen to how the author

describes Jesus. This is like his goal, right?

To like get us to worship Jesus as it as it is.

So I'm going to say some of the things that he talks about here

that kind of illustrate the greatness of Jesus, right?

So first, Jesus is the creator of all things.

So everything belongs to him. Jesus is the radiance of the

glory of God. It's like the beauty of God's

character shines through him. Jesus is the exact imprint of

God's nature, so when we look at the life of Jesus, we see the

heart of the Father. Jesus upholds the universe by

the word of his power, so no matter the chaos that surrounds

us, He is the one who sustains us.

Jesus made purification for our sins, so there's nothing we have

done that cannot be forgiven. And Jesus has been crowned with

glory and honor, and his throne will last forever and ever.

So when he promises us a place in his Kingdom, in a new and a

better world, we can trust in His word.

Like when I just read these truths, these are the truths

that the book of Hebrews is full of.

It like stirs up something in my heart, like this awe and this

wonder at who Jesus is, this gratitude that this God, this

King would give his life for us. Can an Angel do that?

Can an idol do that? No.

Like who can possibly compare with the glory of Christ?

When we look at Jesus and His fullness, we see that He is

perfect as He is. Like nothing needs to be added,

nothing can be subtracted. He is everything we need.

And yes, His trinitarian and like human slash divine way of

being is beyond our understanding, but that is part

of what makes Him glorious and worthy of worship.

So we must resist the temptation to reshape God's identity into a

form that feels more convenient to us, because there's nothing

better than meeting the real Jesus and experiencing his

glory. Open your heart to actually

encountering him. That's my invitation to you

today. Let yourself be challenged by

who God is. Let your own character be shaped

by his worship Jesus as he is. So our second invitation is to

let Jesus lead the way. So the book of Hebrews also

tells us that Jesus is greater than the law and the prophets.

And in chapter 1 it says long ago, at many times and in many

ways, God spoke to our Father by the prophets, but in these last

days he has spoken to us by his Son.

So, you know, the law and the prophets were a gift from God to

guide his people. But the author is saying

something greater has come, a greater message of good news, a

greater Savior has come. And so once again, we find that

the Hebrews were facing a challenge that we may or may not

relate to, which is kind of this temptation to hold the law and

the prophets as higher than Jesus.

And those two things are basically like shorthand for

what we would call the Old Testament, like all the

revelation and the law that God provided his people.

But for Jews, this was the source of life.

Like it taught them how to live, how to align themselves with

God's will, how to receive atonement for sins, and how to

maintain hope in God's promises. The law was a good thing.

It was a gift. But here's the problem with

humanity. We are really talented at taking

a good thing and turning it into an idol.

And an idol, remember, is anything that replaces God in

our hearts, like anything that we try to derive, like our

ultimate sense of identity and purpose from.

So an idol may start out as a good thing, but then we kind of

fixate on it. Like we, we elevate it.

We, we reorganize our lives around it.

We try to squeeze every ounce of satisfaction we can get from it.

We convinced ourselves that we need it to survive.

There's this quote that's attributed to John Calvin.

It says the human heart is a perpetual idol factory.

But why? Like, why are we so addicted to

idols? Why do we keep trying to replace

God with something else? Well, there are probably

countless ways to answer that question.

I only get one sermon today, but one one element that stood out

to me, reading the book of Hebrews particularly, is our

desire for control. Like idols, by their nature, are

things that we at least feel like we can control.

God decidedly is not. So when I think about it this

way, and then I can kind of start to understand why the

Hebrews might have been hesitant to give up their reliance on the

law. It feels predictable.

It feels reliable if you have this guide book that tells you

like, how to act and you can just do what it says and things

will turn out well for you. But if the human heart can turn

anything into an idol, and it can, that includes the law of

God. And if you're wondering what it

would look like to worship God's law more than God himself?

We have access to like a really vivid example.

You might have met them. They were known as the

Pharisees. They lived during the time of

Jesus and they were among his biggest opponents.

And the Pharisees likely started out like they're a group of

religious leaders, right? So they wanted people to take

the Bible seriously. Like they wanted to provide more

clarity on how to apply scripture to our lives.

So their approach was to like develop really detailed rules

for people to follow. Like, and then those rules, we

got more rules, which we got more rules and more rules until

the people were like suffocated under the demands and all this

like red tape. But on the surface, you know,

they're concerned for the law looks like holiness.

But underneath their true motivation was revealed.

