Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Reformation Covenant Church
## Pastor Dennis Tuuri
### Hebrews 7:11-19

Today’s sermon text is found in Hebrews 7:11-19. Forgive the many pages of handouts today. The second page of those six pages of handouts contains the actual text in a form that makes it maybe a little easier to catch the flow of what’s happening and see the central point: change of priesthood, change of law. The first page simply puts that text in context in the greater overall structure of the book and then this central section of Hebrews that we’re in.

The middle of this section of chapter 7 that we’re in—last week, this week, and next week—but page two, if you want to follow along, please stand for the reading of God’s word, either listening or following in the printed handout or in your scriptures. Hear the word of the Lord.

“Therefore, if perfection were through the Levitical priesthood, for under it the people received the law, what further need was there that another priest should rise according to the order of Melchizedek and not be called according to the order of Aaron? For the priesthood being changed of necessity, there is also a change of the law. For he of whom these things are spoken belongs to another tribe from which no man has officiated at the altar. For it is evident that our Lord arose from Judah, of which tribe Moses spoke nothing concerning priesthood. And it is yet far more evident if in the likeness of Melchizedek there arise another priest who has come not according to the law of a fleshly commandment, but according to the power of an endless life.

For he testifies, ‘You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.’ For on the one hand there is an annulling of the former commandment because of its weakness and unprofitableness. For the law made nothing perfect. On the other hand, there is the bringing in of a better hope through which we draw near to God.”

Let’s pray. Ah Father, we thank you for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, that more perfect hope, the priest that all the priests of the Old Testament history were pale foreshadowings of. We thank you for our great high priest. And we thank you that through him we have access to your throne of grace. Through him we may draw near to you in relationship forever.

And certainly here in the context of worship, we draw near as well, being bold to approach Lord God your throne, being clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ and being assured that his shed blood has provided full atonement for all of our sins that would otherwise separate us from you and make us liable to your judgments in your special presence.

Lord God, bless us in your presence today. Descend to us, Lord God, even as we ascend to you. Feed us with your word, Father. May Jesus speak through this word, telling us of the great blessing it is to be able to draw near through him and also of the great responsibility that attends that glorious good news today. In Jesus’ name we ask it and for the sake of his kingdom, not ours. Amen.

Please be seated.

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I’m going to be talking toward the end of the sermon about preparing to draw near to God in worship. You know, it’s going to be a little bit of a toe-stepping sermon. I’m going to be stepping on a few toes. I’ll start by stepping on toes outside of our church for the most part and then stepping on some toes maybe inside of our church and my own also, maybe. But whatever I say in that part of the sermon—don’t have it misunderstood.

It’s hard to imagine much of a better day of preparation for Lord’s Day worship than many of us experienced yesterday. What a delight! Weddings are always such a joy, particularly to us older people, you know, who have watched kids grow up and now we see one after the other move ahead committed to Christ, marrying someone committed to Christ. What a joy and delight! What a time of blessing and looking back on the faithfulness of God and the Fukudas and the Dohs—the faithfulness of God in bringing Matt and Anna together, rejoicing in that solemn ceremony that was so filled with joy as well.

And then glorious reception afterwards, as usual at the Fukuda House. What a wonderful time of hospitality and joy! I left earlier than some, but still I was there long enough to see the deck nearly give way. The dancing continued with great strenuousness by the young people. Praise God for the holy young people of this church who know that at the heart of the Christian faith is joy in the forgiveness of sin and the liberty we have as Christians—just a delightful way to prepare for the Lord’s day. We hopefully thought a little bit yesterday, you know, we’re going to the marriage feast that’s even better—tomorrow, the marriage supper of the Lamb—and we should have days of great joy here as well. That’s what the Lord’s day, Sunday, the Christian Sabbath, should be.

You know, fruit and fruit. We talked about a little bit yesterday at the wedding, and we had tremendous fruit yesterday that we all tasted and delighted in the wedding and the reception. And we talked today about the root again—the work of the Lord Jesus Christ that’s produced this. And so that’s kind of what we’ll be talking about.

In Hebrews, we’re moving slowly toward the central section of the book. And I think it was evident from the songs we sang: drawing near is the big kind of conclusion of this section that we read 11 through 19. This section that’s marked off by an inclusio—big word again. You little kids are getting to know it, aren’t you? A little bookend. “Perfection” is the bookends around this section, telling us that we didn’t impose this on the text. The text told us, “Treat me as a unit. God’s put this perfection and perfection around us.” It’s in the text.

And the great conclusion then is this: perfection is that we might draw near. And you know, some commentators have said this is the theme of Hebrews. This is the whole point of Hebrews: drawing near. And a little bit later, we’ll see over and over again in Hebrews—we’ve already seen it a lot—drawing near, drawing near, drawing near. Ultimately, that has reference, of course, to drawing near to God in salvation, drawing near to God at our death. Of course, we prepare for that.

But in Hebrews, if we look at the structure and match the sections up clearly—in chapter 10, which is the counterbalance to the text we’re in now, 10:1-18, and then the application, the exhortation, that follows—it’s clear that drawing near has a very important reference to worship. And in fact, the Greek term “drawing near” in the Septuagint is used over and over again of cultic practices—not in the sense of weird religious practices, but of the religious practices of the Old Testament church drawing near in the context of formal worship.

So in Hebrews, we don’t want to take away the fullness of perfection—salvation has come—we don’t want to take away that we’ll draw near ultimately to God in his throne upon our death. But we also want to see that the primary emphasis in Hebrews is that Sabbathkeeping that remains to the people of God, drawing near through Jesus that he has brought to perfection.

And so that’s what this text is all about. What I want to do today is just look through the text—kind of the way we’re doing these days—explain a few things in the text and then draw some points of application.

There are six pages. The last page is a coloring sheet for the kids as the pertinence of it, so you’ll know ahead of time. We’ve got Abraham worshiping at a stone altar, and that’s going to transition in covenant history to the Levitical order. You know, this verse here, “if perfection is through the Levitical priesthood”—Levitical is a very odd word in the Greek. It’s very uncommon. The only place it’s used in common Greek of the time was the title page for the book of Leviticus, which the author of the Septuagint—which the author certainly was familiar with—and that’s probably what informed him here. The book of Leviticus was the new rules for the priests, changing from the patriarchal worship to the Levitical worship.

Getting a little ahead of myself, but the coloring sheet is to remind us of that. There’s a kids page for notes on the fifth page—that children’s page we always have. I’ll review that at the end of the sermon this time so that we kind of review the sermon together that way and the kids get the things marked in if they didn’t get them as I go through.

