August 23: Groups Guide
About This Guide
The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.
Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.
pdf download
Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.
Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.
more Resources
Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.
Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.
Love
Teaching Text: Hebrews 12:18–29
You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them, because they could not bear what was commanded: “If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned to death.” The sight was so terrifying that Moses said, “I am trembling with fear.”
But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks. If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we, if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven? At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” The words “once more” indicate the removing of what can be shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain.
Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our “God is a consuming fire.”
Themes
Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:
Hebrews: A new and Living Way
Unshakeable Kingdom
Formation
Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:
Sermon Summary
“I have found it to be rather inscrutable — just quite difficult for me to read and understand.”
That’s the honest confession Jackie opens with about Hebrews. It’s a letter written to people who aren’t us — shared language, shared culture, a world of Old Testament “hyperlinks” we don’t catch anymore. But read straight through, one thing leaps off the page: urgency. The author is grabbing his friends by the shoulders, looking them in the eye, and saying: don’t turn back now.
Don’t give up on Jesus. Fix your eyes.
Three Old Testament hyperlinks carry the argument:
We have not come to a mountain that can be touched, but to Mount Zion (Hebrews 12:18–24). At Sinai, Israel stood far off, terrified — touch the mountain and you die (Exodus 19–20). Under the new covenant, that distance is gone. Jesus’s blood speaks a better word than Abel’s — it says “it is finished.” The veil is torn. We get to come all the way in.
Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens (Hebrews 12:26–28). This echoes Haggai’s word to a discouraged, rebuilding people, and Daniel’s vision of a kingdom that crushes every other kingdom and never ends. What we build for God’s kingdom — however small it looks — cannot be shaken. Sandwiches made, prayers prayed, strangers welcomed as family: it lasts forever.
Our God is a consuming fire (Deuteronomy 4:23–24; Hebrews 12:29). A warning against idols, but also a promise. The closer you get to God, the more He burns away what isn’t useful — not to destroy you, but to refine you.
Pain and suffering now? Last gasps of a kingdom that’s passing away. Keep building.
Direct Quotes
“It may not look like what you thought it would look like, but KEEP working, God is WITH YOU.”
— Unshakeable Kingdom
“These things might seem small, but God is saying over every bit of work you do to build the kingdom: it’s good and that goodness will last forever.”
— Unshakeable Kingdom
“In Jesus, the promise is refinement, not destruction.”
— Unshakeable Kingdom
“We were made for loving communion with God. And anything that we seek to replace that essential relationship with — all other things we run after or give our hearts to (even good things) — will be a destructive force in our life.”
— Unshakeable Kingdom
Three Questions for Personal Application
Where am I still standing far off from God, afraid to come all the way in? Think about the areas of your life you keep at arm’s length from him — shame, fear, the need for control. Ask him tonight what it would look like to walk past the veil.
What am I building that feels small but might be exactly what God calls good? A meal served, a prayer prayed, a stranger welcomed. Sit with the truth that faithfulness in hidden things is never wasted in his kingdom.
What is God trying to burn away in me right now, and can I trust it’s for refinement, not destruction? Name the discomfort or trial you’re facing. Ask whether you’re resisting God’s fire out of fear, or letting it produce a genuine, proven faith.
“Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the Lord, who has compassion on you.
— Isaiah 54:10
August 23: A Kingdom That Cannot Be Shaken
August 16: Groups Guide
About This Guide
The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.
Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.
pdf download
Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.
Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.
more Resources
Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.
Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.
Love
Teaching Text: Hebrews 12:4–17
In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says,
“My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,
and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
because the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.”
Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all.Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. “Make level paths for your feet,” so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.
Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. Even though he sought the blessing with tears, he could not change what he had done.
Themes
Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:
Hebrews: A new and Living Way
The Faithfulness of Christ
Formation
Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:
Sermon Summary
Pastor Tyler opened with Mike Schur — the guy behind The Office, Parks and Rec, and
Brooklyn Nine-Nine. In 2015, NBC gave him a blind 13-episode order, no pitch required.
What he came back with was strange:
A woman named Eleanor Shellstrop dies and realizes she has accidentally been
sent to “The Good Place” due to a case of mistaken identity. To avoid being sent to “The Bad Place,” she must hide her deeply flawed past. She convinces her
designated soulmate, a moral philosophy professor, to secretly tutor her in ethics
so she can earn her spot and learn how to be a truly good person.
Four seasons in, there were plenty of moments where viewers had no idea where the plot was headed. But trust in Schur as the showrunner kept people watching to the end.
That’s the posture Hebrews asks of a tired, persecuted church: trust the ultimate Director, even when the plot of your life feels painful, confusing, and overwhelming.
Our faithfulness doesn’t rest on our strength or willpower — it rests on the faithfulness of Christ.
The call to faithfulness — our duty (vv. 4, 12–14). The Hebrews have been shamed, stripped of property, imprisoned — weary but still alive. “Lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees” (v. 12) picks up the race language from 12:1. Fix your eyes on the track. Keep going. The call is to be faithful to Jesus no matter the cost — for some, to the point of martyrdom.
The cost of faithfulness — our struggle (vv. 5–11). Discipline sounds harsh to modern ears, especially given how these verses have been twisted to justify abuse. But in the ancient world, discipline meant education, training, formation. God isn’t striking in anger — He’s training us for endurance, and He’s in the fight with us as it happens. Illustration: watching other people’s kids at the park, deciding how much to invest — and Sandy Cohen taking in Ryan Atwood on The O.C., giving him both the privilege and the accountability of being a true son. That’s how God parents us: not as orphans, but as children He refuses to leave untouched.
The community of faithfulness — our shared responsibility (vv. 14–17). Faithfulness isn’t just personal — it’s a team effort. Pursue peace: not passive silence, but active peacemaking with everyone. Watch for bitterness: it doesn’t stay contained, it defiles the whole group. Guard against the “Esau Syndrome” — trading a lifelong inheritance for a bowl of soup, a short-term appetite satisfied at the cost of the long-term promise.
