Worthy of More Glory | Hebrews 3:1–6 | Holding Fast to the One Who Built the House
Watch This Sermon: “Worthy of More Glory”
Who’s the greatest? We love to debate that question in nearly every category of life. But in Hebrews 3:1–6, the author settles the debate when it comes to salvation: Jesus is greater. Greater than Moses. Greater than the law. Greater than any hope this world offers. In this sermon, Pastor Mark Groen unpacks three key truths—Christ’s faithfulness, His divine identity, and our call to hold fast to Him. The message urges us to persevere in faith, root our confidence in the One who built the house, and reflect on what it means to truly consider Jesus in the real moments of our lives.
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If you want to get into a heated conversation, ask this question, who's the greatest? Now if you're rather egocentric, you might think that you are, but I hate to break it to you, you're not. But depending on the category, that you're talking about, the conversation could get rather interesting. There's all kinds of things we could have this conversation about. Who is the greatest basketball player? Now, the discussion could have a range of answers based upon the criteria that we would make that determination on. The discussion would get even more difficult when we move on to, say, another sport, like baseball or football, because the varied positions in those sports keep the conversation from being narrowed down.
How could we possibly come to an agreement between us on who the greatest baseball player in history was, when we probably couldn't even come up with an agreement on whether or not a pitcher should even be considered? So how could we even get to who the best person was? Then we think of some other examples. What if I were to suggest that an offensive lineman was the greatest football player of all time? You'd probably laugh at me and suggest a quarterback or two as candidates for that title. What is a quarterback without good protection in front of him?
And we can do this with pretty much every topic. Who's the greatest? What are the criteria? Who's, say, the best singer? The most compelling actress? Who in our family makes the best chocolate chip cookies? The greatest and best is something that we greatly desire to witness, and it fuels a lot of our conversations. This is something that we want to know. We want to have these discussions many times. We want to know who the best is. And as we read in our passage for today, we see the author of Hebrews making an assertion of greatness.
And in this case, it isn't up for discussion. Jesus is the greatest. And the author of Hebrews does this in comparing Jesus to Moses. And this was important to draw out for the Hebrew Christians who received this letter back in the first century. But it's also important to us. as we come to this passage and as we dig into it to understand what it means for us today. And to help us understand those things, we're going to have three main things that we're going to be looking at today. The first thing we're going to see is that Jesus was faithful.
Now that's a no-brainer, right? But it's something that we absolutely need to be deliberate about understanding for ourselves and teaching to others. Jesus, in his earthly ministry, was faithful to the mission that he was sent to do. And that mission was not merely his moral teaching or his ministry of healing. The faithfulness we talk about with Jesus is the faithfulness to the mission of having to suffer and die for the people of God. Because if we get this wrong, if we get this wrong, we get the gospel wrong. And so we need to understand the faithfulness of Jesus and that the purpose of that faithfulness was to suffer and die for you and I.
Secondly, we're going to see the divinity of Jesus on clear display for us once again. The reason that Jesus is greater than Moses is not only that he was faithful in his work for us, it wasn't because he was better at doing something. The work that is great that Jesus did is because he was building something and doing what only God could do for us. Last week, we saw how important the idea of Jesus taking on human flesh is in understanding who Jesus is and what he did. And here again, and throughout the book of Hebrews, we're going to see this over and over.
It shows us that we have a real salvation in a very real time and space history. This salvation that we have in Christ is real because our sin is very real. And lastly, We see that we're called to persevere in the faith. We must hold fast to what we believe. The temptations of the world are out there. We feel it every single day. The call to turn our back on the faith is constant. It's like a beating drum over and over. But we must instead hold fast to the faith. we must persevere. This is the call on our lives and we need to take it seriously.
And we do this by living a life of repentance and faith and trusting in the work of Christ alone on our behalf. And so we come to this passage and it's packed. It's only six verses but there's a lot here and we see our first point that Jesus was faithful spelled out for us right here in the first two verses. The first question that we need to ask as we look at our passage for this morning is, what's the context? This is always important when we look at reading the Bible passages that we look at, but it becomes really important when we see a certain word in the passage, therefore.
We need to find out what the therefore is therefore. We need to know why it's being said. Clearly, the immediate context of this is important if the word therefore is there. As you may remember from last Sunday, we saw the importance of Jesus coming and saving the people of God. He came not to save angels. That's what the end of Hebrews 2 was about. Jesus didn't come to save angels. He came to save his brothers. He came to save people. He came to save them from their very real sin. And we read there that He did this by turning aside the wrath of God.