They were so desperate for control that they were unwilling

to be challenged or corrected even when Jesus came along, even

by God himself. So as I was thinking about this,

like how how that might come out in our lives today, this

metaphor came to mind for me of two different ways that you

could approach hiking. So I'm not much of A hiker, but

for the sake of this metaphor, let's say that I was setting out

to hike the Appalachian Trail. This would never happen in real

life. So already as we start this

journey, like my anxiety level would be real high because like,

this is a way of a physical level.

Not even close. But my first temptation if this

was like something I needed to do would be to like,

aggressively research the trail. Like, I would want like a highly

detailed map. I would want to mark like how

far I'm walking each day, where I'd stop, where I'd replenish

supplies. Like I'd want to like, sketch

out plans for navigating potential obstacles like rivers

or like super rocky places. I don't even know what kind of

obstacles there are. I'm not a hiker, but I would

still want to be like prepared for all of them.

Right now, this is kind of a stress driven strategy, but it

might actually succeed at keeping me alive.

But there is a second option available, and that is to go

with a guide to find, like, the premier Sherpa of the

Appalachian Trail and to just follow them.

There would still be like, you know, planning and preparing on

my end. And I think from what I know

about the Appalachian Trail, it would probably be a fairly

grueling experience no matter what I did.

But instead of relying on my own cleverness and thoroughness to

get me through the journey, I'd be relying on someone who

already knows the way in life. I think a lot of us prefer the

first approach. At least we want to be the 1:00

calling the shots, right? We want to craft the plans and

solve the problems because we kind of think that like the more

involved we are, the more secure we'll feel.

But when it comes to the spiritual life, our best efforts

will still come up short. Like even if I'm committed to

living a moral life and overcoming patterns of sin and

cultivating a relationship with God, I am not capable of finding

the way on my own, especially to eternal life.

Even if I tried, and I did try in college, that was like my

whole story. I tried.

Like you might be able to get the journey started, but before

long you would just be completely lost and overwhelmed.

Because trying to maintain control ultimately gets us

nowhere. But control has a very

attractive sales pitch. You get to be your own Sherpa

and answer to no one. But the reality that that won't

tell you is that navigating the spiritual life alone is lonely

and scary and anxiety inducing and it's honestly not worth the

cost. But again, there is a second

option, to follow Jesus, to actually know him, to learn from

him, to live in his ways. And yes, that means that you

don't get to go wherever you want, whenever you want.

It may feel like a loss of control, especially when you

really want a map and Jesus like won't give you one.

But you don't have to walk the path alone with Jesus, like not

even for a minute. You don't need a map or a

philosophy degree so you can solve the problem of sin or fix

the world or justify yourself. You just need to keep following

Jesus because he knows the way. Let Jesus lead the way.

Lastly, the book of Hebrews invites us to leave our fears

nailed to the cross. So at the end of Hebrews chapter

Hebrews 2 · chapter mention

2, the author says that Jesus became human so that by his

death he might break the power of him who holds the power of

death, that is the devil, and to free those who all their lives

were held in slavery by their fear of death.

Y'all this verse like wrecked me.

I like read it as if I had never read it before.

I like know that I've read it before because I had to read the

whole Bible when I was in seminary.

I know I've read it and I was like, what is the saying?

This is wild, but it's like describing us as humanity as

being held in slavery to the fear of death.

Like what does that mean? So in the Bible, slavery can be

literal, but it also it's often another way of talking about

idolatry, like it's being captive to something, like

serving something that like takes from you until it believes

you dry. So, you know, when we think

about fear of death, I don't think that this is necessarily

limited to like consciously worrying about your mortality.

I think it actually includes the type of behavior that comes out

when we believe that light, this life is all there is fear of.

So in that case, fear of death might produce things like a

scarcity mentality, this feeling that time is running out and

anxiety that the change that you long for will never come.

A sense of urgency that like any goodness or pleasure has to be

found in this lifetime. Or a tendency to run from pain

as if you just might get trapped in it forever.

I don't know about you, but when I think about those fears that

way, like that feels much more familiar to me.

I'm not often consciously thinking again about my

mortality, but I'm I do have a subconscious fear that I'm

running out of time, that my life will never become what I

hoped it would be, that I'll get stuck in a reality that I don't

want to be in. I don't know how many of you

relate to this. If if not, just going to keep.

I'm just going to bring you into the world of my fears.

My fears. They often feel more like

questions that run on autoplay in the back of my mind.

Saying things like what if I have to watch everyone that I'm

close to get married and have a family, but it never happens for

me? What if I invest all of my

energy into building a community that's strong and a ministry

that matters and it fails? What if my pain from my past

wounds never gets better? Like what if trying to address

it just completely overwhelms me?

