Our Perfect and Sympathetic High Priest

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens Jesus the Son of God Let us hold fast our confession for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses But one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin Let us then with confidence drawn near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward since he himself is beset with weakness Because of this he is obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins just as he does for those of the people and No one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God just as Aaron was So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest but was appointed by him who said to him You are my son today. I have begotten you as he says also in another place you are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek In the days of his flesh Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death And he was heard because of his reverence although he was a son he learned obedience through what he suffered And being made perfect he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek This is a word of the Lord And you all can be seated Thanks Jenny Good morning, my name is Mitchell Carter. I'm one of the pastors here at city church I'm the pastor of families youth and children if we haven't met I'd love to meet you after the service is great to be with you this morning great to be worshipping With you this morning and as always great to be able to proclaim God's word to you. I'm honored that I'm able to do that It's also great that we're back in the book of Hebrews If you've been with us for a while we began preaching through the book of Hebrews back in the fall and then we took a break for the month of November for officer nominations and then another break for the month of December for advent now we're back in the book of Hebrews So by way of reminder. I'd like to remind us what the book is about remember. It's a letter It's a letter from a pastor to a congregation who is most likely made up of Jewish people People who were ethnic Jews who converted to Christianity They acknowledged that Jesus was this long-awaited Messiah. He is the king that we've been waiting on and things got hard and They've been tempted to return to Judaism to turn away from Christ to deny the Christian faith and Go back and so the argument of the letter is Is an argument for them to not leave and? The goal of the argument is to raise up Jesus Christ and say that he is greater He is better. He is better than everything and everyone in the old covenant what we call the Old Testament He's better than the prophets who proclaimed God's word to you He's better than the angels who brought God's law to you He's better than Moses who brought them out of slavery in Egypt And he's going to continue say that he's better than air in the high priest and the priesthood of the Old Testament He's better than all the sacrifices for sins Jesus is better and so don't leave him And what follows then is because Jesus Who is the initiator of this new covenant is better the the new covenant is that much greater than the old covenant and it's greater in all of its promises and all of its threats So that's what we see in chapter two for the first time that if Jesus is this great and those who rejected the faith in the old covenant Received judgment how much greater is ours when we reject the clarity of the message of Jesus Hebrews is very sobering book So the author goes back and forth between warnings not to leave the faith do not give up and encouragements and In the encouragements he always follows it up and he doesn't focus on you and he doesn't focus on me the encouragements focus on Jesus Jesus is so great that you should put your trust in him It's not that we are so great. It's that he is so great In the last time we were together in the book of Hebrews Jeff preach from us or Jeff preach to us from Hebrews 4 chapters or verse 1 through 13 and it ended another warning So this was a huge warning that began in chapter 3 and ended in 4 13 The author points to this wilderness generation the Israelites when they were in the wilderness and on the edge of the Jordan about to Enter into God's promise land to enter into the rest that he had promised them and They get scared and they don't trust God Anymore and so they disobey him and go the other way and What the author says is they fell in the wilderness they died and So don't turn like they did to disobedience and to unbelief or we also will fall in the same way that they fell Today we get the encouragement thankfully we get the encouragement that the author brings to us to press on In trust and belief, but before we see what God has for us today. Would you pray with me that we would know his word? Father, thank you that you don't leave us guessing Who you are and what you are like thank you that you don't Leave us without any direction in life. Thank you that you've given us your word Thank you that your word has come to us most fully and completely in Jesus Thank you that we stand on the other side of him and get to look back and know What he has done for us and the confidence that we might have to come to you because of him I pray Lord that you would reveal your word to us today by your Holy Spirit open our eyes That we might be encouraged in the midst of trials and temptations that we might Know you more and put our trust in you more and rejoice in all that you have done for us We pray all these things in Jesus