A Superior Priest

Warm welcome to you in the name of Jesus Christ. We're so glad you're here, whether this is your first time or you have been a member here since the beginning of our church, almost twenty-five years. We want to welcome you in the name of Jesus. It is so good that you're here this morning. You're here not just at my welcome, but at the welcome of God, and we want you to experience that and know that.

If you're new to our church, we'd love to get a chance to get to know you. We recognize that coming into a room full of strangers is really hard. If you would give us your information, you can do that through our website. There's a QR code out in the hallway you can snap, and there's a way to fill that out. Or come up and see me after our service. We do want to welcome you into our church community.

This morning, I'm going to be preaching from a passage in Hebrews, chapter four, verses 14 through five, ten. Since it's a little longer, I'm going to read this aloud. I'm reading from the CSB, the Christian Standard Bible. It'll be on the screen behind me, and you can follow along as I read God's word. Listen together.

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with us in our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin. Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. For every high priest taken from among men is appointed in matters pertaining to God for the people to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and going astray, since he also is clothed with weakness. Because of this, he must make an offering for his own sins as well as those for the people. No one takes this honor on himself. Instead, a person is called by God, just as Aaron was. In the same way Christ did not exalt himself to become a high priest, but God who said to him, "You are my son. Today I have become your father," also says in another place, "You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek." During his earthly life, he offered prayers and appeals with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was the son, he learned obedience from what he suffered. After he was perfected, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him and was declared by God the high priest according to the order of Melchizedek. — Hebrews 4:14–5:10

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

I think that sometimes modern Christians feel like we're in maybe the first time, or the hardest place, the hardest culture to explain our faith to people who are outside of the church who don't understand. But you have no idea what it was like in the first century. I want you to think back—as many of you had Greek and Roman mythology at some point in your education—the gods and goddesses. Well, in the first century Roman Empire, this is what it was like for those first converts to Jesus. People would look at the stuff of religion, and it was very obvious and very public. You could walk around any city in the Roman Empire and you'd see temples, priests, sacrifices, and rites in any of those places.

So with the early Christians, they would say, "Okay, so let me get this straight. Where's your temple?" And first Christians would go, "Well, where's the temple?" Okay. "So what about your priests?" "Well, we're sort of the priests, junior priests, and Jesus is like the high priest." Again, people are scratching their heads. "Well, tell me about your sacrifices." "Well, there aren't any more because Jesus was the one and only sacrifice." "Okay. Do you have any rites?" "No. Jesus kind of did everything that there is to do. So there's nothing to look at." "That's right." Can you imagine how difficult that is, how hard that is? I just summarized the whole book of Hebrews for you in about two minutes. How confusing to explain.

Christianity is still an odd religion for believers to explain to unbelievers and for unbelievers to understand what believers mean. But this text is really important to us because it explains why and how we need an intermediary, a go-between us and God. This is really hard for people to get. You and I live in a very democratic society. I'm not making a political statement—that's a small d democrat, not political party Democrat—meaning everybody should get a vote, everybody should be able to have a say. We live in a society that values equality above all else. Nobody should be more important than anybody else. Everybody should be treated the same.

America has also been called a low power distance culture. A low power distance culture means that there shouldn't be any hierarchy in the way people are treated.

The opposite of that is a high power distance culture that gives great authority and deference to people in authority, and you can think of cultures like Japan, Mexico, Saudi Arabia. Think of societies with kings and queens and barons and high power distance cultures. Inequality is sort of how it goes. It's sort of how it works. It's part of the social order. But low power distance cultures, we live in, everybody should be able to be treated exactly the same and have a say, and there's not a difference. So if you have ever watched a show like The Crown about royalty and thought, I would love to give Prince Charles or Queen Elizabeth a piece of my mind, anybody ever felt that before? You're making my point. If you've ever heard the phrase speaking truth to power, anybody should be able to say what they want to whomever. Again, you're making my point. So this idea that we need an intermediary, we can't just go straight to God. God is not just on the same level with us. This is really hard and really foreign to us.