And then the two middle pages are handouts we’ll look at. Don’t look at them now. Usher guidelines and a CR proposed memorial on worship that it’s pertinent to our topic today. We’ll refer to those in the application part of the sermon. But now just stay on page two if you’re using the handouts or in your Bibles, and we’ll talk through a little bit of this Leviticus reference in Hebrews 7:11-19.

Now remember, for those of you who were here last week, there are three sections to chapter 7, and it’s all about Melchizedek. He’s explaining this “order of Melchizedek” thing, and last week in the first 10 verses, he explained that by going back to the historical account in Genesis 14. Now, however, Genesis 14 is left behind for this sermon and next sermon—verses 11 through the end of 7. Now he’s referring back again to Psalm 110.

So in today’s text, the author goes wild. He wants us to think back to Psalm 110, verse 4, the only other place in the Old Testament where Melchizedek is referred to by name. And that informs this whole chapter: Jesus being according to the order of Melchizedek.

One point that came up in the question and answer time last week: we read last week in the text that Melchizedek was made like the son of God. And I just wanted to read from Vine’s expository dictionary. I mentioned last week I had not done a word study on this word “made.” Well, Vine says this: it means to make like, and it’s used in Hebrews 7:3 of Melchizedek as made like the son of God. In other words, Vine says in his expository dictionary, “in the facts related and withheld in the Genesis record.” That was my point last week. And the usage of this term “made”—it doesn’t mean created. It means he was made like Jesus, as Vine said, “in the facts related in Genesis 14 and also in the facts withheld.” So there were facts withheld that pointed to Melchizedek being made like it in the text of Scripture itself. And that’s the basis for understanding Jesus.

That’s going to be really helpful to us as we get to application, because we could get all confused here, filled with arcane speculation about Melchizedek and if Jesus puts the Levitical worship totally out of sync, then how do we worship? It must be like Melchizedek worship. Well, how did he worship? And then we start thinking about it and we start reading extrabiblical literature and we do this and we do that and we’re off on a rabbit trail that God doesn’t want us going down. That’s not the point of this chapter—to figure out how Melchizedek worshiped. The point of the chapter is that Melchizedek was a clear indication that Levitical worship would be transformed, changed, would find its completion in the coming of Jesus.

Okay, that’s how Melchizedek is used, and that’s the only way Melchizedek is used. Okay, so we can make too much of him, and we don’t want to do that.

All right, so moving on to today’s text. We’re told first in verse 11, “if perfection”—there’s the key word that shows us the brackets to this section: perfection. Perfection means the end, the purpose for which something was being done, the completion of it. “If perfection were through the Levitical priesthood”—that priesthood described in the book of Leviticus, Levitical from the title page of Leviticus—”for under it the people received the law.”

And he’s going to make a point here, but understand first that what he’s doing is making the case for the primacy of the Lord Jesus Christ, his superiority. That’s the whole book’s about this: Jesus is better than the angels. He’s better than Moses. He’s better than the prophets. He’s better than Aaron. He’s better than the Levites. He’s better than Melchizedek, who himself was better than Abram. So he’s better, better, better.

And if he’s better, then things would have changed. His point is that Leviticus was never written to bring completion and perfection. It was written as a shadow. And he’ll say this explicitly in chapters 9 and 10: understand that those things were shadows of the reality to come in Jesus. He is not critiquing Levitical worship. He is critiquing a misuse of Levitical worship. His situation is men were being tempted to go back to Levitical temple worship as the way that completion was ushered in—almost as a way of salvation, one could say, or maintaining one’s salvation. That’s what he’s critiquing.

You see, he’s not critiquing Levitical worship. Moises Silva puts it this way in a Westminster Theological Journal article: “Not because there was anything intrinsically wrong with Levitical worship, but because in the divine arrangement, it was designed as a shadow anticipating the substance. The substance therefore far from opposing the shadow is its fulfillment. That is perfection.”

The word we’re used to. See, so the fulfillment of Levitical worship is Jesus Christ. He brings it to its completion. So it’s not the Old Testament that the author of this sermon is critiquing—of course, we would understand that—but it almost seems like it. No, he’s critiquing a misuse of Levitical worship, that it could in and of itself bring completion. And of course, it was a pale foreshadowing of Jesus.

This is important because the application point will be that while we don’t want to fall into the ditch of going back to the Levitical shadow when we have the reality, neither do we want to jump into the ditch of dumping the shadows in terms of informing us what the reality is about. The shadows are important—they give us things about the substance. Again, I’m sort of getting ahead of myself, but what we have throughout the Scriptures is, you know, a sacrifice at the beginning by Abel—a lamb—and Jesus comes along as the Lamb of God to take away the sin of the world. And all of worship in the Bible can be seen as kind of a prism, you know, taking out the constituent elements of what the one Lamb of God, the completion, the fulfillment, would bring in at the end—Jesus. And we understand Jesus better when we look at the prism of Leviticus, for instance, and other prisms of the Old Testament that reflect out that he purified us from our sins.

He’s transformed our lives. He’s made our vocation acceptable to him—tribute offering in Leviticus. He’s brought peace, joy, and community. Those are all, you know, prismed out of the spectrum of all that Jesus is—individual elements. And when we want to engage ourselves in the reality of the thing, the shadows aren’t ditched. The shadows find their completion here and inform us as to who it is that we’re worshiping and how that worship should look.

So quite important here, out of the chute, you know, he is not critiquing and in fact he’s doing just the reverse. He’s pointing back to the word itself, to Levitical structures, to the Psalms, to Old Testament citations to say their whole purpose was to bring about completion. It’s obvious from the way they were set up.

So this first verse tells us that. Now, the next little section—perfection, completion—ultimately, oh, one other point here: if we look at the book and at the bottom of the section on your handout, if we look at the last verse, perfection, completion means being able to draw near to God in a way we couldn’t in the Old Testament. You couldn’t draw near in Mosaic worship. I mean, you could get kind of close, you know, you could get so far and no further. And only once a year the high priest would go into the holy of holies.

So if you look at drawing near as coming into the presence of God and having communion with him, et cetera, in a fullest sense, drawing near—nobody could do it except the high priest once a year. So you’re kept at a distance. And it’s on the basis of that—now we see the completion of things—that in our drawing near we go into the heavenlies. We ascend into the presence of God. Hebrews will later tell us we ascend into that presence with the church militant on earth and the church triumphant in heaven and a myriad of angelic hosts. This is what we do in worship. We’re in heaven. And the Bible also asserts God comes down to be with us. But you see, we’re drawn near finally because of completion. So perfection has its immediate application as drawing near if we see the section together in that sense. So perfection is drawing near.