name amen This passage starts a little bit differently than a lot of passages and then most sermons so most sermons We backload the application the application comes at the end. We tell you all of the things that are true and then at the end Here's what you should do this passage does something different the commandments come at the beginning There are two commandments the first one we find in verse 14 It begins since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens Jesus the Son of God and then here's the commandment the let us let us hold fast our confession So this is this is what the author is trying to get you to do hold fast to our confession This command is paralleled and other commands that we've seen already in the book of Hebrews so in chapter 4 verse 11 The author says let us therefore strive to enter that rest This is the rest of God that he's been talking about Don't turn back in unbelief, but instead press through trusting God Press into the faith rather than abandoning it We see the same thing in chapter 3 verse 6 Hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope So we see that verb again hold fast the idea that you should get is that you're clinging to something and You won't let it go you have a death grip on something and that something is our confession So don't hear confession of sin when he says that rather hear confession of faith This is what we profess to be true and at its most basic that confession of faith that Christians make is that Jesus Christ is Lord He is the long awaited Messiah the one whom we've been waiting for The one just like we confessed today that our only hope in life and in death is that we belong to Jesus That's the confession. He's saying clean to this Don't abandon it And then the second commandment backs that commandment up. It's found in verse 16 Another let us let us then with confidence Draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need and hearing that word help Clues us in that we are to do this because we need help because holding fast to the faith is difficult because trials and temptations are always present This church here. We don't know all the situation that they're in but later in the book We hear that there's persecution some of them are being thrown in jail for their faith It is hard to cling to Christ when it's gonna cost you something And for many of you in here, it has cost you something. So, the author offers us help and the temptation that we often have is to think that help is a thing. It's a substance. It's this thing that God has given me or to use a more theological term, grace. Grace is this thing that God is dispensing to me like we're in a buffet line and some mashed potatoes get slapped on our plate. And you lean in and you say, "Could I get just a little bit more? It's going to be a hard week." But that's not what the author tells us. Grace is not a thing. Grace is a person. Your help is not something that God hands you. Your help is Jesus Christ. So the way that we are helped in our trials and temptations is not by God handing us a little bit of strength. It's by God reminding us who Jesus is and what he has done for us. And today that reminder is that Jesus is our high priest. A high priest is not a typical category that you and I have. This isn't something that we are often thinking about. So we're going to explore it a little bit more and we're going to go back to the Old Testament to understand what exactly it means when it says that Jesus is our high priest. The author actually tells us, and if you look in your outline to kind of help you follow along, you'll see that all of it's found at the beginning of chapter 5. And so we learn about the function of a high priest and then we learn two qualifications that a high priest must be a human and a high priest must be called by God himself. So let's read chapter 5 and then explore those things a little bit. Verses 1 through 4. For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward because he himself is beset with weakness. Because of this he is obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins just as he does for those of the people. And no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God just as Aaron was. So the first thing that we see here is the function of a high priest, what he does. And it says that he's chosen from among men he's appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God. At its foundation this is what a high priest is. He is a mediator between God and his people. He stands between God and his sinful people. And the reason that he does is because people cannot stand in the presence of a holy God or us as sinful people cannot stand in the presence of a holy God without being demolished. God is not just holy as in pure in the way that we think of it. He is holy righteous. He is perfect in all that he does an evil in sin cannot be in his presence and still exist. If you remember back to last summer when we preached on the Ten Commandments, do you remember what happened at the end, not the last commandment, but right after the Ten Commandments? Remember God is the one who is saying the Ten Commandments. His voice is what the Israelites hear up on Mount Sinai and he shrouded in clouds and fire and thunder. And at the end of the Ten Commandments the Israelites say, "Please stop. Don't talk to us anymore. We can't handle this. We're going to die." Moses, you go up there, you get the commandments and then you bring them back down and you say them to us. We