So two points today. Our need for a priest to the priest we need. The priest we need, our need for a priest. This is not obvious to many people. Why would we need an intermediary, a go between? First is this, the holiness of God, that God is not like us. As much as we'd like to pretend that and ignore it or downplay it or remove the distance between us and God, God is not like us. He is exalted. He is transcendent. He is other. He's above. I know that the holiness of God, we used to phrase in the Bible holy, holy, holy to describe God. For many people that feels really foreign and dull even and boring, but I want to tell you, if you find holiness, the holiness of God something boring or dull, it means you've missed the whole point. One of the things that's caught up in the holiness of God is his beauty. It's his beauty. God is irresistible when we understand his holiness. Him being high and above us is something greatly to be desired, and yet something that makes it hard for us. We need someone to bridge the gap.

The other reason we need to bridge the gap is the reality of sin. See how many times the word sin appears in this passage? I know it's not popular right now to talk about sin. Churches are sort of trying to pull back on anything that sounds offensive to modern ears. So we want to talk about brokenness that's much more palatable than sin. We want to sing songs that don't mention blood or sacrifice or sin because that's kind of ew. And I get that, and that would be great if sin was palatable, good for us, but it isn't. It's destructive. It's offensive. It's our enemy. Sin is any breaking of God's law, any lack of living up to God's law, his perfection, the how that he wanted the world to be made and to stay, the way an expression of his beauty, and sin is always a ruin of that. The corruption of that, the defilement of that, the destroying of that. Sin hides, and it minimizes, and it justifies. Sin is our enemy, and sin is deadly, and it is incredibly serious, and we don't see it. The danger of it is hidden from us.

A couple of weeks ago, I went backpacking with one of my sons in the Great Smoky Mountains, beautiful, pristine national park. We went to some of the backcountry where most of the people don't go, and we walked by mountains and rivers that looked like, are we the first people who have ever seen this? So we're walking on this trip, I realized I'd forgotten one thing, which is kind of serious. I'd forgotten the batteries to my water purifier. Now, we're walking by places that look like this and this. I mean, these rivers in the Great Smoky Mountains look like an advertisement you put on Polar Spring water bottles. This looks like the cleanest, best water in the country. And yet I'll tell you, if you drink this, you're going to get sick. There's a microscopic organism in this water called giardia, which will make you feel really bad for a really long time. And so what looks good is actually damaging. What looks like it should be life is actually dangerous to me, that water.

God's holiness and our sin is the same way, and sin has an ability to hide what's dangerous to us within it. Sin is like a beautiful flower that hides the thorns. It's like a floating bumblebee and yet hides the sting. Sin always has thorns and sting. A holy God is not safe for sinners, just like that water, because of what's in it, makes that unsafe for me.

Our oldest story in our Bible is that of our first parents, the first humans who walked with God in fellowship, who knew God face to face, and yet when they sinned against God, God evicted them from the Garden of Eden and placed at the entrance to the Garden an angel, a cherubim, with a flaming sword, not to punish them but to protect them, protect them from God's presence, because their sin had made what had formerly been life into something that would have been deadly to them, dangerous to them.

Later, in the tabernacle, that cherubim was stitched into the curtain that separated the regular place where people could go from the holy of holies, the place where only the high priest could go to make the sacrifice. And what's required for us then, because of sin, because of God's holiness, is an intermediary, a priest, somebody to go between.

What is a priest? A priest is somebody who represents a lower power to a higher power, somebody in low authority, a lesser entity to a greater, more powerful entity. A lot of our modern worship music makes it sound like we can just approach God because we sing good or because we're sincere. But we sang a lot of songs this morning that had imagery of sin and blood, of a priest who intercedes on our behalf, intervenes for us. We need someone to mediate.

Two Images of Priestly Mediation

I want you to think about two images from our world because we don't know priests. Have you ever gone to a concert? Think of your favorite musician. Many concerts now offer a backstage pass or an all access pass. You can buy that for extra money, and what that means is after the show, you get to go backstage and meet the performer. While that's a great experience, nobody really confuses the backstage pass with friendship. It's different to be a friend than it is to buy the pass.