Now, “for under it the people received the law.” Now we can start to get confused, but we must remember that here certainly and throughout the book of Hebrews, when he speaks of “the law,” he’s not talking about “you shall not kill, you shall not commit adultery”—I mean, maybe you could be referring to that—but what he’s talking is the law of worship. Law in Hebrews is worship law.

The book of Leviticus was written because the old family priests were replaced by the tribe of Levi. So, new rules of worship were needed. And so, “for under it the people received the law”—and “under it” is maybe better translated “in association with the Levitical priesthood the people received the law.”

You see, when God transformed worship, when he stopped having them worship through the heads of families, through the patriarchs at stone altars like the little kids’ coloring page on the back of today’s handouts, and stopped the firstborn, replaced them with the Levites, established a new system of worship—not totally new, it looks an awful lot like what Cain and Abel were doing and what the fathers were doing (that little pile of rocks on the coloring page becomes a mountain, so to speak, at the tabernacle). The bronze altar looks mountainlike. There are actually steps up to it to make it look like a mountain. They’re just going back to Eden throughout the whole thing. They’re going to the mountain again to worship God, going up. So it’s not totally new. It’s transformed.

But when that happens, there was a change of priesthood from, you know, patriarchs, the fathers, to Levites, a special tribe, and ironic priests. And as a result, there was a need for a law. And so the law they received is the book of Leviticus. For the most part, that’s what he’s talking about here.

So “under it the people received the law,” and then “what further need if it had been able to brought to a completion, what further need was there that another priest should arise according to the order of Melchizedek?” So this is his second argument for the supremacy of Christ and the error of the Hebrews wanting to go back to Levitical forms.

The first argument was: those forms were intended to be misused by you, because they were not intended to bring completion, drawing near to God. And the very system shows you couldn’t get near as you want to be to God without getting burned up. You see, so he says the system itself wouldn’t bring you near. And secondly, he says Psalm 110 says another priest’s going to come according to the order of Melchizedek. And if the Levitical thing was right, why would that have been there in Psalm 110? “What further need was there that another priest should arise?” Psalm 110 said there was a need. And so he’s saying by two evidences—is the system itself not being able to draw you near, and secondly, the text of Scripture saying another priest, the eternal priest, would be not a Levitical priesthood—both those things you should have known really easily.

He’s saying you become sluggish and dull of hearing. It’s really easy to understand based on the Old Testament that you don’t want to go back to Levitical forms in the temple. So this is his argument.

“So there’s another priest to come not called according to the order of Aaron.” And then the central part of this: “For the priesthood being changed of necessity there is also a change of the law.” So he says you should know this: when the priesthood changed in Leviticus—when God changed from patriarchs to Levites—there was a change, a transformation of worship. It became different. And you should know that, you know, Jesus has come. You know he’s the completion of the shadows. He’s the one according to the order Melchizedek prophesied. We got a change of priesthood. We’re going to have another change of law. There’s going to be a transformation.

He’s not saying jump past the shadows. We’re going to build on that. No doubt he’ll do that as the book goes on. He’ll show the correlation between Jesus and the shadows. But still, there’s a change. We don’t have blood anymore. There are lots of changes to how we do worship now with the new priest.

So that’s kind of the central point of this: they should have recognized just like worship was transformed then, so worship was transformed at the coming of Jesus Christ. You know, worship went through lots of transformations in the Old Testament. We had Cain and Abel. Then with Noah, things seem to have taken on a different thrust there’s now clean and unclean, right, in that covenant. Abrahamic covenant—things change a little bit, idea of sacrifice and God fulfilling those things in his right. Then we come along with the Mosaic covenant, we add the Levitical priesthood. That informs us.

After that, in the Davidic covenant, what do we have? We got a whole new way of worship. We got the tabernacle of David and it’s transformed again, right? New priest in a way. Not really new priest, but a change of covenantal administration. And the priests function a little differently now in the tabernacle of David. And then Solomon builds the temple and it’s changed again. Now the tabernacle rituals are linked with the tabernacle of David musical worship, and now we got temple worship. Hezekiah’s time using the Psalms and patterns of the tabernacle of David. So it’s transformation, transformation.

He’s using the big one here—Leviticus—to show them this is what’s going on and worship is now going to mature into its completion. Now we’re going to be able to draw near to God in worship in completion during Lord’s day service, and this is the end of the line because Jesus has come—transformation.

So all of that stuff helps us understand what was coming. And still though, one ditch is to fall into: “Well, nothing’s changed,” and the other ditch is to fall into: “Well, it’s changed and all that means nothing to us.” No, not at all. And the author of Hebrews is quite clear about that.

All right. “For he of whom the things are spoken belong to another tribe, from which no man has officiated at the altar.” Now see that. See, already he’s linking it back to Mosaic worship. He’s saying Jesus officiated at an altar. So even in the disjuncture he’s putting between Jesus and Levi, okay, and the Levitical order, he’s not totally severing the bond. He’s saying now we’re going to have a guy from the tribe of Judah, kingly tribe, loaded with significance in the text, of course, that we can only touch on here just a moment, but kingly tribe—but he’s going to officiate at an altar. And it’s the point of the whole Hebrews: he does that.

So see, he’s not severing it. He’s saying it’s transformed. And in terms of the genealogical requirements, that’s totally annulled, he’ll say. But the worship still is tethered. We got a guy, the high priest, the eternal Son of God, officiating at an altar.

“It is evident that our Lord arose from Judah, of which tribe Moses spoke nothing concerning priesthood.” Now the word “arose” here just means this idea that we’ve got Judah and the kingly tribe, and the word “arose” itself doesn’t mean descended. It can be talked about as a star rising, a shoot springing forth. The way the Septuagint—the passages that the Septuagint points back to in the Hebrew Old Testament—are passages of messianic kingly significance. So here, you know, the preeminence of Jesus is certainly involving the priestly order, but like Melchizedek was a king-priest, Jesus’s kingship is being pointed to as well—that he is of the tribe of Judah, the kingly tribe, and that he has arose. You know, the star has risen, the scepter has come, the root has budded forth, the shoot has come, all the metaphors that you want to use. But the messianic Jesus has come, and this is the one of whom Moses spoke nothing concerning priesthood—that tribe. That is.