The faithfulness of Christ — His accomplishment (vv. 1–3). Here’s the turn. Everything in verses 4–17 depends on verses 1–3. We don’t strive for holiness to earn God’s love — we endure because we are already His beloved children. Jesus didn’t just teach us how to run the race. He ran it first, bore the weight of sin, and sat down victorious at the right hand of God.
Where are you resisting faithfulness because the cost feels too high? Where are you tempted to trade the long game for a little relief right now?
Lift your drooping hands. Strengthen your weak knees. Stop staring at your exhausted legs
— fix your eyes on Christ. Trust the story God is writing, even in the chapters you’d love to skip. The faithfulness of Christ has already secured your finish line.
Direct Quotes
“In this remark the author braces the addressees for what their imitation of
Christ’s endurance might ultimately involve.”
— Harold Attridge, Hebrews: A Commentary
“By portraying God as the one who disciplines... the author places God in the
midst of their difficulty. Not as its cause — the ultimate problem is sin — but as its
Sovereign. God is not distant, simply watching the child struggle; God is in the ring
with the child, allowing and shaping the blows so that they do not destroy but
only strengthen... God’s complete knowledge and trustworthiness assert that
God’s use of discipline will never succumb to anger or foolishness... God knows
all things and is working them for the best.”
— Amy Peeler, Hebrews: Commentaries for Christian Formation
“...a very hard text...” that “...certainly has been misused.”
— Amy Peeler, on Hebrews 12:4–17
“Sometimes the best intentions are in need of redemption.”
— Ben Gibbard, “You Are a Tourist,” Death Cab for Cutie
Three Questions for Personal Application
Where am I resisting God’s call to faithfulness right now because the cost feels too
steep? Name the specific struggle, relationship, or obedience you’ve been avoiding. Ask God
honestly whether you’re protecting yourself or actually trusting him with it.
Am I leaning on my own strength to endure, or resting in the faithfulness of Christ?
Notice where you’ve been trying to white-knuckle your way through discipline or hardship.
Consider what it would look like this week to fix your eyes on Jesus instead of your own
effort.
Is there a root of bitterness taking hold in me — toward God, toward the church, or
toward my circumstances? Bitterness rarely announces itself; it grows quietly. Ask God to
show you where it’s already spreading, and what it would mean to pursue peace instead.
“Looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was
set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right
hand of the throne of God.”
— Hebrews 12:2, NRSV
August 9: Groups Guide
About This Guide
The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.
Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.
pdf download
Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.
Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.
more Resources
Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.
Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.
Love
Teaching Text: Hebrews 12:1–3
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
Themes
Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:
Hebrews: A new and Living Way
Fixing Our Eyes on Jesus
Formation
Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:
Sermon Summary
“I remember sitting at the old Fairway grocery in Red Hook, telling Allison: I want to write a letter to our closest friends for why we are staying.”
That’s where this week’s message started — a train ride back from a concert in 2015, word arriving that close friends who’d helped plant the church were leaving New York. It wasn’t the only exit. 2017 brought a painful reorganization. 2018 brought tragedy — children in the congregation dying suddenly. 2020 brought a pandemic and a racial reckoning. 2023 brought the loss of four staff members. Each departure understandable. Maybe even right, for them.
There is a compounding joy in staying — in continuing, in not giving up. Hebrews 12 calls us to run our race the same way: remembering we’re not alone, throwing off what entangles us, and fixing our eyes on Jesus.
Eighteen weeks in Hebrews, since Easter. The letter has shown us Jesus as messenger, as fulfillment of the law, as the true tabernacle — pulling every thread of the story together. Now, after walking through the hall of faith, the author turns and says: now you.
Know you are not alone. “Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses.” The enemy loves to isolate — to convince you that no one else has faced what you’re facing. But a great cloud of witnesses has endured every shade of pain, disappointment, and grief before you. They would tell you it’s worth it.
Be ruthless with what hinders your freedom. “Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.” Not just the obvious sins — the addiction, the temper, the envy — but the hindrances too. The wasted time. The good things used to avoid your calling. The excuses built to dodge the growth that’s supposed to be painful. Sin that we repeatedly choose drains our life.
Fix the gaze of your soul on Jesus. “Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.” He is the Author and Finisher — the place we’re going and the way we get there. He endured the cross for the joy set before Him: the joy of completing our redemption, the joy of bringing us into the family.
We’re being invited into a kingdom that cannot be shaken, into friendship with our King, into a family with all the redeemed — and we get glimpses of it now. In baptisms. In meal trains. In back-to-school drives. In sunlight on the water at Jacob Riis.
Don’t give up. Don’t let go. Don’t turn back. Sometimes the very best thing you can do is keep your eyes on Jesus and not give up.
Direct Quotes
“A long obedience in the same direction.”
— Eugene Peterson
“Be killing sin, or sin will be killing you.”
— A saint of a previous generation
“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no human mind has conceived the things God has prepared for those who love him.”
— Quoted from 1 Corinthians,
Three Questions for Personal Application
Where do you feel most alone in your struggle right now? Sit with the truth that a great cloud of witnesses has walked through this same shade of pain before you. Ask God to help you feel less isolated in whatever you’re carrying, and consider who in your own life might be part of that cloud for you.
What is weighing you down or costing you the freedom Christ has given you? Not just the obvious sin, but the hindrances — the distractions, the excuses, the good things you use to avoid growth. Ask God to show you honestly what needs to be thrown off.
Where has the gaze of your soul been fixed lately? Notice what you’ve actually been looking at — circumstances, comparison, fear — versus Jesus. Ask Him to draw your eyes back to Him in your imagination, your prayer, and your reading of Scripture this week.
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.”
— Hebrews 12:1–2
August 16: God Our Father
August 9: Fix Your Eyes on Jesus
August 2: Heroes of the Life of Faith
July 26: The Gift of Faith
July 19: Groups Guide
About This Guide
The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.
Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.
pdf download
Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.
Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.
more Resources
Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.
Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.
Love
Teaching Text: Hebrews 10: 26–39
If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spiritof grace? For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge his people.” It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you endured in a great conflict full of suffering. Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. You suffered along with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions. So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.