If you want to be friends with that musician, you've got to know somebody who's their friend. If you want to be invited over to their house for dinner, if you want an intimate setting hearing them just play the guitar in the living room, you can't pay for that. That comes through someone else who knows you and knows them, a priest, if you will. A priest is a means to a relationship.

A priest is also like a broker. If you've ever made a financial transaction, either for real estate or buying and selling stock, you know you can't just go do that yourself in most cases. It requires somebody who's specially trained and who's certified to do that, who represents your interest. You're paying that person. Please represent me in this transaction. That's what a priest is, one who is a broker.

We don't like having a broker. We don't like the news that we'd have to have a broker. But for those of you in corporate America, you know that most likely you're not allowed to storm into the CEO's office and give him or her a piece of your mind. They don't want to hear from you. You just work in the company. In so many places, still in our culture, there is a power difference. Again, we need a priest. We need someone who's going to go on our behalf.

The Priesthood in the Old Testament

The priesthood is at the very center of the Old Testament sacrificial system. The book of Leviticus, third book in the Bible, describes so much of what the priest does. Did you know that little Hebrew children in synagogue school, the first book that they would learn is the one that kills most people's Bible reading plans? The book of Leviticus. Leviticus outlays the qualifications and the work of what a priest does in standing before God representing the people.

Once a year the high priest was allowed, wearing special clothes with a sacrifice in his hand, to go through the curtain, through the curtain with the cherubim, into the holy place. Custom has written since the thirteenth century that it was common for the high priest to be tied with a rope that extended out of the curtain so that if he wasn't pure, didn't come in a place of having gone through the proper preparation, they could drag his dead body out of that place. It was dangerous.

But as intricate as all that is, the Bible tells us that the whole high priest system was never effective for solving the problem of sin. It just told the people, God is going to do something about this. That's our need for the priest, and Jesus is the priest that we need.

Draw Near and Hold Fast

Jesus is the priest we need. I'm going to close this sermon, just like this passage, with a call for two things for you this morning: to draw near and to hold fast. To draw near to Jesus as your priest, to hold fast to him.

This whole passage tells us two reasons why you should do that. Why should you draw near to Jesus? Why should you hold fast to Jesus? Very simply, he understands. He empathizes with us. He understands us in our temptations. He understands us in our sorrows and sufferings. He empathizes with us.

There's an ad campaign that's been going on the last couple of years. Many of you have probably seen this, particularly during the Super Bowl that goes like this: "He gets us. He gets us." In every case, all those ads are intended to say, God knows what it's like. You can debate whether or not that's effective evangelism strategy, but it's right out of this passage that he gets us. He knows what it's like. He understands us in our temptations. He understands us in our sufferings.

Let's look at these together. First, his incredible empathy for us in our sufferings. Listen again.

During his earthly life, he offered prayers and appeals with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was the son, he learned obedience from what he suffered.

Jesus gets us. He gets what it's like to be you in your sorrows, in your sufferings, today.

What does that passage refer to? A lot of people look at that and they're like, "Oh, I remember a time when Jesus cried out with loud cries to the one who could save him from death." It makes people think of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, the night on which he was betrayed, the next day taken to the cross. He said, "Father, if it's your will, please let this cup pass from me, but not what I will but what you will do." It says that his tears flowed like blood from him. Of course, it could refer to that.

There's a writer who's done a whole book called The Emotional Life of Our Lord, and he says there are two errors that we make sometimes when we think about Jesus and his sufferings. The first is we think Jesus' divinity trumps his humanity so that his sufferings are just like fake sufferings—kind of like he walked through the motions, but he didn't really experience that. The other error, he says, is just locating Jesus' sufferings in the last twenty-four hours of his life—his time in Gethsemane, his time being tried and beaten, his time on the cross.

And this writer says, actually, the whole of Jesus' life was a Gethsemane to him. A divine person put into a human body, walking through the limitations and weaknesses of being sick, being lonely, being betrayed, being sad, losing people you love—all those places are places of his suffering. The daily life of suffering was a perpetual Gethsemane to him. That's what this guy says.