can't be in God's presence anymore. And they were right because they're sinful. They rightly understood that this wasn't going to be able to keep happening. And what we learned just after that in Exodus is that God makes a way that he might live in the presence of his people. That God's people and God can dwell together because remember this is what we were created for. If you think back to the Garden of Eden what you and I should live in our daily lives is that we are walking in the cool of the day with God just as Adam and Eve did. But because of our sin, because of their sin they were exiled from the Garden, kicked out of God's presence because a holy God cannot live in the presence of sinful people. And so in Exodus God has an answer for this and it's called the Tabernacle. What later becomes the temple. The Tabernacle is this big tent and it's in the middle of the people of Israel where they live. God dwells in the center of the Tabernacle and all the people of Israel live around it. This is his answer. This is how a holy God can live in the midst of sinful people. But there are all these barriers still and at the very front of the Tabernacle. As soon as you walk in when you want to enter into God's presence the very first thing you see is an altar. And what happens on that altar is sacrifices are made. God allows people, sinful people to bring an animal and sacrifice the animal and he says that's enough for now. And people can enter into his presence. But there's still another barrier because God's not just in the Tabernacle, he's in a smaller tent in the middle of the Tabernacle called the Holy of Holies. This is where it was said that God's throne was. It's the ark of the covenant and God sits in throne above the ark of the covenant. And not everybody can go in there. Only the high priest can go in there. This mediator between God and his people and he gets to go in once a year. And so what he does is one time a year he stands outside of the Holy of Holies at this altar and he makes a sacrifice and the sacrifice is for the sins of all the people. He makes it where everyone can see and then he takes the sacrifice, he takes the blood from the sacrifice into God's throne room and he presents it to God and says this is enough. This is enough for the sins of your people for them to dwell in your presence. And this happened every year repeatedly because it had to keep happening year in and year out. So the high priest makes sacrifice for sins. One more thing that he does is he prays for the people. So there's a bowl of incense just outside the Holy of Holies and the smoke that rises up from the incense is a picture of the prayers of God's people that are rising up to him. So the high priest does two things. He offers prayers for the people and he makes sacrifice for their sins. And a thought that might enter your mind is, "Man, I'm glad we don't have to do that anymore." Isn't that great that we're New Testament Christians and we don't have to deal with any of those silly sacrifices or that silly priesthood? If that's the thought you have, keep paying attention in Hebrews because the answer that the Bible gives. Hebrews is the first book that I began to see this where I began to realize, "Oh, that's not all done away with and pushed to the side." The Bible teaches that those things are fulfilled, not that they're shoved to the side. We're going to see that a little bit today. We're going to see that throughout the rest of the book of Hebrews. So hold on to that idea that all of these things still exist. These categories still exist, but they are fulfilled. That's the first thing, that's the high priest's function. The second thing that we see is a qualification. The high priest must be a human, which sounds a little bit weird at first. But if you think about one of the functions of a high priest, this makes sense. So the high priest offers prayers for the people. Read with me chapter 5 verse 2 of Hebrews. So in verse 1 we see that he must be chosen from among men, from among people. He must be a human, and here's why. He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward since he himself is beset with weakness. This is how prayer always works. If you've ever tried to pray for a name on a card that's not attached to a person, you probably last about 30 seconds because you have no idea what to pray for that person for. You have all these general things that you can pray for them for, but you don't know them, you don't know the temptations that they struggle with, you don't know what's going on in their life, you don't know what kind of help they need. The high priest cannot be an angel, the mediator between God and man must be a man because he must know the struggles of the people. He must understand how to pray for them and what to ask God to give them in the midst of their trials. He must be a human. The second thing, the second qualification, is that he must be called by God. So this is verse four. So Aaron, if you remember his Moses' brother, Moses begins kind of functioning as this intermediary between God and His people, but later on. It's Aaron who is designated by God to be the high priest. He's the one who will make this sacrifice every year. He's the one who will offer prayers for the people. And then the way that that happened after he died is his oldest living son, Eliasar. His oldest child would be the high priest. So God called the high priest in that way by way of genealogy. That Eliasar's oldest son and all of the