All right. So then we go on to verse 15: “It is yet far more evident if in the likeness of Melchizedek there arises another priest.” So again this is kind of making the point he’s already sort of made in the earlier section—another priest has risen like Melchizedek.

And then verse 16: “who has come not according to the law of a fleshly commandment but according to the power of an endless life.” In Hebrews, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is never really spoken of all that directly. The epistles are filled with references of the resurrection, but in Hebrews it is this ascent of Jesus Christ into heaven that is the resurrection message. And the power of an endless life is a reference to the resurrection—to Easter Sunday, to Resurrection Sunday, and to his resurrection—the power of an endless life. But it’s put in the context of his ascension and entering into heaven because that’s the freight that he’s carrying in this book. We’re going to get to draw near into the heavenly places every Lord’s day. And so that’s the freight, and that’s why he phrases it in this way. But it is definitely, you know, a great picture of the coming of Jesus Christ.

This kind of argument is put powerfully in the sense of the resurrected Christ, the power of an endless life, as opposed to those series of successive generations of Levitical priests that always died.

“For he testified, ‘You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.’” Again, Melchizedek did die. It’s the genealogical record in Genesis. We made this point. It took some time to make this point last week. That’s what he’s referring back to here. Again, he’s made like the Son of God, and the details that are put in, the details that are left out of the text. The text doesn’t put his birth, his death, his lineage. That’s an illustration of Jesus Christ. But it’s Jesus who has the power of an eternal life.

And then verse 18, finally: “For on the one hand, there is an annulling of the former commandment because of its weakness and unprofitableness.” And there specifically, it’s relating back to this genealogical portion of the Levitical order. But again, it’s certainly true that Leviticus was weak and unprofitable to bringing to completion because that was by the design of God. It’s not like something didn’t work. That’s the design of God. It was his way of showing them it’s pointing to something beyond it.

“For the law made nothing perfect”—because it wasn’t supposed to. You see, it didn’t bring anything to completion.

“On the other hand, there is the bringing in of a better hope through which we draw near to God.” So in the parallelism, that being brought to perfection is not by the law. It’s by the better hope. Not by carnal ordinances. By the power of an endless life, we are brought to completion, to drawing near. Humanity comes to its fulfillment, its completion, its perfection.

The author of Hebrews is saying through Jesus Christ coming. And that perfection and completeness is put in parallel fashion here to drawing near. And as I said, it has an eternal dimension to it. It has a present salvific dimension to it—our relationship to God through Christ in which we’ve drawn near. But clearly in Hebrews, the drawing near has reference to the worship of the church. That’s what he’s critiquing them for: wanting to go away from Christian worship and back to temple worship. You see.

And so clearly he’s going to tell them in Hebrews 10, “Let us therefore draw near, right? Boldness, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together.” The drawing near has its first application point for the Hebrews: the remaining Sabbath that we have. There’s a Sabbathkeeping that remains. There’s a worship that remains. There’s a drawing near to God in a special sense in Lord’s day worship.

And this is the very purpose of life. What you do in Lord’s day service—not Sunday school, not pre-Sunday school singing time, but during Lord’s day worship and covenant renewal worship from 11:00 to whatever it ends up being today, that period of time. I think you can make an excellent case from this. This is completion for you. Now, it’s prefiguring all the rest. God goes with us into the week. We go to him in eternity. All the rest. But it is here in a very heightened, concentrated way. This is why you were made. You were made to worship God. Your completion is found in coming before God in the wondrous, amazing ability to draw near to God—as close as you can get, eating the bread of the body of Christ, drinking his blood, drawing near to God at the meal. You see, that didn’t happen in the Old Testament really. Sort of the peace offering was sort of like that, but you know, for the most part you were held back, you were away from that holy of holies. You see.

So this is it. This should be a huge deal to us. This should be, you know, boy, if I want to find what my life’s all about, if I want meaning and purpose, well, number one, I got to start with saying meaning and purpose is going to church on Sunday and drawing near to God the way that the saints couldn’t for 4,000 years. Jesus Christ has come, has shed his precious blood, has done his work on the cross, has accomplished salvation for the purpose of bringing us to perfection and completion, which is defined in the text before us as drawing near.

Praise God for the clarity that should bring to us. We are to draw near.

All right. Now, let’s talk about the application points at the bottom of the page.

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## Application Points

How do we draw near? Well, and I’ve made this point already, but first of all, by not making more than we ought about the Melchizedekian references. I’m always amazed at how much speculation there is. You know, usually not in reformed churches. You know, the old saw is that a Presbyterian is an educated Baptist and an Episcopalian is a rich Presbyterian. Maybe I don’t mean to demean Baptists, but the fact is that in churches that have really worked hard at understanding the Scriptures, those churches tend not to get drawn away by arcane references that could kind of go here, there, and everywhere. And the Melchizedekian thing is one of those. People end up with all this speculation on what he was and what he did and all. That’s not the point.

The point in Hebrews is quite simple: He’s an illustration of Jesus. He’s a reminder that Levitical priesthood was going to be supplanted by another—Jesus, not Melchizedek, after the order like Melchizedek. And that Melchizedek had no recorded genealogy and no recorded mother, no recorded father. He had a mother and a father. I’m sure of it. Nothing recorded. You see, so we get way off in all this speculation.

And then people, you know, some people are looking at this stuff. Well, you know, the Levitical stuff is bad. Hebrews says, and as a result, we can’t worship that way. So we got to worship the way Melchizedek worshiped. Well, how is that? Well, I would guess we don’t know. How are we supposed to worship? So then they turn to a text or two—literally to a text or two in the epistles—and say, “Well, we’re supposed to have a song. Somebody has a Psalm. Somebody has a reading. That’s all worship is.” Well, where does it say that’s Melchizedekian worship? It doesn’t.

You see what’s it describing? We don’t know. It’s an individual little text. You see? And now individual little texts can be quite important, but more often than not, when we end up with making big points of doctrine out of itty-bitty little texts, we probably kind of got it wrong a little bit. And the text before us is: don’t make too much out of Melchizedek. It’s a simple point the author is making. Levitical priesthood is supplanted by another, and he’s kind of illustrated by the life of Melchizedek.

What we do have in Hebrews then is not an argument that we have to worship however it was Melchizedek worshiped, and we don’t know what that was. What we do have in Hebrews and in all the New Testament is that we’re still sort of in Levitical time. See, if you just take this text of Hebrews apart from its context, you end up thinking, well, it’s got nothing to do with us.