You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For,
“In just a little while,
he who is coming will come
and will not delay.”
And,
“But my righteous one will live by faith.
And I take no pleasure
in the one who shrinks back.”
But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.
Themes
Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:
Hebrews: A new and Living Way
Do Not Shrink Back
Formation
Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:
Sermon Summary
The question we’re confronted with isn’t “Do you believe?” It’s “Will you keep believing when it costs you?”
Our world offers more comfort and self-soothing escape than ever before — every product promises paradise, every binge a momentary refuge, every glass of wine a reprieve. And there’s a way to live religiously that ticks every box while being emptied of risk and power. The real danger isn’t leaving the faith outright — it’s carefully packaging your walk with Jesus so it’s presentable and never cuts into your comforts or your plans.
Consider this question today: what drives you to dial it back just enough that it doesn’t touch your life in the uncomfortable places?
The text gives us three things:
A warning
An encouragement
An invitation
The Warning: What Is at Stake (vv. 26–31)
“Deliberately keep on sinning” is present tense — ongoing, willful. This isn’t the stumbling believer. It’s someone who knows the truth and still, consciously, turns away.
“No sacrifice for sins is left” because there is only one sacrifice sufficient to deal with sin. To reject Christ is to reject his sacrificial, saving love.
The argument runs — if defying Moses’s law brought death, how much more severe is rejecting the blood of the covenant and the Spirit of grace?
“It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (v. 31) isn’t a threat to terrify the faithful. It’s a warning to those flirting with abandonment.
Dallas Willard, asked about hell and its theological traps, put it this way: when people see the sacrificial love of Jesus and choose not God — that is exactly what they get. And “not God” is a terrible place to be.
The warning is severe because what’s at stake is so precious. The question isn’t why the warning is so severe — it’s whether it’s severe enough, if this is the only hope we have. For those under pressure, the warning isn’t “perform harder.” It’s: don’t let the cost of following Jesus cause you to despise or forget what Jesus has done for you.
The Encouragement: You Have Already Stood Firm (vv. 32–34)
The tone pivots — from warning to pastoral encouragement. These believers are weary, at the end of their rope, but they are not deserters.
“Remember” isn’t nostalgia — it’s a theological act. Tending to the past draws courage into the present and hope into what lies ahead.
They endured great conflict, full of suffering — and did it joyfully. Not gritted teeth. They had a better calculus: “better and lasting possessions” (v. 34), the inheritance secured in Christ.
Whatever feels like loss doesn’t get them down, because they are more acutely aware of what they’re gaining in the process of losing it.
What we have in Christ — forgiveness, security, adoption, a future inheritance, the presence of God — cannot be confiscated. Suffering loosens its grip when I know what I cannot lose.
A Sober Invitation: Do Not Throw Away Your Confidence (vv. 35–39)
“Shrink back” translates hypostellō — to draw back, retreat, like a soldier deserting a post, or a sailor furling the sails and pulling back from the wind.
“Do not throw away your confidence” (v. 35) — boldness. The author isn’t telling them to find it. He’s telling them not to discard what they already have.
Perseverance is patient endurance, not performance. Perseverance only begins when motivation ends.
The Habakkuk citation (2:4) was written to a prophet watching Babylon rise, asking God how long. God’s answer: “My righteous one will live by faith.” Faith isn’t the absence of hard circumstances — it’s the presence of trust in God despite them.
“We do not belong to those who shrink back” (v. 39) is identity, not behavior management. He isn’t saying try harder. He’s saying: this is not who you are.
The person who truly grasps the gospel does not shrink back — not because they’re fearless, but because, as Paul says, they know whom they believe. Not what they believe.
What’s facing you right now that would cause you to just turn the intensity down a little on your relationship with Christ? Job challenges, marriage, unrealized relational desires, financial pressure, fear of others’ opinions, unanswered prayer — does it move you closer to Jesus, or does it demotivate you into apathy?
Three movements:
The warning is real, proportional to what Christ has done.
The past is our encouragement — you’re here for a reason, and that’s enough to know God is faithful.
The invitation is yours. You are a believer. Hold your confidence.
Direct Quotes
“Let us fall into the hands of the LORD, for his mercy is great; but do not let me fall into human hands.”
— David
“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
— Jim Elliot
“Sometimes our loved ones choose not god and we get really deeply offended or worried about them. But sometimes they’re not choosing not God — they’re choosing not the god the western church has made in its own image. Sometimes that’s a step towards God, even though it looks like a step away.”
— sermon notes
Three Questions for Personal Application
What does “not shrinking back” look like in your specific context right now? Think of the one place you’ve quietly dialed things back with God — not walked away, just turned the intensity down. Name it honestly before him.
What comfort or resource are you unwilling to sacrifice, because it’s grown more important to you than Kingdom value? This isn’t about guilt — it’s about clarity. Ask God to show you what you’re gripping too tightly, and whether it’s actually worth what it’s costing you.
When pressure comes — financial, relational, unanswered prayer — does it move you closer to Jesus, or toward apathy? Consider your last hard season. Did it deepen your trust or quietly numb it? Ask God to meet you in whatever is pressing on you now.
“My righteous one will live by faith. And I take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back… But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.
— Hebrews 10:38–39
July 19: Do Not Shrink Back
July 12: Groups Guide
About This Guide
The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.
Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.
pdf download
Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.
Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.
more Resources
Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.
Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.
Love
Teaching Text: Hebrews 10: 19–26
Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left,
Themes
Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:
Hebrews: A new and Living Way
Holding the Promise
Formation
Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:
Sermon Summary
“A few months ago I was talking to my friend Zaki, and he told me that in Africa they use a lot of spices — pepper, onions, garlic, ginger. ‘It has spiciness,’ he said. ‘Not like American food.’”
She’d made a beef dish with a peanut butter sauce — Domodo, a West African stew — and protested when Zaki said it wasn’t really African food. It took her a year of trial and error, an unhelpful-but-fascinating YouTube video from a family in Guinea-Bissau, before she finally tried real jollof from a takeout container at Penn Station. And even then, she didn’t get it. She knew all the words — spicy, garlic, onion, pepper — but “spicy” wasn’t a taste. It was a full-mouth experience, something you had to feel, not just name.