And so that is what leads into these passages for today. That's what these two verses are about. And so what is being brought into focus for us is that if Jesus did all these things, and He did them for us, then we need to be careful to hold fast to what Jesus did for us. And we see the author of Hebrews reminding his readers that they're a part of the family of God and they not only have a heavenly calling, they share in it. And this is a significant idea. This is significant language here. First we see the idea of being a part of the family of God is being brought out.
That's why the term brothers is used. And this isn't just men, it's just the way the text spoke back then. It conveys everyone who is a part of the family of God, a part of the household of faith. And so we can say that we are all sisters and brothers here. We're united together. We share in a heavenly calling. As Christians, we're united to Christ. And so we're united to each other. And because of this, we can call God Father. Now we kind of think flippantly, I think, of calling God Father. We're used to it.
We confess it in the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed. It's all throughout Scripture. We're used to it. But have we ever really stopped and thought about the significance of that word Father? We call God Father. That means that the Almighty, the Holy One, the Sovereign One of all of creation, We can use that intimate word, Father. He is not a distant deity who wound up the universe like a toy soldier and said, let's see what happens. Let's see what it runs into. That's not what's happening. This is the sovereign God of the universe. He is active in his creation, and he's holy, and you and I are not.
We have no righteousness of our own, but yet, because of what he has done for us in Jesus, we're able to call this Sovereign Holy One Father. In a few minutes from now, we'll pray the Lord's Prayer, and I want you to think about that. When we say the Lord's Prayer, when we say our Father who art in heaven, think about the significance of that truth. Because we're united to Christ, we are privileged to be able to call God Father. And we can go even further with this. The people in front of you, the people next to you, the people across the aisle from you, they can say the same thing.
We are calling God Father. That's an amazing truth because that means we're brothers and we're sisters. We're united together. That's an amazing truth and we need to remember that. We share, as it says here in Hebrews, in a heavenly calling. this heavenly calling is from God we we come to faith not on our own but because the Word of God with the Holy Spirit brings us to faith this isn't an earthly thing it's a heavenly thing as it says here our coming to faith is from God and we all share in it we share in it together and so what does it say it says that we should consider Jesus We should consider Jesus.
Now, why is the author of Hebrews making such an obvious statement? Well, it's because the people that he's writing to are considering turning away from Jesus. They're thinking about returning to Judaism. And the author wants them to think about this one, this Jesus who has died for them, who suffered for them, the one who brought them to faith, the one who united them together. And so he tells them to consider Jesus, and he uses two terms for Jesus here, apostle and high priest. Now, we're familiar with the idea of Jesus as high priest, but I think the term apostle throws us off a bit, because in our minds, apostles are Peter, John, James, Thomas, Paul, Jesus is, well, Jesus.
That's how we refer to Jesus. But the word apostle means to be someone who is sent to proclaim a message. And that's what the author of Hebrews is trying to do today. What he's trying to say is Jesus is the one who came with the message, and he is the high priest that all other high priests pointed to. Jesus is the one. Jesus brings a message, but he is also the one who brings the sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins. In fact, that message that he has, that message he is called as an apostle to do, is forgiveness.
And we see that Jesus is faithful. He was faithful to come to earth, live the perfect life, suffer and die. That was his mission. And the book of Hebrews talks about this. It isn't just the faithfulness of Jesus in keeping the law. It's about his faithfulness to God and the mission and the proclamation about his salvation for God's people. And so to help us understand this faithfulness that Jesus had for us, the author of Hebrews brings in someone that his audience trusts. In fact, it's someone that they are considering going back to because these Hebrew folk, they would have understood Moses and they would have trusted Moses as this law giver.
Moses was unique. He was the one who God entrusted with establishing their sacrificial system, their rituals, the law. And so what you can feel here as we move through the text, we can feel the flow here of the argument that Hebrews is making. Hey, Jesus did this for you. and he is the messenger and the one who gave the sacrifice of himself. He was faithful. And you know what that reminds me of? The author of Hebrews is saying, it reminds me of someone you really like. It reminds you, it should remind you of Moses. He was faithful in God's house and Jesus is too.
