So we've been in this series in the book of Hebrews where we've been reminding ourselves that this is unique. We don't know who the writer is. And most of the time when we're reading through a letter, particularly in the New Testament, I'm all about telling you context is everything. You need to know who wrote what you were reading, who they wrote it to, and why they wrote it. Hebrews is complicated because it's like, okay, who wrote this? Don't know. We got some good guesses throughout church history and we got some

good explanations behind some different authors. But the only thing we really know is that it's a small

house church somewhere in Italy with Hebrew believers, which means they have Jewish roots to their

ancestry, but they are convinced against the opinion of

most of their brethren that Jesus Christ, the son of David, is in fact the Messiah sent from God

and the son of man as promised in the book of Daniel, and they have entrusted their life to him,

but they didn't know it was going to cost so much. They didn't know they were going to be getting oppression and persecution from the Romans. At the exact same time, they were

experiencing rejection from the people they were closest to their Jewish brothers and sisters,

some of them within their own families. And so now they're wondering, is this even worth it to

follow Jesus? You ever been there where it's like, I still believe Jesus died and rose again. I still,

I'm not deconstructing necessarily my faith. I just am wondering, in my heart of hearts,

maybe I'm not saying it out loud, is it really worth it to follow Jesus? And so the writer of

Hebrews reminds them, oh, it's more than worth it because this covenant you've been given in Jesus is not just a better covenant than every covenant of the Old Testament.

It is the best covenant you could be gifted with because you've been given a real relationship with a holy God

purchased by the blood of the son of God himself.

And so it is with that in mind that I want to carry us into the next installment of Hebrews

and keeping in front of us that the motivation for the writer of Hebrews is perseverance.

Not perfection.

He wants this church to persevere to the end.

He wants them to be face to face with Jesus and still holding on to their faith.

Not persevering in effort to make it to that moment, but persevering in gratitude with a grateful spirit for what Jesus has done.

So part three of our Hebrew series that's already been really special is going to be titled today if you hear

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