That’s the gospel too. We have the ingredient list — sin, repentance, righteousness, grace, salvation — and it’s easy to memorize the words without ever tasting the thing itself. We need to experience the living Word, not just describe it.
Jesus is better — better than the prophets, better than the angels, better than Moses, better than Joshua. A better High Priest, offering a better sacrifice, introducing a better covenant. Because of all this, we can walk boldly into the Holy Place.
That boldness used to be unthinkable. Herod’s temple was massive and lavish, one of the wonders of the ancient world — and almost entirely closed off. Priests were barred for scabs, blindness, a crippled hand. Only the high priest, once a year, could pass the veil: four inches thick, sixty feet tall, thirty feet wide, dividing heaven from earth. Women could go only as far as the women’s court. Gentiles stopped at the outer court — Acts 21 records a near-riot and a death sentence for a Gentile who went further.
Then Jesus said, “It is finished,” and the veil tore from top to bottom. This isn’t a formula to perform — draw near, then hold fast, then stir up. It’s a description of what’s already true.
Picture a Norwegian soccer player from Svalbard, above the Arctic Circle, living through two months of polar night — then flown to Texas for the World Cup. The sun doesn’t depend on how early he wakes or how he feels that morning. He’s simply been moved into the light. You were once darkness — but now you are light in the Lord.
That’s not theory. During Covid, with the cafe on the edge of closing, she and her community started giving away grilled cheese sandwiches and vegan chili, pushing tables together, taking whatever neighbors could bring. She stood in the middle of it — not because she had resources of her own, but as an intercessor between pinto beans and food insecurity. God didn’t take the suffering away. He showed her he was there in the middle of it.
What started with a handful of families became fifty, sent groceries twice a week through June. Six years later it’s grown into Good Neighbors: sandwiches by the hundreds, a women’s group, a running group for new immigrants, teenagers giving up their beds in solidarity with unhoused youth.
The veil is torn. The way is open. We who were once far off have been brought near.
Communion table. Then sandwiches for the neighborhood.
Direct Quotes
“Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus… let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith… Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together.”
— Hebrews 10:19–25
“Because of his humanity the death of Jesus is truly a human one, but because of his divinity the cross is truly the death of the immortal God in human flesh — and therefore takes on cosmic redemptive significance as the defeat of death and sin.”
— Frederick Bauerschmidt
“God is love and the love that is God is a crucified love. We love because he first loved us. He poured himself out. He conquered sin and death. He translated us out of darkness and into his marvelous light.”
— from the message
“My children are older. They understand being hungry.”
— a neighbor, quoted in the message
Three Questions for Personal Application
Do yoDo you relate to God through a formula, or through a relationship you already have full access to? Notice if “drawing near” feels like a checklist — quiet time, then obedience, then service — rather than something already true of you in Christ. Ask what it would mean to rest in access already given rather than performance still owed.
Where in your life do you still feel like you’re standing in the outer court — held back by old shame or a barrier Jesus already tore down? Name the specific thing you think disqualifies you. Bring it honestly to God and ask him to show you what’s actually true now that the veil is gone.
Where is God inviting you to taste and see, rather than just know the right words about him? Think of one place this week — in prayer, in service, in a hard relationship — where you could move from talking about faith to actually living it out with someone else. Ask him what it would look like to draw near there.
“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.”
— Hebrews 10:23
July 12: Holding the Promise
July 5: Groups Guide
About This Guide
The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.
Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.
pdf download
Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.
Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.
more Resources
Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.
Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.
Love
Teaching Text: Hebrews 10:1–18
The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. Otherwise, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins. It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said:
“Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,
but a body you prepared for me;
with burnt offerings and sin offerings
you were not pleased.
Then I said, ‘Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll—
I have come to do your will, my God.’”
First he said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them”—though they were offered in accordance with the law. Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.” He sets aside the first to establish the second. And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God,and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says:
“This is the covenant I will make with them
after that time, says the Lord.
I will put my laws in their hearts,
and I will write them on their minds.”
Then he adds:
“Their sins and lawless acts
I will remember no more.”
And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary.
Themes
Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:
Hebrews: A new and Living Way
Once and For All
Formation
Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:
Sermon Summary
“In the running for best 4th of July movie is The Sandlot — it begins with a middle-aged man walking into Dodger Stadium, through the corridors, into the broadcast booth. He takes his place and calls the game. Then he starts narrating the story of his favorite summer — the one where he moved to a new town and fell in love with baseball. By the end, we’re back in the booth, and everything makes sense in light of what came between.”
Hebrews does the same thing. It’s called an inclusio — a storytelling device where the beginning and end bookend everything in between, telling you it’s all one argument.
Hebrews opens with this:
“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.”
– Hebrews 1:1–3
HE SAT DOWN.
Twelve weeks and ten chapters later, we land on the same phrase:
“But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”
– Hebrews 10:11–14
HE SAT DOWN.
This Jesus. This Messiah. This High Priest. Sat down.
Everything in between those two bookends is one argument: Jesus is better — better messenger, better expression of humanity, better Moses, better Sabbath, better high priest, better covenant, better sacrifice — and because His work is finished, He sat down.
Hebrews was written to a community under real pressure — resistance, persecution, exhaustion — to help them endure. And the thing that gives them the strength to keep going isn’t a technique. It’s who Jesus is. Chapter 10 pulls the whole inclusio together into four realities.
Your Redemption Has Been Accomplished
Christ sat down because His work is finished. This is why Jesus cries out Tetelestai — it is finished — on the cross. Hebrews is a book about the Atonement, and it hands us more than one picture of it: victory, substitution, ransom, cleansing of the conscience.
Two things make His sacrifice sufficient. His own holiness — no sin of His own to cover, so what He did on the cross stands forever, once for all. His own surrender to the Father’s will in love — not just standing in the gap where our will failed, but actually willing what the Father willed.
As we draw near to Jesus, wholeness and holiness become the same thing — a full, integrated life that is uniquely its own and completely belongs.