I'm not support. I'm not 100% sure if you're

supposed to confess your fears in a sermon, to be honest.

But here we are. Because this is reality.

Like the Bible wants to speak to our reality, like what it

actually is like for us as humans to live in this world.

And so if it's saying that Jesus has annihilated our fear of

death, this is what he's talking about.

This battle that many of us are fighting internally.

This is what he's come to overcome.

And the thing about those fears, though, is I feel like they're

rooted in these desires. And those desires aren't

necessarily bad. That's confusing, right?

Like we want to get rid of the fear, but like the desires

aren't necessarily bad. Like often times they're very

human. Like there's a desire to be

loved, to have a purpose, to have stability or inner peace,

to have somewhere that you belong.

But I don't think desire by itself is necessarily the

problem. I think our desperation is the

problem. It's when we begin to kind of

listen to this voice in the back of our heads, the voice of fear.

And it kind of changes the way that we relate to our desires.

Where we kind of start saying things that like we need

something to happen to be OK. Like we're driven to fixate on

something 'cause we need this to be OK.

We won't be OK unless we have this.

Like we become desperate for a job or a vocation where we feel

important. We become kind of desperate for

a relationship where we finally feel accepted.

We feel desperate for a home to call our own for like the

stability that has always felt out of reach.

And it's like very subtle in the back of our mind, this kind of

desperation that can build up. But when we're desperate, we

become dangerous to ourselves and to others because our hearts

start manufacturing idols. When we feel like this life is

all there is, we try to like, force it to bend to our will no

matter what. We have to sacrifice because

that's what an idol demands. Like everything we have to give.

So that subconscious fear of death that that that sense of

urgency, it like pushes us to take our destiny into our own

hands. But church, we have to resist

it. We have to bring our desperation

to Jesus. That is the only way forward

because everything that Jesus touches becomes better.

There's a story in the gospels. I love it.

I feel like I think about this like an inordinate amount of the

time. Jesus is like walking through a

crowd and there's this woman who's been afflicted with a

blood disease for 12 years. So she's been suffering, she has

been outcast. She is like at the end of her

rope to fix this problem. And she knows that if she can

just touch out, she she knows who knows who told her.

She just has this like instinct, this feeling, this faith, this

belief that if she can just touch the edge of Jesus garment,

she will be healed. And she is.

It's like renewal is unavoidable in Jesus presence, like all she

does is reach for him and she is healed because Jesus is the only

one who fearful and desperate people can turn to for new life

and for New Hope. And it actually happens.

But learning to bring your deepest fears and desires to

Jesus is often a process for us. Like it's hard for some reason,

like we resist it. We, we, we struggle to get

there. Like I know that it definitely

has been for me. Like, you know, my fears and my

desires. Sometimes my, my strategy is

like to suppress them instead, just in case anyone is 1 is like

considering giving that a shot. It doesn't work.

I can just save you some time. Like not a good strategy.

The only thing that really helps is being honest before guide

coming to him admitting, for example, that it is painful to

want a family of your own and to not have one.

Like I don't think we need to edit that or diminish it or

change it. It's just hard.

But it's when the voice of fear tries to convince us you're

going to get trapped. You're going to be left alone.

You're going to have to carry the weight of disappointment for

the rest of your life. Like these are the lies that

fear wants us to believe because fear of death is very all or

nothing. There's no nuance.

It's very final. There's no room for Jesus to

come and intervene. There's no room you don't even

want to reach for the edge of his robe because you're afraid

of being disappointed. It's this lie that like whatever

struggle you're facing now is going to overcome you because

this is all there is. That's such a lie.

This is not even close to all there is.

Jesus's big thing is securing eternal life for us that is so

much bigger than the struggles that we're facing now.

That is why we watch people in the Bible do these insane,

extraordinary, courageous things because they have hope not only

that Jesus can meet them in this life, but that He will be there

in the life to come and that we will be with Him in the life to

come. But like these fear, these lies

they enter and it's so subtle. That's the thing that's so

subtle, the way it kind of whispers to you and you don't

really notice it at 1st. And I remember like thinking

about some of these fears when that felt like an obstacle

between me and God, like a a very recent season where it felt

like a wall between me and God. And I was like kind of pray

about these fears. But The thing is, I like wasn't

really bringing the fear to God. And the reason I realized is

because I had this like, projection of the future where

the disappointment I would feel if like I brought this to God

and it felt like he never answered, would be so much worse

than if I just tried to deal with the fear on my own.

And so I held back until the Holy Spirit kind of broke me

down because I did pray. And that's the thing about it.

It's like at some point he's kind of like chiseled chink,

chink, chink. And you're like, I have to come

to you. I'm desperate.