And now I’m starting to step on some toes—some people that are good men—but who say that the way you guys worship, being informed by Levitical worship, is all goofy. You know, it’s wrong because it’s been abrogated in Hebrews and thrown out. Well, you know, I don’t think so.

Let’s start without Hebrews. Let’s start even in the Old Testament prediction of what would happen when Jesus comes. In Isaiah 66:21, we read: “I will take some of them”—and this is talking about the new covenant, right?—”I will take some of them, men from the nations around Israel, non-Jews in new covenant. I will take some of them for priests and Levites, says the Lord.” He’s describing us. And he said that he taken some of us for priests and Levites, the elders of the church, you see, and he compares us to Levites and priests.

Well, maybe that’s just Old Testament language they were using. Well, no, because Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:13-14 says, “Don’t you know that those who minister the holy things eat of the things of the temple?” He’s talking about Leviticus, you know, Levites and priests. “And those who serve at the altar partake of the offerings of the altar. Even so, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should live from the gospel.”

Even so, the ministers of the gospel are priests and Levites. You see, Paul had no problem making that connection. He understood the Levitical order was a shadow and would be surpassed by Jesus, who was likened to Melchizedek. He understood all that. But he had no problem saying that New Testament elders and pastors are Levites and priests. And as a result, the tithe that related to them relates to Levites and priests as well—or related to Levites and priests—relates to pastors as well.

You can go through the epistles and just look for all the sacrificial references. They’re all over the place, these sort of things that draw a connection between the Levitical system and what we do in Lord’s Day worship. I mean, the author of the epistle, the sermon to the Hebrews, he doesn’t give us a bunch of stuff about how great Levitical worship was because that’s not his intent. His intent is correcting an abuse of that system. That’s what he’s addressing. And he leaves it up to us to sort of fill in the blanks and understand what it’s like not to abuse that system.

We saw in Hebrews 4, there remains a Sabbathkeeping. We saw in Hebrews 5 positive comparisons between Jesus and Aaron. Aaron was humble. Jesus was humble. Jesus is described like Aaron in the same way he’s described in this text—like Melchizedek. He’s described in Hebrews 5 like Aaron. So we have this stuff going on.

As we turn to the text, turn to Hebrews 10. We’ve made this point before, but it is kind of the bracket to what we have here in the overall outline of the book. It matches this section—Hebrews 10:1-18. It matches directly the section we’re in. And then in the middle of Hebrews, verses 19 and following, it matches the exhortation that led us into chapter 7 and chapter 6.

So 10:1—what do we read in the matching section? “For the law”—and remember, law is how they worshiped—”its commandments about how to worship. For the law, having a shadow of good things to come and not the very image of the things, can never with these sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.” You see, it matches. It’s supposed to—that’s the way the epistles, the sermons, are marked out. But what’s he saying? He’s saying again that the law couldn’t bring to perfection. But he’s also asserting here that the law, Levitical worship, is the shadow of the good things to come by which we can understand them.

“Would not they then have ceased to be offered?” So he said, “Well, the fact that they went on offering over and over again is yet another demonstration—as is Melchizedek—that they were looking forward to something that would complete and bring worshippers into the presence of God.”

And how does he describe it? He’s saying the worshippers, once purged, should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices, there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it’s not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. And he’s clearly saying that’s not what God was intending. Come on. He’s saying, forget that. That was a shadow.

“Wherefore, when he cometh into the world, he saith, ‘Sacrifice and offerings, thou wouldst not. But a body thou hast prepared for me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin, thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come, in the volume of the book, it is written of me to do thy will, Oh God.’”

So what is he saying? That the burnt offerings, the sacrifices, the meals with God—he’s not saying get rid of them. In the Psalms, David would build, the Son would build the temple, and the whole thing would continue. He’s saying that they are the shadow that is going to point to the coming of Jesus. And that means that Jesus is understood in relationship to those shadows.

The burnt offering was a transformation of the worshipper, right? The purification offering was the purifying of the worshipper from his sins. The meal was fellowship with God. And he’s saying that’s all the stuff that Jesus will come to do with his body, the incarnation, effects the purification from sins, affects our definitive transformation, brings us to the place where we can have a meal with God and draw near into the presence of God without, you know, the fire burning us off from the throne room.

So the whole point of Genesis is not to say this is all over. He’s saying no—Jesus is just like those priests, but he’s the completion of those priests. And that means that when those priests do things, it helps us understand who Jesus was.

“Verse 14: ‘By one offering he has perfected forever them that are sanctified.’” You know the word “offering” in Leviticus—you got the burnt offering and the tribute offering. That word literally in Hebrews means draw near. When you bring your drawing near, may it be this, this, and this. The purpose of the offerings was to draw near. Now you didn’t get too near. If you got too near, you had to get cleansed and desanified and all that stuff. You’d die if you got too near. So you were trying. The purpose of Leviticus is to get you to draw near. But you couldn’t get as near as you want to be.

Now Jesus, he brings the one drawing near. That is the completion of those pictures so that we can draw near all the way into the bosom of the Father. You see, we can have tight fellowship. We can come before God in the heavenlies in worship and have a meal with him the way they could in the Old Testament in the full presence of him—holy, holy stuff. The veils been ripped in two, you see.

So Hebrews 10 says, you know, now look, Jesus is the fulfillment of the shadows. And because they’re shadows, they help us to inform us about who Jesus was. And then verse 22 is the application: “Let us draw near then with true heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”

Now again, he’s referring to Levitical rights to describe the means by which we draw near to God. And of course, it’s not because we go through cleansing rites anymore. The waters of baptism, the full washing, the regeneration of Christ is being referred to. But the point again is you’re not going to understand Jesus if you don’t understand the shadows that are given to us in the Levitical system.

“Let us hold fast profession of our faith. Let us consider one another provoking to love and good works, not forsaking the assembling, the epi-synagoguing, the super-synagoguing of ourselves together.” So he makes the case for Christian worship. Now, he’s not talking about salvation, right? These are saved people. So when he says, “Let us draw near,” he’s referring preeminently to the worship of the church. Don’t forsake the assembling. Don’t stop going to church. Go there. Okay?

So we don’t want to make too much of Melchizedek. And we do not want to fall into the ditch of breaking totally with everything that the Old Testament says about worship.

Look at chapter 11. Let’s see. We could, you know what, you could do profitably, is just read through Hebrews 8 through 11 this afternoon or sometime this week or the next few weeks. And you will see over and over again this indication that—I know it’s not Hebrews 11:1. What is it? It’s maybe 9:11. Turn to chapter 9:11. Yeah. “Christ being come and high priest of good things to come.” That’s the center of the book, I believe. I think Van Til said that, but I believe he’s correct.