eldest descendants would become the high priest. This is going to be a problem that is dealt with especially in Hebrews chapter 7. We won't deal with it today, but Jesus is not a descendant of Aaron. And so a Jewish person would say, "How is he our high priest?" And that's kind of a cliffhanger because I'm not going to deal with it today. But in chapter 7, we're going to deal with it. What we see is Aaron and all the high priests are called by God. You don't get to say, "I got this. I'll be the one who steps in between God and his people and kind of mediates between the two." We actually have a story in number 16 of that happening. There's a guy named Korah and he has this posse of people who get mad that Moses and Aaron are in the positions that they are. Specifically, the Aaron's the high priest and they don't get to be. And they come and say, "We want to do it. Who are you that you get to do this?" And Korah and all those guys die. Because no one takes something from God that God has given to someone else. So the high priest must be a human and he must be called by God. What we see next is what the author of Hebrews does time and time again. Is he talks about one of these categories in the old covenant that is very important to the people and he says, "Jesus is better than that." And he's going to show us all the ways point by point that Jesus is better than the Old Testament high priest. First, in terms of his function. So I didn't mention this before, but the tabernacle is always referred to as a model or a shadow. And the idea is when Moses went up on Mount Sinai, God showed him his throne room and then sent him down with directions to construct a model of that throne room. That's what the tabernacle and then later the temple is. So God's throne is actually in heaven, but he condescends to his people to dwell in the midst of them in this model. And this is important because there's kind of a throwaway phrase if we're not paying attention in verse 14 that tells us how Jesus functions as our high priest. It says since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens. Jesus, the Son of God. It says that Jesus has passed through the heavens. It's a reference there to his ascension. So if you remember, Jesus rose from the dead, but then he stuck around for 40 days. And in Acts 1, we hear what happened to him. So he hung around for 40 days and then in Acts 1, he told his disciples that he was going to leave. He said you are going to be my witnesses and then he rose up into heaven. And they could see him for a while, but as they were looking up, the clouds, the sky, what the Bible often refers to as the heavens, closed him up. And this was a picture of the high priest because the high priest would make his sacrifice in the seeing of all the people and then he would take that sacrifice and he would walk behind his massive curtain. And so they wouldn't see what he was doing in the throne room of God, but he would walk behind the curtain and then disappear behind it. And so in the same way, Jesus makes his sacrifice and then rises up into heaven and disappears behind the curtain of the heavens. And we learn later that he has entered the throne room of God. We know this because in Acts 7, Stephen sees it. Stephen looks up and the curtain is pulled back and Jesus is standing there before the throne of God, interceding for Stephen. So the takeaway is, Jesus is greater because he's not messing with the model, this shadow on earth. He's not walking into this tent where God lives. He's walking into the real thing. He's in the actual throne room of God, staying there, pleading for the needs of his people. And in that way, he's greater than the Old Testament high priest. The second thing that he is greater in is his qualification, that he's a human. So this is what we see in verse 15. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses. But one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Remember the high priest must be a human, he must understand what it's like to be a person. What the day in and day out struggles are of God's people. We've just talked about this for the last month that Jesus, though he was God, took on flesh and became a human. He did it for a number of reasons, but the reason that this points to is so that he might understand, so that he might sympathize. That's not just, hey, I feel what you're feeling. It's actually feeling it with you. Jesus understands your temptation. What this says is that he is tempted in every respect as we are. He knows what you need because he has experienced that same need. The one qualification, the one but this, that the author gives is yet without sin. And some of you might hear that and think, never mind, Jesus doesn't get it. If he hasn't sinned, if he hasn't felt the guilt that I felt, he does not understand my life. He doesn't know how to help me. If that's your thought, I'd like you to think about temptation for a second. I'd actually like to tell you a story. When I was in high school, I played basketball, and I really enjoyed it, and played year-round. In the summers, we would have tournaments, but we would also have training. In the summer after my freshman year in high school, we did this really intense training as a team that was training in agility, training in strength, training in endurance. Our trainer was kind of crazy. He was really intense. He would run us ragged every single time. One of the things that he would do is he would end every single session with a plank. So you