How does that help us? How does that help you?

Because our high priest Jesus is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and going astray, since he's clothed with weakness.

The heart of God, the very heart of God toward you, toward me today, is one of compassion and empathy and understanding, even beyond what you can imagine.

Maybe you have a close friend. Maybe you have your person. People like to talk in that term now. "I have my person." Usually what they mean by that is: this is the one person who gets me the best. People want a person. And as good as that can be, that person will always be beside you. That person will always be able to say, "I can see what it's like. I can hear what you're saying. I see your tears. I want to honor where you are." Those are great things.

But we have a high priest who's able to sympathize not only because he's been with us, but because his spirit is in us. It's a type of compassion like none other. Jesus knows. What is God's favorite preposition? With. With us. He understands on the inside.

Do you know loneliness today? He does too. Do you know betrayal? He knows what you're walking through. Do you know loss upon loss? He knows. Do you know failure? Do you know the inability to have a future? He knows all these things.

Now, there are so many of you here this morning. I know you. You could stand up and teach this whole lesson. I don't care. Here's what I really care about: Are you going to him? Are you going to Jesus right now, this week, with your sufferings? This is not one of those "I love to learn a lot of stuff" sermons. This is: are you doing it?

Your marriage right now is in a really hard place. Are you going to him? Your family—with your adult parents or your adult children or your little children—is extremely painful. Are you going to him? Are you taking these things to him?

I hope you are taking these things to friends. That's good. A friend is a gift, but a friend is not Jesus. I hope you're going to counseling. We promote counseling in our church. Incredibly helpful. Counseling is not Jesus. Are you taking that next step where you're taking your sorrows? Are you taking them to him, the one who really understands?

It is crazy how we resist Jesus, isn't it? Jesus is the last one that Christians go to so many times—the very last one. Draw near to the one who gets you.

Jesus doesn't get louder when we don't get it. Have you ever seen someone who's learned a little bit of a foreign language, and they're trying to operate in communication in a foreign language and realizing they can't communicate? They just get louder. I was on a summer mission trip for a whole summer during college in Mexico City with a guy named Dan, and Dan, bless his heart, knew a little bit of Spanglish, and if a little didn't go very well, it'd get louder Spanglish. Of course, all that did was alienate the people he was talking to.

I think sometimes we imagine that this is Jesus' heart toward us. "Well, if you don't get it, I need to yell at you." But that's not the heart of God at all.

Surely you'll get it if I raise my voice at you. That is not our savior. Our savior is so compassionate. He never raises his voice to tell you to pull it together, to stop being sad, to get it right. That is not our high priest. Can you draw near? Can you draw near?

His Incredible Empathy in Our Temptations

Second, his incredible empathy for us in our temptations. Listen, we don't have a high priest who's unable to sympathize with us in our weakness.

We don't have a high priest who's unable to sympathize with us in our weakness. That means we have a high priest who's very able to sympathize with us in our weakness, but one who's been tempted in every way as we are yet without sin. Therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness so you may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. — Hebrews 4:15-16

The point of this is that in sin Jesus is both like you and not like you. He knows temptation in every way that you do. He knows what it's like to be tempted, and yet temptation and sinning are not the same thing. Jesus was tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.

Now, how does that help us? I know some people are here like, great. You're telling me I keep failing the test, and you want me to take encouragement from the guy who aced the test? How is that encouraging?

This is how this is encouraging. Imagine ten knights in a little village, and there's a dragon that's been plundering their village and burning their homes and eating their kids. And so they send the ten knights out to battle. Go fight the dragon. Immediately, they go out to fight the dragon. Five of them turn around and run away. The rest of them pull out their swords, they start hacking and fighting the dragon, and one by one they're killed. One of them, though, stays in, refuses to flee, slays the dragon, and cuts off his head.

Which of the ten knights knows the strength of the dragon? The one who persevered, the one who stayed to the end and destroyed the dragon. This is the point. Jesus' victory over sin in his day to day life, his day to day temptations means that he is the one who best knows how challenging temptation is, the sinfulness of sin, the enticement of sin. He only knows the power of it, he knows it better than anybody else.