This is the center of Hebrews: that Jesus Christ has come as a high priest of good things to come. Melchizedek was not a high priest. He was a priest of God most high. High priest is a reference to Aaron. So Jesus is being compared now back to Aaron. He’s come as Aaron of good things to come, of the completion, so that we can draw near through what he has done.

So and again in verse 8: “Holy Ghost signifying that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest while as the first tabernacle was yet standing.” So he says that in Jesus, what do we do? We go into the holy of holies. He says the whole thrust of chapter 9 is that there’s this heavenly reality reflected in the tabernacle and then the temple. And that tabernacle and temple help us to understand the heavenly reality that will come when Jesus ushers us into the presence of God—their shadows.

I know I’m belaboring a point that probably most of you have no problem with. Understand that, but you’ve got to understand that there are debates going on. There may well be quite a debate. There is certainly contention even within the Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches over this specific matter.

There’s a worship memorial we’re proposing, and in some discussion about this last week, I got a quote from Gary Vanderhorn here, a pastor from up in Canada, who says: “On the one hand, some people think there’s abrogation and radical discontinuity and disjunction, but really what’s going on is a Christological transformation and glorification of worship.” That’s what’s happening, Gary says, and I think he’s right.

And the worship memorial that we’re going to be presenting at the CREC debate and then hopefully for adoption makes the same point: what we see in the Bible is a transformation, a maturation, a glorification of worship from the beginning of Genesis till the coming of Jesus Christ.

All right. So secondly, we draw near to God by appreciating the prefiguring of Christ’s work and our drawing near in the whole biblical history of worship, including Levitical worship.

Look at page three, I believe, the CREC memorial. We’re going to look just at a couple little sections of it. Not much of it, but I want you to be a little bit familiar with it. Be praying about it. In two months, we will be here in this same facility debating this memorial. We look at uh point number two. The purpose of memorial: “We believe that in worship the people of God are engaged by the Spirit and drawn into the Father’s presence as living sacrifices in union with Christ.” We’re drawn near, and then at the end of that: “He draws near to us to draw us near to him.” So this is what Hebrews has—the central aspect that worship is drawing near—and we repeat that in this memorial.

Look at number six: “We believe that worship should be informed and governed by the Bible in its entirety. We’re not saying the only way we figure out worship is Leviticus. But you know, we are saying that the whole of the Bible, including Leviticus, is important for worship. And if Proverbs is an important book for wisdom even though we know it was a shadow of the wisdom to come—the Lord Jesus Christ, who is wisdom incarnate—even that shadow should be a central part of our understanding of how to apply the wisdom of Christ. And to study wisdom without turning to Proverbs would be as goofy as studying worship without turning to the specific details that at a particular stage in redemptive history, God said he ought to be worshiped.

So we look at all the Bible, beginning to end. In constructing our liturgies, we are to pay particular attention to those portions of God’s word that are specifically given to inform us of what God desires in worship. These portions include—and we might put in but are not limited to—descriptions of patriarchal worship, Levitical worship, tabernacle of David worship. You know, in Acts, when he says what’s happening with the coming of Jesus, he’s saying God is going to rebuild the tabernacle of David. That’s what he’s doing in New Testament times.

Our completion of Christ’s work is described as him assembling again the tabernacle of David, which was an Old Testament shadow—great shadow—and it was an Old Testament shadow that, after the completion of the temple, became integrated into the temple worship, which is informed by Leviticus. The whole flow of worship of tabernacle of David is linked to the flow of worship in the temple. And so how can we say that in the New Testament temple worship and all that stuff is irrelevant to how we’re supposed to worship?

God’s word says it’s relevant. It says it explicitly that God has restored and raised up the tabernacle of David. The shadows inform us as to biblical worship. And that’s what we’re saying here. We use all these portions of Scripture.

Look at number seven: “We believe that these portions of the Bible give us a divinely ordained sequence of worship.” And then a little down: “These benefits include purification from sins, transformation of our persons, acceptance of our work and tribute, and peace with God and men.” Biblical worship assures us of the forgiveness of our sins, the ongoing work of renewal in our lives by the Holy Spirit, the requirement and acceptability of vocation, and the promise of the maturation and growth of Christian community.

Those are the four basic repeated offerings of Leviticus. Sure, they’re all brought to completion in Jesus Christ. But as we rehearse in the Lord’s day service what Christ has done, this is what we believe: Jesus Christ has definitively purged us of our sins. He has transformed us. He has made our vocation acceptable—tribute offering—and he brings us to rejoicing, communion together at the Lord’s table. This is Christian worship informed by these Old Testament methods of worship.

So how do we draw near? Well, by appreciating the prefiguring of Christ’s work and our drawing near in the whole biblical history of worship.

All right. Third, we draw near by properly prioritizing our response to God’s command to draw near in Lord’s day worship. Time to put on the safety boots. Here it comes.

Now look, if completion includes and significantly includes, according to Hebrews, drawing near to God in worship, God calls you to worship. He says from 11 to 1, or whatever it is, where you’re worship at. God says that’s the most important time in your life. There are practical reasons for that. It sets patterns and all that stuff, but it doesn’t make any difference why. If Hebrews says this is essential to what drawing near to God is about, don’t forsake the assembling. Come into the holy of holies through the work of Jesus Christ. Draw near. Worship God. This is God’s special time to be worshiped, praised, thanked by you.

It’s good for you. Gifts are given. We know that in this church. Talk about it all the time. The worship memorial has it in it too. But listen, God has told you, “I have brought everything to completion through the precious sacrifice of my Son that you can have access to me in worship, that you can hear my word. You’re in my living room. I’m going to bring you into my dining room.” He says, “You’re invited to my house today.” And we’re going to say, “Well, I guess maybe come.”

I have heard some of the lamest excuses in the last 20 years for people not being at worship. I got a whole page of them written out here. I’ll just touch on some of them. I you know, put on the boots because your toes may be stepped on.

Visitors from out of town. Well, we got, you know, unsafe family from out of town, or visitors in, and so we thought we’d just, you know, go visit around with them and spend the day. What didn’t Jesus say, you know, leave father and mother behind? If father and mother are more important to you than the Lord God who commands you to worship him, something is wrong. Now, what probably is wrong is you really haven’t understood the command of God.