The Promises Go Back to the Beginning
This is a story woven together with great care and love. Even our starkest departures from God can still be woven into the tapestry of His redemption.
Whatever you think is too big a barrier — to you being accepted, or to the world being healed — God is able to weave it into the story.
There Is an Already and Not Yet to the Experience
We have been made holy, and we are being made holy — both true, both in Hebrews 10, one verse apart. Justification and sanctification. Adoption, inheritance, maturity. We live into an identity given to us by grace, and we grow into it by grace.
God is faithful to complete the work he has begun in us.
You Are Not Alone
God writes His law on our hearts and minds — not by force of will, but by filling our lives with His life. The Holy Spirit.
So — four realities. Redemption accomplished. Promises stretching back to the beginning. Already and not yet. Not alone.
Therefore, you can have confidence — in your freedom, in the story (the turns in the sandlot), in God’s commitment to your growth, in having what you need in the Spirit.
Pray. Communion.
Direct Quotes
“We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”
— Hebrews 10:10
“For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”
— Hebrews 10:14
“This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.”
— Hebrews 10:16
Three Questions for Personal Application
Do you actually believe your redemption is finished, or are you still quietly trying to earn what Christ already accomplished? Sit with the difference between resting in a finished work and working to feel worthy of it. Where does that distinction show up in how you pray, or how you talk to yourself after you fail?
Where do you doubt that your story — even your worst departure — can be woven into God’s redemption? Name the thing you think is too big, too far gone, or too shameful for God to use. Ask what it would mean to actually believe He’s still weaving it in.
Are you living in the “already” of who you are in Christ, or are you stuck waiting for the “not yet”? Notice where you feel most impatient with your own growth. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you one place He’s already made you holy, even while you’re still being made holy.
“For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”
— Hebrews 10:14
July 5: Once and for All
June 28: Groups Guide
About This Guide
The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.
Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.
pdf download
Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.
Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.
more Resources
Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.
Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.
Love
Teaching Text: Hebrews 9:1-28
Now the first covenant had regulations for worship and also an earthly sanctuary. A tabernacle was set up. In its first room were the lampstand and the table with its consecrated bread; this was called the Holy Place. Behind the second curtain was a room called the Most Holy Place, which had the golden altar of incense and the gold-covered ark of the covenant. This ark contained the gold jar of manna, Aaron’s staff that had budded, and the stone tablets of the covenant. Above the ark were the cherubim of the Glory, overshadowing the atonement cover. But we cannot discuss these things in detail now.
When everything had been arranged like this, the priests entered regularly into the outer room to carry on their ministry. But only the high priest entered the inner room, and that only once a year, and never without blood, which he offered for himself and for the sins the people had committed in ignorance.The Holy Spirit was showing by this that the way into the Most Holy Place had not yet been disclosed as long as the first tabernacle was still functioning. This is an illustration for the present time, indicating that the gifts and sacrifices being offered were not able to clear the conscience of the worshiper. They are only a matter of food and drink and various ceremonial washings—external regulations applying until the time of the new order.
But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that are now already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made with human hands, that is to say, is not a part of this creation. He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spiritoffered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!
For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.
In the case of a will, it is necessary to prove the death of the one who made it,because a will is in force only when somebody has died; it never takes effect while the one who made it is living. This is why even the first covenant was not put into effect without blood. When Moses had proclaimed every command of the law to all the people, he took the blood of calves, together with water, scarlet wool and branches of hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll and all the people. He said, “This is the blood of the covenant, which God has commanded you to keep.” In the same way, he sprinkled with the blood both the tabernacle and everything used in its ceremonies. In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
It was necessary, then, for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with human hands that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence. Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. Otherwise Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
Themes
Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:
Hebrews: A new and Living Way
Eternal Redemption Through the Blood of Christ
Formation
Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:
Sermon Summary
This passage gets to the heart of things. The heart of the letter. The heart of each person. The heart of the universe. The heart of heaven. It’s also mysterious — blood, hidden inner rooms, sacrifices, visions of heaven and an age to come.
If A24 made a trailer for this passage it would be very creepy. I might have to look away. I don’t do well with scary movies — and A24 can make going to the furniture store scary.
It can feel like eavesdropping on a high-level lecture to first-century Jewish believers. The imagery is unfamiliar. It may feel like Willy Wonka hid the Golden Ticket inside unseasoned Brussels sprouts. But it is so worth plunging down into. Because behind all the talk of covenants and tabernacle rooms and old priesthoods, this passage gives us an honest vision of God and a true picture of ourselves.
The mystery at the heart of the universe: there is a type of life in God that cannot be approached casually. God is Holy, Holy, Holy — set apart, other. A concentration of life and light and power so intense you cannot stand in the full revelation of God and survive.
So in Scripture God keeps holding back. The angel of the Lord. The burning bush. The back shoulder of God while Moses hides in the cleft of the rock. Isaiah sees a vision and is undone. Elijah gets a whisper and covers his face. The more of God someone encounters, the less they can handle it.
God dwells in unapproachable light. And the late-modern assumption that science has neatly answered everything is a presumptuous lie — no real view of the world makes no room for weirdness. We are spiritual creatures on a planet uniquely suited for life in an ever-expanding universe.
Here is the tension: God is love. God creates from overflow, not lack — makes people for relationship and joy in His presence. But after Genesis 3 we can no longer walk with God in the cool of the evening. The problem is not with God. It’s with us. We grasped for control, tried to be our own gods, and unleashed the thing that rips through the human story.
Separation from God is separation from Life. That is death. It’s like being so sick we have to be quarantined from someone so well their life would overwhelm us. But God is determined to set the world right.
The tabernacle was God’s way of teaching a rescued community to live with His presence at the center — how to approach Him, how to deal with the death ripping through their story. We are not starting from scratch. We are not the first to seek God or wrestle with these struggles. The tabernacle held a record of what had come before. But for all its good, it was limited — never meant to be the full revelation.
One key access point to this mystery is our conscience — the powerful internal recognition that things are not right. Jiminy Cricket. Kafka’s Josef K, arrested but never told why. Lady Macbeth, unable to wash out the spot. Raskolnikov’s guilty torment. The old tabernacle could not cleanse the conscience.