He's trying to get them to see that Jesus has done what Moses did. He's bringing a new covenant So like I said, you can feel that in the text as we read it. And it moves us along to our second point. That this is going to see us looking deeper at the divinity of Jesus. And the argument continues here in the next two verses. Moses is great, guys. Moses is wonderful. But let's think about Jesus here. Let's consider him. He is great. but he has been counted of even more glory than Moses. And where does the author of Hebrews root that glory?
He roots it in the idea of the builder being greater than the house itself. And you have to love it when scripture gives you a great illustration to work with to help us understand it, right? Because we get this idea. Clearly, any architectural structure that we marvel at is not as great as the one who was able to conceive of it, able to execute it, and build it. I think each one of us, we could probably think of some amazing structure that we've seen in our lives, whether it was a skyscraper that boggles our minds or a bridge that gets us from one point to another.
I think each one of us has marveled at what must have been necessary for it to be possible. How does a skyscraper stand that tall? How does that bridge support all these cars and trucks going across it? We are understanding here what the author of Hebrews is saying. The one who is able to do these things is greater than the structure itself. Because Moses gave something great when he delivered the law to the people. But he wasn't the architect. Moses wasn't the architect of the law and the rituals. And that's what we're seeing driven home to us.
Jesus is worthy of more glory because he's the one who was there before that law was even given. His holiness, his majesty, his power, they're the foundation that the law is rooted in. And that's the big point here. Jesus is greater. He is worthy of more glory. He not only was faithful to do the work of God, But He is God Himself, and so He is able to save His people, a people that He has created for Himself. And as we get to verse 4, this point is made about Jesus using this illustration of the builder.
Every house has a builder, but who builds everything? Who builds everything? Well, it's God. And his point is very clear that Jesus is the one who built this salvation. And so he is worthy of more glory. And the understanding of God and of the salvation that we have in Jesus Christ is so important for us in our day. Because there are those who teach that this idea that we believe and confess the divinity of Jesus They teach that this is an invention of later Christianity, long after Jesus walked the earth. Yet what we see here, what we see here in Hebrews is that this is not the case.
Hebrews clearly teaches that Jesus is divine. And we don't know the exact date that the book of Hebrews was written, but we can be confident that it was prior to the year 70, because this book talks about the sacrificial system, and so it had to have been written before the temple was destroyed. This isn't a later invention, two, three hundred years later, that Jesus is divine. The book of Hebrews, which was written before the year 70, tells us who Jesus is. This isn't a later idea, and we have to remember that this is what scripture teaches us about Jesus.
The idea of Jesus being divine is not some late development. It's the early witness of the church, and it's the witness of the true church today. Do not be deceived. Do not be deceived by those who would distort the truth. because the truth of the divinity of Jesus shows us that he is worthy of glory. It also shows us that his salvation is secure. His salvation is sure. You can rest in the truth that the price that has been paid for your sin is sufficient because it isn't the idea of humans. It's the promise of God and you can trust it.
Why? Because God keeps his covenant. And this leads us to our final point for today. God keeps his covenant with us and so we're called to persevere because it's the truth of God and it is our hope. And the illustration of the house continues. And it reminds us that Moses was just a worker in the house of God. He was a servant who brought the law and showed us the path to the Messiah. But he was not the Messiah. He was not God. And he wasn't even the Son. And this is an important truth that we need to remember.
We need to distinguish between the law and the gospel because the law shows us our sin and the rituals in it pointed us to the salvation that was going to come in Jesus Christ. If we believe that the law is how we're saved, then we are making Jesus a worker in the house of Moses. Let's remember that. If we believe that works are how we are saved, if the law is how we are saved, then Moses isn't a worker in the house of Jesus, Jesus is a worker in the house of Moses. And that's not what scripture teaches.
Every time we believe that we are saved by our own doing, we're saying the house of Moses is greater. We're saying it's greater than the house of God. We value the law, yes. We desire to conform our lives to the law of God, but it's not how we're saved. The gospel is how we're saved. It's how we are rescued from our sin and unbelief. We must always remember that God is the builder of the house and that our salvation rests on him. As we see here in this passage, it speaks of what was to come later on in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Moses was a faithful messenger, but now we have the one that's promised. Now we have Jesus, the divine Son, who is faithful over the house and brings us salvation from God. And then we see again the idea of our unity. We see again that we are a part of the family of God. We're His house. We are a dwelling place for God. We are His people. And He shows His love for us in the fact that He saved us by His grace. And so because of all that He has done, all that has been done for us in Christ, we're called to persevere in the faith.