One writer, C.S. Lewis, says:

It's a silly idea that good people don't know what temptation is, only bad people. After all, you only find out the strength of an army by fighting against it. You only find the strength of the wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A person who gives in to temptations after five minutes doesn't know what it would have been like an hour later. We never find the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it. And Jesus Christ, because he was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation really means.

So in your moments, in those moments of temptation and struggle, when you're like, no one knows what it's like. Jesus, I'm the sin expert here. Jesus knows. He knows beyond all of your knowing and experiencing and giving in.

And again, the call to you this morning is draw near to Jesus. Draw near to him. He gets us in our temptations. When I discovered this, I remember this being absolutely transformative for me. Like, wait, it takes the power out of temptation if he's with you and he knows. We forget the withness of our high priest, that not only is he familiar with our weakness and temptations, but he is with you in those places of weakness and temptation.

Notice how we're invited to draw near God's throne, and notice what it's called. In the book of Revelation that describes judgment day, it says there will be a throne, and it's a great throne of judgment. But it's the same throne we're talking about, isn't it? It's the same throne as in the book of Revelation. For Christians, that throne has been utterly transformed. What's the throne called here? A throne of mercy, a throne of grace, because we have a high priest who went through the curtain and that sword fell upon him, and his sacrifice was received on your behalf. And so what was a place of judgment for you is a place of grace and mercy. God's throne has been utterly transformed for you.

Listen, how do you view God in your moments of sin and temptation? And let's not pretend like we don't have them. How do you view God? Like an angry parent? I don't know about you as a kid. I remember my mom regularly saying, just wait till your dad comes home. Anybody else hear that one? Or if we're out somewhere in public with family, just wait till we get home. Man, that was terrible. That hung over you. The verdict is coming. Judgment is impending. Just wait. Hung over your head.

Is that how we hear the voice of Jesus in our temptations? That's not how the Lord of glory speaks to his children. That is not how the God of grace speaks to you. The judgment's been paid. That throne is a throne of grace for you.

Brothers and sisters, run. What are you doing? Why would you hold back? Why wouldn't you come? Are you crazy?

Conclusion

You know, I had a Bible study leader who used to describe Hebrews as the solid book of the New Testament. This is kind of corny because the book of Hebrews is filled with all these statements that say, "Let us." And this one's the first "let us"—the first salad. "Let us draw near." These "let us" statements all over Hebrews. But listen to this one. This is a community "let us." This is a community together. It doesn't say, "Hey, privately, go off this week and be encouraged. Hope you got a little encouragement." No, it says, "Let us." Us. Because you know what we need more than anything else is brothers and sisters who grab us by the arm and take us to Jesus.

One of the great weaknesses of the Church is its individuality. We are never called just to an individual faith, a go-and-do-it-by-yourself faith. You know what you need more than anything else? In your moments of sadness and sorrow and suffering, someone who's coming with you and grabs you by the elbow and says, "Let's go together. Can I pray with you? Can I help you find the throne?"

Right now you can't find the throne. Or in our moments of temptation, brother and sister, can I take you with me? Let's go to the throne together. This is a sermon not just for the people here, same as next week. This is a sermon for the people who aren't here this morning. There are a lot of people who aren't in church because of suffering and temptation, and boy do they need a priest—a junior varsity priest. That's what you and I are. Go tell them the priest is available to you. The good news is that good, and you need it again today. Would you call them? Would you go? Would you go to one another?

Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for your word. There's nothing like your word. And yet, Lord, this is old news for many people, but it's news that we've ignored and have yet to exercise in our hearts. I know in this congregation this morning there are people who are suffering greatly, who are tempted greatly. Lord, would you help us to find the throne? Help us to help one another to find the throne.

O Lord, we pray for that kind of awakening within our congregation to the reality of the gospel, for we're sleepwalking, many of us, through this Christian life, and we've forgotten that this is real. Come, Holy Spirit, and blow through this room and wake us up. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Let's stand and respond to God's word together.