So never mind approaching a holy God — we struggle to live with ourselves. And it’s worse than sensing something wrong “out there.” We contribute to the brokenness. We do our own damage, and our conscience testifies against us. We lack peace. We carry guilt over what we’ve done and shame over who we are. Most of us know both.
Here is what Hebrews is telling us, even if the form isn’t immediately attractive: what Christ has come to do is make it so we can live with God. Covered in mercy and redemption, able to stand one day before the full revelation of Yahweh, drawn near in the Holiest place. And Christ is cleansing our conscience — bringing us to peace in ourselves, making it well with my soul.
For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with human hands that was only a copy of the true one; He entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence.
— Hebrews 9:24
What Christ is doing is making everything right at every level.
What the former tabernacle could do was teach three things:
Approach God with care — not because God is bad, but because God is so good, such a concentration of life.
Sin wrecks your life with God and with each other — there is an immense cost to sin.
God is already at work in revelation and in healing the world — the jar of manna, Aaron’s staff that budded, the stone tablets.
The Holy of Holies is the innermost place — where we cannot go. And Christ is making us ready for it. A deep clue to that reality is our own conscience: the most inner, set-apart place of the human person. Christ is making peace for both.
There is no forgiveness without someone absorbing the cost of the wrong done. The final outworking of sin is death — disconnection from Life. But the Deeper Magic is this: if an innocent one absorbs the cost and gives their life out of love, it can count on behalf of the condemned. It can make us right with God, with death, and even with the accusing voice of our own conscience.
If the Son has set you free, you are free indeed.
So — Jesus’ blood has accomplished an eternal redemption. There are stages: now we have Christ’s forgiveness and filling; one day, the fullness of God’s revealed presence in the age to come. The new covenant is grace realized. The ministry of Jesus goes on — intercession.
Where is your conscience troubled? Where is your confidence located? Come boldly before the throne of grace in your time of need. We are going to be brought into the Holy Place. That is where God is. That is our hope.
Direct Quotes
We are not easeful human beings who occasionally get restless, serene persons who once in a while are obsessed by desire. The reverse is true. We are driven persons, forever obsessed, congenitally dis-eased, living lives, as Thoreau once suggested, of quiet desperation, only occasionally experiencing peace.
— Ronald Rolheiser
We are more deeply flawed than we could ever dare imagine. But we are more deeply loved than we could ever dare hope.
— Tim Keller
What C.S. Lewis in Narnia called the Deeper Magic: if an innocent one absorbs the cost, gives their own life out of love, that can count on behalf of the separated and condemned.
— on C.S. Lewis
Three Questions for Personal Application
Where is your conscience troubled right now?
Name the place that lacks peace — the guilt over what you’ve done, the shame over who you are. Bring it honestly to God rather than burying it. The conscience is the inner room Christ has come to cleanse.
Where is your confidence located?
Notice what you reach for to feel right with the world — performance, approval, control. Ask whether your peace rests on your own efforts or on what Christ has already accomplished once for all.
Are you drawing near, or holding back?
God dwells in unapproachable light, yet invites you to come boldly to the throne of grace. Consider where fear or self-condemnation keeps you at a distance, and what it would mean to approach as one already set free.
“But He has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of Himself.”
— Hebrews 9:26
June 28: Eternal Redemption Through the Blood of Christ
June 21: Groups Guide
About This Guide
The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.
Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.
pdf download
Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.
Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.
more Resources
Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.
Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.
Love
Teaching Text: Hebrews 7:11-8:13
If perfection could have been attained through the Levitical priesthood—and indeed the law given to the people established that priesthood—why was there still need for another priest to come, one in the order of Melchizedek, not in the order of Aaron? For when the priesthood is changed, the law must be changed also. He of whom these things are said belonged to a different tribe, and no one from that tribe has ever served at the altar. For it is clear that our Lord descended from Judah, and in regard to that tribe Moses said nothing about priests. And what we have said is even more clear if another priest like Melchizedek appears, one who has become a priest not on the basis of a regulation as to his ancestry but on the basis of the power of an indestructible life. For it is declared:
“You are a priest forever,
in the order of Melchizedek.”
The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God.
And it was not without an oath! Others became priests without any oath, but he became a priest with an oath when God said to him:
“The Lord has sworn
and will not change his mind:
‘You are a priest forever.’”
Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantor of a better covenant.
Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to Godthrough him, because he always lives to intercede for them.
Such a high priest truly meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. For the law appoints as high priests men in all their weakness;but the oath, which came after the law, appointed the Son, who has been made perfect forever.
Now the main point of what we are saying is this: We do have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven,and who serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by a mere human being.
Every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices, and so it was necessary for this one also to have something to offer. If he were on earth, he would not be a priest, for there are already priests who offer the gifts prescribed by the law. They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle: “See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.” But in fact the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, since the new covenant is established on better promises.
For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. But God found fault with the people and said:
“The days are coming, declares the Lord,
when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel
and with the people of Judah.
It will not be like the covenant
I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they did not remain faithful to my covenant,
and I turned away from them,
declares the Lord.
This is the covenant I will establish with the people of Israel
after that time, declares the Lord.
I will put my laws in their minds
and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
No longer will they teach their neighbor,
or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.
For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”
By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.
Themes
Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:
Hebrews: A new and Living Way
Priest of the True Tabernacle
Formation
Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:
Sermon Summary
“We moved to New York when our kids were 1, 3, and 5. Do not recommend.”
While other parents hired coaches to prep their three-year-olds for the right kindergarten, we were screaming at ours not to eat pizza off the subway floor. Our whole parenting defaulted to the survival layer — don’t run into the road, don’t climb the train tracks. Rule one: stay alive. The mechanisms worked. Screen-time limits, hard rules, constant vigilance. But here’s the conundrum: if you cling to the thing that worked at first and transformation never comes, it ends up doing more harm than good. A guardian was only ever meant to get you to the real way in.