know what a plank is. It's laying flat, but you're on your elbows, so you're working out your abs. It puts all your body weight on your abs, and you just sit there and hold it. And so he would end every session with a plank. And what he told us at the beginning is if any of you hold a plank for 10 minutes, we'll never do it again. Ten minutes is a really long time to hold a plank. And so we didn't really try it first, and then eventually we kept having to do this at the end of every single session. So one day we were like, we're going for it. We're all going to try. We're all going to do this. Let's do it. And so plank time came, and we all went for it, and after about two minutes half the group was done, dropped out. Some of the guys keep going. The guys who have dropped around them cheering them on because they benefit from this. They don't have to do it anymore. And after four minutes, everybody else is down except three guys. After six minutes, another guy drops. After seven minutes, only one guy is left. It's my older brother, Nick. He's two years older than me, and he's kind of a workout machine. Like this is his thing, plank, this is his moment. So at seven minutes, Nick is still up. And everybody around him has already dropped, and they're all cheering him on and going crazy. And so Nick's still up at eight minutes. And he keeps going. He's shaking like crazy, and he's still up at nine minutes. And he pushes all the way through, and he stays up for ten minutes. He's called out and he drops to the ground, and we never have to do plank again. Here's my question for you. Who understands the plank better? Nick or the guy who dropped it two minutes? See temptation is like a weight. It's like a pressure on you, and you experience relief when you give in to sin. It doesn't stay that relief is short-lived, but you do experience kind of a release valve for that temptation. Jesus never experienced that relief. Jesus experienced temptation all the way through. So back to the story, who understands what someone needs at eight minutes? Does the guy who dropped it two minutes have any clue what somebody who has been doing the plank for eight minutes needs? Does he know what advice or help or encouragement he needs? No. He's never been there. He doesn't understand that. Nick does. Nick knows exactly what that person needs because he's been there. He's been there at nine minutes when no one else has been there. In the same way, Jesus knows what you need all the way through your temptation. because he has been all the way through it in a way that no one else has. That's how his humanity makes him a sympathetic high priest. That's how him being without sin and never having to make sacrifice for his own sin makes him a merciful high priest. He understands more than you and I ever will. The next qualification that's given is that he must be called by God. So Aaron was called by way of genealogy and all the high priests after him. The text is going to tell us how Jesus was called to be a high priest. Read with me verses 5 through 10. So also, Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest but was appointed. By him, by him who said to him, "You are my son. Today I have begotten you." As he says in another place, "You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek." In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. There's a lot of stuff there. And a lot of it gets complex and we'll talk about some of it. Some of it we won't get to. If you've got questions at the end, please come talk to me or email me if you don't think of it until Monday. I'd love to talk about it because it is really good. But I think something that might kind of cut through some of the questions is to ask this question. When was Jesus called by God to be our high priest? At what point in time was he designated a high priest for us? And the answer is, after his ascension, it's not when he was born, it's not when he began his ministry, it's not when he died on the cross, it's after his ascension. One of the ways we know this is where these quotes come from. So the first quote, you are my son, today I've begotten you comes from Psalm 2. And then the second quote, you are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek comes from Psalm 110. Both of these are kingly Psalms, what we call royal Psalms. They're given in a setting where the king is sitting on his throne and God's talking to him. That's what we just described, that's the ascension. Jesus completes the task that the father gave him. He rises back up into the throne room and he sits down on his throne. The standing happens when he intercedes for us on our behalf. But he sits down on his throne as a king. It's at that point that he is designated a high priest. Why? Why is it not until that point? And the answer comes from what a high priest does. Remember, a high priest in the presence, in the sight of all the people, makes a sacrifice for sins. And then he takes that sacrifice and goes into the throne room to present it to say this is enough. This is enough for the sins of your people. The reason why Jesus was not designated a high priest until after his ascension is because he needed a sacrifice to present to the father. That sacrifice was his own sacrifice. That's what verses 7 through 10 are talking about. In verse 7, in the days of his flesh, that doesn't mean that Jesus doesn't have flesh and blood anymore. It's talking about in his humility when he lived here on