Our 2024 Small Town Summits will explore the riches of Our Extraordinary Christ in the book of Hebrews. For more information on when we will be coming to your area, click here.
The beautiful thing about God’s economy is that it does not look like our own. What sinful, fallen human beings prize as valuable does not correspond to what God deems valuable. This is made abundantly evident in the Beatitudes, for example (Matthew 5). Where the world would give most value to those who are proud, hedonistic and outwardly boastful, God places immense value on those who are poor in spirit, who mourn, who are meek, and so on.
But there is one crowning jewel in God’s economy that stands out. There is one attribute, one virtue that serves as a fountainhead of other godly virtues that God prizes: faithfulness. In fact, steadfast faithfulness is one of God’s own attributes that is highlighted again and again all throughout Scripture (1 John 1:9, 2 Timothy 2:11-13, Psalm 36:5, Isaiah 25:1, etc.). And it is this attribute of God that the author of Hebrews uses to demonstrate the superiority of Jesus over even the Old Covenant titan of the faith, Moses.
We are told in Hebrews 3:2 and 3:5 that Moses was a faithful servant in all of God’s house. Some believe this “house” to be referring to the Tabernacle, the Old Covenant tent of dwelling that Moses was instructed to build in Exodus 25-31. While this could be a partial understanding of the passage, I believe the fullest understanding of this “house” is simply God’s beloved people. More important than courage or his leadership abilities, Moses was faithful in serving God by serving his people.
This should reorient our own value system when it comes to the Kingdom of God. We can quickly fall into the trap of believing that to be valuable in the Kingdom of God means you need to have some extraordinary gifting, that you must be above the rest in some area of service. But the pattern of Scripture testifies that those who are going to be first in the Kingdom aren’t necessarily those who are most seen or heard on Sunday mornings, but those quiet brothers and sisters who don’t garner much attention but are exemplars of faithfulness (Matthew 19:28-30, Mark 12:41-44).
But as faithful as Moses was, it paled in comparison to the faithfulness of Jesus! We see this in Hebrews 3:1-6a. “Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God's house. For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) Now Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over God's house as a son.”
Moses was as faithful as he could be as a part of and a servant to the house of God. But Jesus’ relationship to the house and therefore his faithfulness to it, was categorically different. The house of God is a creation of Christ himself. He is the one who is calling, justifying, and glorifying all those who the Father gives him (Romans 8:30, Matthew 6:35-40). It is the Son who is building his house, the church, that was given to him by the Father.
As one theologian has said, “The love and care that Jesus has for his house flows directly from the fact that he built it and therefore he intimately knows every stone that was laid for the foundation, he knows every beam, he knows every nail, he knows every nook and cranny of his beautiful house! And because he himself built his house and because it belongs to him as his inheritance, his faithfulness to it knows no bounds.” This wonderful truth means he is deserving of a glory that far outshines that of Moses!
I am currently in year three of pastoring a new church plant in upper Vermont. And in these three short years I have experienced many blessings mixed with many hardships. But despite this, I feel as though I have only had a taste of what many pastors and ministry workers have experienced in their numerous years of serving in the small places of New England. In the darkest moments it can be difficult to think about the years to come in this ministry knowing that there will certainly be more times of difficulty.
But as I look to the future of this ministry that God has called me into, what keeps me from abandoning it for proverbial greener pastures is not the temporal blessings that may come, though those are always appreciated. What truly keeps me going, what truly keeps me faithful, is the sustaining promise of Jesus’ own faithfulness to his house. The last sentence of verse 6 of Hebrews 3 says, “And we are His house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.”
The reason we can persevere in the difficulties of life and ministry rests not on the strength of our charisma or leadership abilities or whatever other skills or talents we may have (or wish we had). Rather, it is the faithfulness of the Builder that means we can hold fast our confidence in the weight of glory that is awaiting us in the life to come, despite the frustrations of ministry.
It is the faithfulness of the Son that allows us to continuously boast in the hope of heaven that is set before us, even when earthly blessings feel absent. Charles Spurgeon beautifully says it this way, “We are the house in which he dwells with delight—in which he finds comfort and rest. We are the household over which he rules, and in which he is the delight and joy of us all.” Christ is faithful to the house that he himself is building, one redeemed sinner at a time. This blessed knowledge, in turn, gives strength and joy to our own faithfulness to him.