I don’t you know, when people do that, I don’t think they’re horrible. You know, I have—going to dig a hole deeper here. I got a four-year-old grandson. He doesn’t get a lot of things yet. Not supposed to. There are all kinds of Christians in this world who don’t see the significance of coming to worship. Well, that’s okay. But in this church, you do. And because of your increased knowledge of the importance of this, you’re under increased obligation to do something about it.

I don’t think these problems I’m going to list are rebellion or hatred of God or something. I think they’re just immaturity. But they’re immaturity that we need to clean up. You see, God says this is important. You know, I’ve had another excuse. Yeah, I’m serious. If they won’t get up in time, you tell them, “Well, you know, I really hope you’re with me next week, honey, but I got to meet God. He’s not going to like it if I put you ahead of him.”

Breakfast. Well, we had to have breakfast. We had to stop and have breakfast. Breakfast. So I mean, you could think of that verse about your belly being your god. I don’t want to do that. But you see, what’s more important? That you stop and pause, have a nice breakfast with your wife Sunday morning, or that you get to worship God? He’s called you here by 11. Now, of course, the reason why you’re late is you haven’t prepared carefully Saturday night. And I hear these excuses: Well, we were off too late partying last night and just couldn’t get up.

Now, what is God going to think of that? Seriously, folks. I mean, God is not a concept, an idea. He is a person. He commands us to come here. And what is he going to think if we get, you know, a snootful or something, and then don’t show up here? What is that? How do we, you know, apart from the blood of Jesus, we would never want to come back if we understood that correctly. Scare the pedal out of you, you know, thinking that we have to come back to God after doing something like that the week before. Now, God gives grace. He gives forgiveness.

Some people, you know, aren’t at church because they’re going to funerals. More funerals going on Sundays. Now, some of them, you know, have a worship service right next to them. I think some of our folks are at funerals today, but there’s a worship service right after. That’s fine. But to forsake worship on the Lord’s day for the sake of a funeral—Jesus says, you know, life has precedent over death. Israel, you know, a wedding procession, you’re on the street, you got a wedding procession or a funeral procession. Funeral procession had to stop. This is not in Scripture, but it’s in the tradition of the Israelites, and they had it right. Life has precedent. You see, let the dead bury the dead. God brooks no rivals. Not even, you know, trying to commemorate a person’s death.

I’ve seen people not come to church because they’re just so shaken up by some horrible event that’s happened in their life. I’m telling you, if I have a horrible event happen on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, the place I want to be more than any place else is to draw near to the God who can succor me, can comfort me, can restore me. I know this is the place where God draws nearest to us. And if I need strength to get through a dark, dark time, man, I want to be at church. You see, weddings, great preparation. I love it. You know, and at the day after a wedding, boy, it’s a time to be in church, isn’t it? We want to go to church and thank God for what happened yesterday. And we want to beseech God—as I’m sure we will in the long prayer after this long sermon—we want to beseech God for that married couple.

So I heard people, well, you know, couldn’t make it to church because my, you know, one of my kids had to study for a test on Monday at school. Well, in King’s Academy, we’re having no tests on Monday, no homework due on Monday, okay? And even if you did, get the stuff done on Saturday or go Monday without the test done if the only option is church or the test or preparing for it. God is more important than the education of your children. Your education—of your children, weddings, funerals, all that stuff—is fruit. But if you cut off the root, drawing into the presence of God and giving him honor and praise and obeying his command to come forward and draw near to him, you know, you’re not going to continue to have the fruit if you reject the root.

My wife reminded me, I made, you know, sometimes my hair isn’t ready. Getting my hair ready on time, the wife will tell us, well, I made my wife come to church with wet hair once. Wasn’t all done. And I don’t know, maybe I was probably a real turkey when I did it. I think actually it was for Sunday school, and I don’t recommend that. But I am saying that if we’re not looking quite as good as we want to by the time we got to leave and get to church on time, you got to get to church on time. God looks at your heart a lot more than he looks at your external person. Okay? And he wants to see a heart that is highly desirous of drawing into his presence and praising him for all the blessings that have been brought to us through the work of Jesus Christ.

I see people come to church, they’ll come to certain parts of church. They don’t like other parts of church. They don’t like the singing or they don’t like communion, whatever it is. They’ll sort of pick and choose. Well, it’s not like that. God says this is one deal here—this service. There’s a procession to it. There’s a movement. God says if you have some kind of weird attitude—you only want to be at part of the service—man, you got to straighten that out or find a church you want to be at all the service. You’re supposed to draw near to God. That’s a lame excuse.

Well, I don’t have the best clothes. Well, I couldn’t find my shoes. Come barefoot. It’s all right. We’ll appreciate your commitment to worship God. Okay. I’m just saying that, you know, there’s lots of strange excuses we give to one another, but God says, you know, we better get here.

I’ve heard people say, “Well, I wasn’t really sick, but I wanted to go to work on Monday, and so I thought if I rested on Sunday, I could get to work on Monday.” I’ll tell you something. I don’t want you here if sick, of course if you’re communicable. But on the other hand, I know in the history of this church that far many times it has happened when people have not come to worship God when they would have gone to work, and to put work before the worship of God—again, all these things you could list under, you know, movements toward idolatry, exaltation of the fruit above the root. The root is the worship of God.

I could go on, but I’ve already gone too much. But you think of it. You fill in whatever excuses you might have used, or I think of excuses I might have used to not go to church. If we see that this is the completion of us drawing near to God in worship, we should come forward.

All right. Fourth, we draw near by preparing ourselves properly for drawing near to God in the special Lord’s Day sense of that phrase.

In the Gospels, the day before the Sabbath is called the day of preparation. I know they could overdo that, get legalistic, but I’m saying it’s a nice way to remind our kids: let’s prepare for Sunday by getting a good night’s sleep, hopefully. And you know, if my daughter didn’t come to Sunday school this morning—she was out late at the party—okay, get some sleep, but I would not have her miss church, you see. So get enough sleep where you can get to church and not doze off during the sermon. Okay, if sleep is a problem, prepare.

Prepare, perhaps, you’re getting used to the songs that are sung. We—they’re on the website, you know, days ahead, a week ahead. Now, prepare by looking at the sermon text. Prepare by looking at the notes from the week before. Get ready to draw near to God in worship. Prepare, most of all, by, you know, cleansing the board of all sins and stuff you need to confess to others. Prepare to draw near if it’s that important.

And then finally, by exercising proper decorum in the presence of God and his saints. We’re having a new deal. We’re having a new uh system at RCC involving ushers. That’s the last handout. Turn to that briefly. This is drawing near to God in worship. This is special Lord’s day worship. This is a formal worship service. And there should be a sense of decorum as we come into the presence of God.