earth. In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who is able to save him from death. This is most likely. It's not definitely because the author doesn't tell us. It's most likely in the Garden of Guest Semeny the night before Jesus died. We hear about him crying out to God that he would save him. And it says that he is weeping and that his sweat begins to drip blood. So this is the picture that we have. And the reason it's a little confusing is because he says that God was able to save him from death and he heard him. So you're thinking he didn't save him from death. He died. The saving him from death was not allowing him to experience death. The saving him from death was that Jesus could not be held by death. That even though he experienced death for you and me, God did not allow him to be held under the power of death, which is his resurrection, which is what the Bible teaches. God that Jesus died and that God arose him from the dead. So this is again a reference to a sacrifice. The next question is this question of obedience. The Gospel of John everywhere, but especially in chapter 17, keeps referring to this agreement that the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit made before the foundations of the earth. The agreement was that they would redeem sinful people, you and me. And the agreement was that the father would plan this. The son would come and accomplish this redemption, and the Holy Spirit would apply it to us. And so what we see right after this is that although he was a son, although Jesus was the son of God and should never have had to suffer. He learned obedience through what he suffered. And the reason why it is sometimes troubling is that it sounds weird to say that Jesus learned obedience, because maybe that implies that he was disobedient at some point. That's not true. We just saw that he was tempted in every way yet without sin. And so I think the way to understand this is that he learned obedience by experience. That even though before the foundations of the earth, Jesus said yes, I will do that. I will take on the sins of the people for them. It wasn't until the cross that that obedience became a reality. It wasn't until then that he learned it experientially that he understood by experience what the sins of the people meant. So Jesus learned obedience through what he suffered and then he was made perfect. And again, this is a little bit weird because does that mean he was imperfect before he was made perfect? This is not moral perfection, like the way that we often think of it. This is completeness. This is fulfillment. We just talked about these qualifications. It was in Christ's death that he finally fulfilled that covenant that he made with the Father and the Holy Spirit. That he finally obeyed and fulfilled all the qualifications that he needed for you and me to be made our great high priest. And this is why. This is why he did it. He became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him. This takes us right back to verse 16. Let us then with confidence drawn near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Jesus did all this. He took on flesh. He lived the life of weakness and pain and suffering. He took on the death that you and I deserve. He made sacrifice for our sins and then presented it to the Father so that we might unashamedly and with confidence enter into that throne room, which we would never be allowed to enter into without him. And all of that says what we just sang this morning. My name is Graven on his hands. My name is written on his heart. And this is the takeaway. I know that while in heaven he stands, no tongue can bid me, then it's the part. We do not have confidence to enter the throne room of God because we're awesome. This is an affront to our self-worth and our self-sufficiency and our self-image that Eric was talking about this morning. If you try to enter into the presence of God on your own merits, you are done for. The only hope that you and I have is to plead that sacrifice was enough. Jesus's righteousness is standing before me and so I can come with confidence to the Father and get what this means, this levels everything. Because you might be sitting there thinking no, you don't know the life that I used to live or maybe even you don't know the life that I lived last night. I can't. walk into the presence of God with confidence? You don't get it. It has nothing to do with your goodness before God. It has to do with pleading the goodness of Jesus Christ. That this our great high priest took on our sin and made sacrifice for us so that we might forever dwell with God that that curse of the Garden of Eden that we are cast out from his presence is done away with. That we now can unashamedly in with confidence drawn near to the throne of grace that we might receive help from God. That is the confidence that you and I live in because of our great high priest. Do you all pray with me? Father thank you for Jesus. Thank you that he is our great high priest that you did not leave us floundering in our sin in rebellion but that you made a way that we might return to you without fear of judgment, without fear of condemnation. Not because of what we have done but because of the encouragement of Jesus Christ. May we walk in that strength and in that confidence, Lord. Help us to believe what he has done for us. Help us to trust in him and press on in the Christian life, Lord. Let us let go of you but instead let us cling to our Lord and Savior. It is in Jesus' name that we pray, amen.