Because Jesus is a better Priest, we have a better covenant, executed in a better tabernacle, giving us a better salvation — one that doesn’t just regulate sin but removes it and brings us near to God.
Hebrews is a letter to people under pressure — pressure to go back to the old ways after they’d met Jesus. And the writer is a genius, building one slow case. Correct thinking isn’t the goal. Correct behavior isn’t the goal. They’re the pathway to something better: presence and closeness with God.
The old priesthood was never enough (7:11–19). It was God’s design — but always temporary. A signpost pointing to something it could never reach. The Levitical priests:
Kept dying. Every death a disruption, every new appointment a reminder of mortality.
Could help in a moment, but couldn’t touch the ultimate problem.
Were qualified by ancestry — you had to be born a Levite.
Needed saving themselves.
Jesus is different. Eternal — qualified not by genealogy but by resurrection, “the power of an indestructible life.” Death has no power over Him. He doesn’t offer reprieve; He removes sin. The law revealed sin, restrained sin, pointed to Christ — but it could never remove it. What replaces it isn’t another law. It’s a better hope, by which we draw near to God.
Jesus is the guarantor of a better covenant (7:20–28). Other priests were appointed by lineage, no oath. Jesus was appointed by God’s sworn oath — the strongest guarantee there is, God’s own character on the line. So He becomes the Guarantor, the One who personally underwrites the promise. And He doesn’t merely help: He is able to save completely — to the uttermost, to the end. Not partially but completely. Not momentarily but perpetually. The ground of it? “He always lives to intercede for them.” Alive and pleading our case before the Father.
How often do I wrestle with whether I’m enough — enough for my family, enough of a believer, enough of a servant? The question was never my sufficiency. It’s His.
The better covenant is written on hearts, not stones (8:1–13). We have a high priest who sat down at the right hand of God. That matters — the Levitical priests never sat; there were no chairs in the tabernacle. Their work was never done. Jesus sat because His work is finished. Beware the chair. Jeremiah promised four things this new covenant would do:
Internalized law — written on hearts, not external compliance but inner transformation.
Intimate relationship — “I will be their God, and they will be My people.”
Universal knowledge of God — every believer knows Him directly. The veil is torn.
Complete forgiveness — God doesn’t just forgive; He forgets. The record is expunged.
So why do we keep going back to the inferior, temporary systems? The familiar feels safer than the free. Grace offends our pride — performance flatters the self. Sin-regulation is easier; it asks no trust. Underneath it all: the never-subsiding temptation to be our own priest.
Thank God we don’t need to be.
Israel’s high priest entered the Holy of Holies once a year, alone, with blood — and the people waited outside. In Jesus, the curtain is torn. You don’t wait outside anymore.
Come as you are. Ask for grace. Be with God. Draw near.
Direct Quotes
I like to“Someone said our efforts to earn God’s favor are like stapling fruit to a tree — it looks fine for a photo, but there’s no life in it. What temporary mechanism have you leaned on too long?”
— from the sermon
“Love has no awareness of merit or demerit; it has no scale… Love loves; this is its nature.”
— Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited
“I do not at all understand the mystery of grace — only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.”
— Anne Lamott
Three Questions for Personal Application
Can I ever truly be made right with God?
Where am I still trying to staple fruit to the tree — keeping up appearances, contributing my own performance, hoping it’s enough? The priest who never dies paid the price once for all. Rest is actually available to me.
What do I reach for when I fail?
Notice the temporary mechanisms you run to for reprieve instead of the full rescue Jesus offers. When the question “Am I enough?” surfaces this week, can I let it land on his sufficiency rather than my own
Am I willing to be changed, not just corrected?
It’s easier to measure my compliance than to let God transform my heart. Where am I settling for managing my behavior when he is offering to write his law on me from the inside?
“In Jesus, the curtain is torn. You don’t wait outside. You draw near.”
— Hebrews 7:19
June 21: Priest of the True Tabernacle
June 14: Groups Guide
About This Guide
The online groups guide is designed as a teaching series companion to foster discussion, study, and prayer, especially in a group setting.
Join a weekly group for a meaningful way to connect to our community.
pdf download
Download this PDF to help you make a plan to follow Jesus in your everyday life, including diagnostic questions to help get you started.
Pickup a print version at our weekly in-person Sunday gatherings.
more Resources
Explore a curated online collection of recommended practices and resources to pursue presence, formation, and love in your life.
Questions about the series or looking for a way to get involved? Contact us.
Love
Teaching Text: Hebrews 6:13-7:10
When God made his promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for him to swear by, he swore by himself, saying, “I will surely bless you and give you many descendants.” And so after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised.
People swear by someone greater than themselves, and the oath confirms what is said and puts an end to all argument. Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised,he confirmed it with an oath. God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be greatly encouraged. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.
This Melchizedek was king of Salem and priest of God Most High. He met Abraham returning from the defeat of the kings and blessed him, and Abraham gave him a tenth of everything. First, the name Melchizedek means “king of righteousness”; then also, “king of Salem” means “king of peace.” Without father or mother, without genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life, resembling the Son of God, he remains a priest forever.
Just think how great he was: Even the patriarch Abraham gave him a tenth of the plunder! Now the law requires the descendants of Levi who become priests to collect a tenth from the people—that is, from their fellow Israelites—even though they also are descended from Abraham. This man, however, did not trace his descent from Levi, yet he collected a tenth from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises. And without doubt the lesser is blessed by the greater. In the one case, the tenth is collected by people who die; but in the other case, by him who is declared to be living. One might even say that Levi, who collects the tenth, paid the tenth through Abraham, because when Melchizedek met Abraham, Levi was still in the body of his ancestor.
Themes
Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:
Hebrews: A new and Living Way
Confidence in God's Promises
Formation
Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:
Sermon Summary
It started over breakfast. Sitting at an outside table before the work day, a friend with little church experience asked the question flat out:
“Why did Jesus die on the cross?”
The moment was almost comic — someone had been laughing at an absurd ad, a ripped, eight-pack-abs Jesus on a body pillow. But behind the joke was a real question she’d carried a long time without a satisfying answer. What does it mean that Jesus died for our sins? Why doesn’t God just forgive us? And how strange is it to wear a method of execution as jewelry?