I need help. And I just began like wrestling

with him about these things and just talking to him more

honestly about my fears and being willing to just be like,

this is like, I'm putting it all on the table.

This is all or nothing. I'm all in like what, like I, I

need you. What, what, what, what do we do?

Jesus, Like what, what's the next step?

And for me, when I began talking to Jesus about my fears, when I

began naming them, when I began letting him speak into them and

challenging me and just like pour these things out, I became

so much more aware of what he's doing in my life right now.

Because that's the kind of veil that comes over you when you

believe the voice of fear is you're fixated on honestly,

oftentimes A fictional future, like a tragedy that hasn't

happened yet or a tragedy that happened in the past where you

don't believe that Jesus can redeem that.

But when you let him speak into I feel like I started to know it

was like it was like I was seeing things that were right in

front of me that I hadn't seen before, like ways that he is

like actively moving in my life today, for instance, you know, I

named the season of singleness is hard for me, right?

And it's easy to be like fixated on that in different moments in

time. But one of the things that I

forget that I feel like God really reminded me of is that in

this season, I have been deeply blessed by the friendship of

some extraordinary women where the season that we get to walk

through together is hard, but it's really beautiful.

And I don't think I would want to exchange that for something

different because I see Jesus in it.

And no matter what it is he gives you, no matter what your

heart still longs for, no matter what prayers you're still

praying, when you see him in something, there's this comfort

that comes where you're like, he's with me.

I know he's with me, He's with me and you know, there are

things like that that were very, they were very sweet.

You know, you see them and you notice them and, and it kind of

gives you this like comfort and relief.

There are other things that I like realize that he's doing in

my life right now. One of them is that he's kind of

created this time, this protected space for me to really

dive into some really painful things in my past and like work

through them. And that is not fun.

But I recognize that that is also a gift.

And one day it will feel that way.

One day I will see all the hidden ways that God has

answered my prayers daily to actually bring about the

greatest good and redeem my deepest pain, both on my behalf

and for others. And one day you will see all the

hidden ways that God is answering your prayers and that

there is no pain, No Fear, no longing that He is not aware of

and that He doesn't care so deeply about friends.

Fear thrives in the darkness, but once we bring it into the

light, it loses its power. And not just any light, the

light of Jesus. This light of Jesus that

promises you that his nearness, he is near to you now and He

will be working out redemption of everything that has hurt you

for all of eternity. What an incredible promise.

In His light, fears are exposed for what they are.

They're frail, they're fragile, like they feed on limitations

and exaggerations and this lie that Jesus cannot overcome your

fears. Jesus can overcome anything, and

he has. So I don't know what story

you're believing today that is rooted in fear, but I know that

Jesus wants to rewrite it. Bring your desires and your

desperation to Jesus. Let him remove the sting from

those things. Don't listen to your fears or

give them strength, or let them stay in the darkness.

Leave them in the hands of Jesus, nailed to the cross where

they belong. Jesus shared in our humanities

so that by his death he might break the power of death and

free us. No one else can promise you

that. No job, no life purpose, no life

partner, no wealth, no comfort. Nothing in this world can give

that to you. But Jesus, He is our hope, and

because of Jesus fear of death and all these other fears that

it breeds, they have been nailed to the cross.

So leave them there. Walk in freedom.

You can entrust your present circumstances and your future to

the God who is willing to become flesh, to endure suffering, and

even to die to bring us fullness of life.

Amen. Amen.

In closing So a few weeks back I babysat my friend's kids.

They're they're adorable. Her son is 11 months old and her

daughter is 3. She's the spitting image of my

friend. I don't think she stopped

talking the entire time I was there.

She's so cute. But her three-year old

apparently likes to sing her favorite hymn before bedtime.

And I was like, who is this kid? So before I put her to bed, we

sang together the song Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus.

It's an old hymn. If you don't know it, it's

beautiful. But if there was one worship

song that summarized the message of Hebrews one and two, this

might be it. So to close, I would like to

read it to you since I'm not much of a singer.

You'll experience more talent in that area in just a minute, but

I'm going to read it to you. I'll read the the three kind of

different verses 1st and then we'll end with the refrain.

So this is Turn your Eyes upon Jesus.

O soul, are you weary and troubled?

No light in the darkness you see.

There's light for a look at the Savior.

And life more abundant and free through death into life

everlasting He passed, and we follow Him there over us.

Sin no more has dominion for more than conquerors We are.

His word shall not fail you, He promised.

Believe Him, and all will be well.

Then go to a world that is dying, His perfect salvation to

tell. Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look

full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow

strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.