We're called to hold fast. Because the Lord Jesus Christ has taken hold of us. Notice what it says here. Hold fast to our confidence. This confidence being spoken of here is not a confidence in ourselves. This isn't arrogance. Our confidence lies in the one who has saved us. And we've seen who this one who saved us is through the book of Hebrews so far. He is our great God and King. He is our great High Priest. He is all of these things. And because of this, we can have confidence in the salvation that He gives us.
And so when we're talking about holding fast as believers, what are we doing? We're resting in Christ alone to save us. What we so desperately need to remember in order to hold fast is that this, the salvation that we have in Christ, is all we've got. There's no other hope. If we think that the great rescue by God of his people can fail, then there is literally nothing else to run to. So are you gonna rest in your own works? Are you going to believe that somehow you can save yourself from sin, death, and hell?
You won't. And that won't be how you can hold fast to the faith. And we must always remember an important truth. We are called to persevere in faith, but we have a great gift from God. The Holy Spirit gives us faith. The Holy Spirit is at work in us and building us up in faith, and that's why we need to hear the Word, so that the Spirit can do His work to grow us in holiness and empower us to hold fast in our confidence. And there's another important truth about persevering in the faith. Because our faith rests on God taking a hold of us in Christ, then we have to remember that God will not fail us.
He did not perform a great rescue to just leave you to your own devices. God has laid hold of you in Christ and He will not let you go. And we see here that this not only causes us to hold fast, but we're to boast. We're to boast in our hope. And this isn't shameful boasting. Again, it's not arrogance. It is us proclaiming that despite our sin, despite our unbelief, despite everything that we've done, God has taken a hold of us and saved us by his grace. And so we boast not in who we are or in what we've done, but instead we're boasting in who God is and what he's done.
This is our hope, and we should be proclaiming it from the rooftops. It's good news. And good news needs to be proclaimed so that everyone may hear. And this is the truth. Jesus is worthy of more glory. And it's important for our lives. I believe there's some challenges that come to us from this. There's two for this week that I want you to consider. The first, I want to challenge you this week to consider Jesus. And you're moving about this week. Consider why it is that you follow Jesus. In a world that throws everything at you, why do you hold on to Him?
Ask yourself, what does this mean for my life? How does it affect how I look at the world? How does it impact my life in the everyday moments? Now maybe these are questions you contemplate regularly. But they're good questions. How is my faith in the truth that Jesus saved me from my sin going to impact me in my real life this week? The Hebrew Christians were considering returning to Judaism. Now that isn't a threat for you and I. But there are plenty of temptations in the world that are calling us away from faithfulness. The world calls us away, but we are called to the Lord Jesus Christ.
When we consider what Jesus has to offer and what he has done for us to rescue us, the truth is the world has nothing to offer us in comparison. And so I challenge you to do the hard work this week and ask these questions about what your faith means to you. How does it translate into your life this week? And secondly, we're called to hold fast. As we ask these questions, these important questions, we have to hold fast to what we have in Jesus because we can't root our answers in these hard questions within ourselves.
Instead, they need to be rooted in the Word of Almighty God. So hold fast to the truth of Scripture. It is so vital for believers in our time to hold fast to our faith and to the Word of God because there are voices going on around us all the time. There is no silence in our world. There are competing voices all the time. So we need to have a clear voice. We need to clearly hear the word of God. We need to read it, we need to hear it, we need to know it as Christians.
We believe that God is at work in us through his word and spirit. That faith that we have is built up by the word and so to hold fast, we need God's word. Jesus is worthy of more glory than anyone. He is the greatest. And when we understand this truth that Scripture immerses us in, then we are able to hold fast. So consider Jesus and all of who He is and all of what He has done for you. When we consider that truth, we will hold fast, for there's no other name by which we can be saved.
So may we boast in this hope. May we trust in this hope. May we cling to this hope. May we hold fast and believe this good news. Amen.
📖 Keep Considering Jesus
Jesus is greater than Moses—not just a faithful servant, but the builder of the house. If this sermon helped you reflect on Christ’s unmatched glory and your call to hold fast, we encourage you to go deeper.
Explore the full Hebrews series: Once for All
Want to grow in how you read the Bible with Christ at the center? Check out our reflection: Reading Scripture with Christ at the Center
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