The answer runs through the whole story: God keeps His promises — even when the cost of keeping them is death — and He takes that death onto Himself.
The Scriptures open with overflow. Teeming, bountiful life from a God who shares. The first lie introduced scarcity — that maybe God was holding out, keeping something good from us. And whatever sin is, it is movement away from God, His word, His presence, His promises. Move away from the source of life and what fills the gap is death. Death as an ending. Death as separation. It entered the abundant places and has stalked the human experience ever since.
The old sacrifices — lambs, doves, bulls, grain — showed Israel the tangible cost. When you lie, steal, harm, envy, objectify, forget the poor, refuse to sabbath — something dies. Trust, peace, goodwill, a sense of abundance. When forgiveness is shared, someone is absorbing the cost. On the cross, Jesus absorbed the cost of death for all of us — and opened the way back to abundant life.
After Eden, Genesis records two great devastations — the ravaging of death in the flood, and the tragedy of trying to be godlike without God at Babel. Then Genesis 12 turns everything:
God begins a deliberate work of repair, and starts by inviting one person to trust him.
He goes to a 75-year-old man, asks him to leave everything he knows, and to go.
He promises to bless him, make him a nation, and through him bless the whole world.
The Kingdom of God moves along relational lines. And it moves through promises — promises made and promises believed. If you want an access point to the Kingdom this morning, take a promise from God and believe it. Live like it’s true, and you’ll discover that it is.
In Genesis 15 God confirms the promise with an oath. By covenant custom, both parties walk the blood path between split animals: if I break my part, may this happen to me. But Abraham falls asleep, and God passes through twice — as if to say, I will keep my end, and when you fail, I will keep yours too. By two unchangeable things — God’s promise and God’s oath — and because God cannot lie, this hope is secure.
Then God shows Abraham what it will cost. In the covenant of the animals, and later in the test with Isaac, God discloses the price of repair. Abraham sleeps on covenant night; Abraham is stopped before offering Isaac. God says: I will pay the cost myself. I will take this death — to give you life.
And so God becomes for us both King and Priest. The one who makes the promise and the one who pays to keep it. The one who declares the way and the one who opens it. There are no priest-kings in the Hebrew Scriptures — except one strange blip. Abraham meets Melchizedek, King of Salem, whose name means king of righteousness, from the place of peace. The story gives him no beginning and no end. A picture of what was coming: a Priest and King of righteousness and peace, with no beginning and no end, who can be trusted forever.
You can be confident in God’s promises. They are more true than your circumstances, your moods, your worst mistake or greatest failure. God’s character and promises are the foundation of reality. Sometimes the wait is longer than we’d like — Abraham was 75 when called, 100 when Isaac came. (The Knicks waited 53 years; it’s not always our chosen timeline.) But God keeps his promises.
So here is what you can count on:
The hope of Christ is an anchor for the soul. An anchor goes down deep, where we cannot reach, and fastens to the rock. Christ has gone where we could not go, and our connection to Him holds firm — in the gentle tides of doubt and the sway of sin, and in tragedy, chaos, and grief.
This anchor is also a Priest who has gone into the inner sanctuary. Christ’s death made the way; His life holds our place. At His death the foot-thick veil tore from top to bottom — the way is opened. And at Pentecost, the presence of God comes to fill the temple of our lives by the Holy Spirit.
Mercy reigns. Jesus is King of righteousness and peace, both holy and the one who makes us holy. Mercy is on the throne of the universe. The highest authority anywhere is offering mercy.
If God forgives me, then I can forgive me. There is no higher standard than God. So when shame comes knocking, when failures scream, when sorrow threatens to crush — speak back that the highest authority loves me, accepts me, welcomes me, and has declared it is finished. My life is His; His life is mine.
And there is a generosity of grace that keeps going forever. Abraham’s joy at meeting the Priest-King overflows into a tenth of all he has — just a glimpse of the way of the Kingdom. What is sown in grace keeps going. When we give ourselves away, we join with God, and the share is unending. No one can take from you what God has given.
The Kingdom moves along relationships. It is revealed when someone hears the promise of God and takes it as true. Why did Jesus die for us? Because the Love that is God knows what it will take to repair the world — and starting with us, God says: I will do this. I will take what is yours, and give you what is mine. And the share you have in my life will never end.
It is an anchor for your soul. It is in the Holy of Holies. Your name is spoken there. Your future is with God.
Come and believe the promise.
Direct Quotes
I like to imagine Abraham, looking every bit the madman, staring out into the frightening void of the dark desert. Feeling a pull, a powerful tow toward a nameless, unseen God. Behind him, all the might of the city, the walls of the grain storehouses. From the towering pyramid-shaped temple he can hear the drums, screams, and pagan chanting. In his gut, the doubt, the conflicting emotions, the fear that everything he has believed until now is wrong. The city represented safety, comfort, the known. In front of him, the desert representing death, darkness, mystery, and the unknown. Then the resolution, the determination, the trust, followed by the first step, away from the city, away from Ur. The first step of faith into the unknown, into the arms of God.
— Mark Sayers
I will take what is yours, and I will give you what is mine. And the share you have in my life will never end.
Three Questions for Personal Application
Where am I being invited to take a promise from God and simply believe it — to live as if it’s true?
The Kingdom opens when someone hears a promise and trusts it. Name the one promise you’ve been holding at arm’s length, and ask what it would look like to stake your week on it.
What cost am I trying to absorb on my own that Christ has already absorbed for me?
We so often try to meet the deep needs of our soul out of our own resources. Where are you carrying shame, failure, or striving that the cross has already settled? Let mercy, not your own effort, be the foundation you stand on.
If mercy is truly on the throne, where do I need to extend that same generosity — to others, and to myself?
There is no higher standard than the God who forgives you. Consider one relationship — possibly your relationship with yourself — where you’ve withheld the grace you’ve already received, and let it flow freely.
“We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf.”
— Hebrews 6:19–20