Our whole journey of faith…the whole foundation of our spiritual life is the idea that God wants us to know him.

That’s what’s underlying all of the book of Hebrews, and I’ve been pondering that a lot as I keep reading and re-reading this book.

God has always been speaking, always been revealing himself to us human beings: through creation, through Moses, through the prophets, and now perfectly and powerfully through Jesus.

Hebrews takes everything that has ever been revealed by God, and ties it together with Jesus. It does more than tie it together; the book of Hebrews shows how Jesus is better than anything that has come before.

God wants us to know him. God wants us to be saved from our own wrong choices and from a world full of evil. God wants us to understand why it is that Jesus has done what it takes for us to be forever confident that we are accepted, loved, and saved by God.

Jesus has done it all!

This is what Hebrews teaches. Jesus is able to save us forever. We don’t have to be afraid. We don’t have to worry if we have done enough.

Jesus has, once and for all, made our forgiveness possible. Jesus, now and forevermore, lives to speak in our defense, on our behalf.

In the middle of all of this careful, logical argument; in the middle of all of this intricate description of priests and Melchizedek and Old Testament verses…we can’t ever forget that this is meant to be good news from God himself. Our hope comes not from ourselves or our own actions, but comes because of God speaking and acting through Jesus.

Among all the different denominations, there are some major strains of thought.

Different groups emphasize different parts of our lives with God. I like the sort of “group” we Friends belong in. We believe that a relationship with God really can change us, that when we follow Jesus, it ought to make a difference in our behavior.

Our “holiness” wing of the church believes God calls us to live like Jesus, to be free from sin and live holy lives. This is a good thing.

But it also causes stress for many of us. Am I good enough? Have I done enough? Have my sins or my actions made me lose my faith, lose my standing before God?

This is really easy to see in kids. When I was children’s pastor, I would hear questions, sometimes through tears, that betrayed this fear.

“What if I don’t love God enough? I want to have God first in my life, but sometimes I forget him. Will I go to hell? I haven’t read my bible enough…will Jesus still save me?

As we move into adulthood, we might hide it a little better. But there still can be a fear that we haven’t done enough for God.

And that’s where we can learn from some of the other branches of the church.

Other branches of the church emphasize another aspect of following God…in other branches of the church, the biggest focus is the way Christ has done it all.

Faith is simply a response to what Jesus has done for us; faith is accepting grace from God.

Hebrews is helping us with that reminder. It’s important to live a holy life. We’ll see it later in the book of Hebrews and talk about it in weeks ahead. But first and foremost, at the very foundation, is the truth that JESUS has done it all.

The foundation is not what we have done. It’s not about what we’ve failed to do. It’s about what Jesus has done, and this is what Hebrews 7 and 8 state so clearly.

Jesus has done it all. He’s the whole package; holy, innocent, pure. He is exactly what we need, and we don’t have to worry that what Jesus has done is temporary or might falter in some way.

The people who originally read or heard this would intuitively understand about priests.

The priest was someone who was the go-between, who stood up for us, who stood in the gap and helped us out, offering sacrifices for the priest’s own sin and for ours.

This isn’t an intuitive thing for many of us, this need for a sacrifice and a go-between. But we still get the concept.

This past January, my friends back in Boise were going crazy because Boise State’s football team was undefeated and playing in the Fiesta Bowl. I really, really wanted to surprise my friend Shawn McConaughey with tickets for the game.

But they were sold out everywhere. If I were to call up the Fiesta Bowl and ask them for tickets, they’d laugh and hang up on me, because I’m a nobody as far as they’re concerned.

But I have this friend from high school. She’s a big time tv reporter at a station in Phoenix, where the Fiesta Bowl was being played. So I e-mailed her to try and see if SHE could get some tickets. She was my go-between, and our years of friendship was the sacrifice.

Maybe you have something like that, a time when you needed somebody to ask something on your behalf. That’s someone who plays a “priestly” role in our lives.

To be a good “priest” means being someone who has access to whatever it is you need, and someone who has the right “sacrifice” or credentials to make something happen.

Jesus has access forever, because now he lives forever at the right hand of God!

And Jesus has the right sacrifice, a better sacrifice than anything else…his own sinless life offered on the cross.

We have it all with Jesus. We don’t have to wait for something else. We don’t need to do anything else. We don’t have to be afraid that we haven’t done enough, because he has done it all.

I wonder what it would mean for us if we completely believed and trusted that what Jesus did saved us forever…that nothing we did or didn’t do could change that?

If I believe that nothing I do disqualifies me from God’s love and salvation…what might happen?

Saying it out loud makes me nervous, and I’m sure it makes some of you nervous too.

If we say that, will people just move to cheap grace? Will they do whatever they want? Will admitting that it’s possible for me to keep sinning make it easier for me to do it?

Sometimes our fear of cheap grace makes us use scare tactics with ourselves and with others. In fact, I’ve read criticisms from people outside the church who think that all we do is try to keep people enslaved in fear.

There is no fear in this part of Hebrews. No guilt. No manipulation.

There is just a straight-out powerful exposition of the forever-ness of salvation through Jesus, all based on who Jesus is and what he’s done, not on us.

This is our foundation, this good news about what Jesus has done.

Too often in our circles, the foundation has become how we act and what our lives look like. We ask if we’ve done enough, been faithful enough.

But Hebrews is celebration of all that Jesus has done! It is superior to anything experienced before. We have in Jesus a perfect one who is on our side, who made up any separation between ourselves and God. And, because Jesus lives forever, we have a present hope. This has changed the cosmos and means that we have a foundation of hope that is not waiting for anything else, but can rest in the confidence that we have been saved forever.

It’s not a forever salvation because the sinning has stopped and sacrifice is no longer needed. It is a forever salvation because the sinless one offered himself once for all and made up for every past, present and future sin. It is a forever salvation because Jesus continues to live as our advocate, interceding for us before God.

Of course God’s intent is for us to live differently; but let’s not let OUR behavior become our foundation for how we think about our spirituality. It is CHRIST’S actions and behavior that are our foundation for hope. It is what Christ has done that is our solid foundation.

This takes away a lot of angst if we let it…and I truly believe, provides a better impetus to live differently.

I think what this calls for is a re-arranging of our thinking, our prioritization.

The foundation of life with God, the foundation of our hope, is not in us or our behavior or our actions or our spirituality.

Many things in life point to a spirituality that is about us. Outside Christian circles, it’s about our faith journey and doing things that bring harmony to ourselves.

Within Christian circles, magazine articles make it about our “quiet time” each day with God, or about working for justice around the world, or about demonstrating love to our neighbor. All good things, all necessary, but not the foundation.

We’re constantly measuring ourselves, checking our own pulse, wondering if we are being spiritual enough.

News flash: we’re not. If we were, we wouldn’t need the Jesus described in Hebrews.

Let’s get over ourselves a little bit, and let Jesus back into the rightful place as Lord of our lives and center of the cosmos.

Spirituality and faith are about the perfect sacrifice of Jesus. We have absolutely nothing to fear in all of life, because Jesus has made the perfect sacrifice and lives forever to speak on our behalf to God.

There’s more to it, obviously, many chapters more. But today, let’s get the foundation right.

God has spoken and acted completely and finally, forever through Jesus! We’re forever safe, because of him. Let’s cling to Jesus, and draw near to God.