Look at the usher guidelines, the fourth handout. The purpose is “to show the love of Christ to those entering into our worship, to remind worshippers of the holiness of the God we are meeting with, and to keep the worship service quiet, respectful, minimizing disruptions and distractions from our worship.” So that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to mature in our drawing near to God, and that is loving one another.

So we’ve got ushers now instead of just greeters, starting this month. They will try to encourage you—dropping down under the—”Before worship”—the fourth bullet point: “When the prelude music begins. They’re to encourage worshippers to be seated and prepare quietly for worship.” So the idea is you’re supposed to come into the worship service. I know we want to see each other, but fellowship occurs mostly after. We fellowshiped with God and with each other at the table, then when we can do all of our greeting. Try to come into the worship service quietly, prepare yourself to draw near to God, and the ushers will encourage you in that direction.

The last bullet point in “Before worship”: “During the processional, after the pastors enter the sanctuary, the ushers are to close the sanctuary door. Now it’s hot. Sometimes you need fans. The doors may be open, but it’s a little visual symbol to you that all the doors, you know, back there will be closed. And now the worship has begun and we are convocated together. We’re assembled together in the presence of God. And so at that point, we’re trying to have a little more control of exit and entrance into the sanctuary.

And then during worship, try to discourage movement into and out of the sanctuary except during the singing of songs. Once worship has started, if you do show up late, in the providence of God, the ushers are to ask you not to enter into the facility, the worship environment, except during a song because it’s less distracting. Then if you’re to walk in during the sermon, during the prayer, during some of the responsive readings, it could be distracting. So we want to encourage movement in and out during the singing of songs.

You know, you go to movies, they’re two, two and a half hours. Most people don’t have to get up and go to the bathroom. Somehow in this hour and a half, two hours, a lot of that seems to be required. You know, one way you prepare for doing this is to just take care of that stuff ahead of time. Exercise a little discipline. Okay? Try to stay in the worship service if you can. Try to maintain a sense of decorum here. Try to limit your movements in and out. If you’ve got to get in and out, that’s okay. We’re not trying to say you can’t do that. But try to do it during times of the service where it would be a little less conspicuous.

So you know, that’s what we’re trying to encourage. And then down the third—I think the third, fourth point: “Well, we want to be very careful. Let parents with noisy children know that they can hear the sermon and worship service over the speakers in the fellowship hall. Direct them to that location. The foyer is not the place for crying children since the noise from the foyer travels easily into the sanctuary.”

Now, we’re not mad at anybody. We’re doing real good as a church. We’re just trying to mature a little bit here. And you know, we’re just trying to encourage parents, and they may not know. It’s really easy to go down in the fellowship hall. There’s speakers on that are quite easy to hear from. And babies crying, that’s where you ought to be. A little bit of cry, it’s okay. It’s the sounds of life. We don’t mind that. But if you got a really noisy child, understand that even if you’re in the foyer, it can be quite distracting for people, particularly those of us that are aging, whose ears are getting a little weird. Yeah, you just got to believe us. They’re getting weirder, and it’s a little harder to hear when great amounts of crying and noise are being made by even playing. They may be happy, even laughing a bunch. Well, I just got to kind of keep it down so that people can attend to the words being spoken during that part of our service.

So a little bit of thing, you’re doing great. I’m not, you know, this is not stepping on toes stuff at all here. This is just let’s try to take this drawing near to God with a little continue to grow in our sense of decorum and engage in this formal worship of God in that way.

And then finally, there is a handout as well. Actually, it’s not a handout. It’s in the pews: Children of the Worship Service. You know, if you got a two or three or four year old child in the worship service, I want to ask you today, what’s your plan? How are you going to get them to be attentive to the sermon? Because it’s long and it can be hard. What’s your plan?

Well, I don’t have a plan. Well, if you don’t have a plan, it’s probably not going to work out. I had plans with some of my kids. Candy is okay to keep them quiet. Then when they get a little older, maybe, you know, drawing a picture with them, taking the coloring picture, having them draw, do that. Don’t use the prayer cards by the way, or the visitation cards for the drawing. Please bring material from home. But you see, to try to—there should be a plan to take a child that doesn’t have any idea what’s going on in this sermon and move to the place when they’re six or seven or something, being able to start to work on filling out the children’s handout.

But like anything else in life, that’s going to happen as you make a little plan for that, as you prepare a little bit on Saturday or during the week, by teaching the kids the ordinaries, the normal portions of our service that are either spoken or sung. Work with your kids. It’s like anything else in life, you know, they don’t learn to ride a bike just by going out and ride a bike. You work with them on it. You get a plan for it. Have a plan. And this handout, Children in the Worship Service, we love having kids in the worship service. Praise God for that. But it requires a little bit of responsibility on our part.

All right, summarizing up, going over the kids handout.

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## Kids Handout Summary

Today’s text pointed us back to Psalm 110. The priest that Jesus is compared to is Melchizedek, not Ben Zedk. Melchizedek, king of righteousness. Psalm 110 told everyone that the priesthood from Levi would be replaced by Jesus. Everybody should have known it’s going to be replaced. Jesus was from the tribe of Judah, not the tribe of Levi.

The law in today’s text means the way people worship. Law in Hebrews is worship law. The book of Leviticus was written because the old family priests were replaced by the tribe of Levi. So new rules of worship were needed. And so now new rules have to happen again, transforming Levitical worship into Christian worship.

Since Jesus has come to replace Levitical priests, the way we worship has changed. Worship is transformed. And you probably didn’t have that one yet. Worship is transformed. It goes through transformations in covenant history, and the final one is the coming of Jesus. And now it has reached its completion, its perfection of worship.

As we apply these—the transformation of worship through the work of Jesus Christ—we don’t know what it’s supposed to look like totally. That’s not my point. But worship has been transformed for the last time with the coming of Jesus. Jesus has brought perfection or—you could say—completion. Perfection or completion means the same thing.

Through Jesus, we can draw near to God. We should prepare on Saturday to worship God. We should always try very hard to go to church on Sunday. We should get a good night’s sleep before we go. We should engage, participate in the worship, and we should try hard to help others worship. These are the great blessings, the good news that we draw near, and its incumbent responsibilities upon us.

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## Closing Prayer

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for today. We thank you, Lord God, for your Scriptures. We thank you that we get to draw near to you, Father, in Lord’s Day worship