Heb 4:14 Hold On and Be Held!

Hebrews 4:14–16 ESV

14 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. 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. 16 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.

Hebrews 4:14 ESV

14 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.

Heb 4:14 Hold On and Be Held!

14 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. 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. 16 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.

A juxtaposition is one of those words I find hard to define. A dictionary defines it as “the act or an instance of placing two or more things side by side often to compare or contrast or to create an interesting effect”

A famous example of juxtaposition is when Charles Dickens writes: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” or Armstrong’s words “That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."

Also, we will see today another juxtaposition in our study of Heb 4:14, we are to hold on while we are being held by God’s hands.

14 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.

These 3 verses are the last verses of chapter 4. However, it is the beginning of a new section. Because this is a new section some argued that it should have been a new chapter starting in v 14.

Regardless, in this new section, the main theme is that Jesus is a greater high priest. Previously we studied the warning that started in chapter 3 now God encourages us by reminding us of who Jesus is, that He is the eternal high priest, through whom we have access to God.

It is not easy to study the warnings. Though it is necessary for us to hear the warnings because that’s what God says. However, it is so refreshing to me when we come to the other passages in Hebrews where Jesus is exalted. How the author glorifies and exalts Christ reminds me of why I love this letter so much. It helps us to increase our view of Christ and push us forward in our worship of Him as we serve Him.

And no matter how many years we have followed Christ there is always room to grow. But now, God so kindly reminds us to look to Jesus, to meditate on Him, He is who we need… we have a great high priest. God has given us Christ, and by faith Jesus is ours. Not that we control Him, but rather if we let Him, He can control our sinful hearts and minds, and we belong to Him. He is our Savior, our Lord, our friend. He became a man, lived this life, and took upon himself our sin. So now by faith, we have a great high priest.

We can pause a second to consider what is a high priest since Jesus is described as a great high priest. I’m confident that you have studied before and have an idea of what a high priest is, but let’s review it.

This is a good description of a high priest by Lexham Bible dictionary:

“In the Old Testament, the primary purpose of the high priest was to serve as a representative and mediator between the people and Yahweh. The office was established with Aaron, the brother of Moses, and high priests were the head priest first at the tabernacle and then later at the temple. Zadok served as high priest in the temple during the reign of Solomon.

The high priest served several purposes that were crucial to Israelite worship. Some of the primary responsibilities of the high priest were the regular handling of sacrifices and offerings, the blessing of people, and the annual entrance into the most holy place within the tabernacle/temple during the Day of Atonement. Many of the duties, actions, and even the unique style of dress that was required of the high priest were symbolic.

The primary way in which a high priest was evaluated in Scripture was in terms of their love for and loyalty to Yahweh and the zeal with which they held to the observation of the covenant.”

We could say that the high priest was the person who was the intermediary between God and man. If we were in the OT times and you wanted to approach God, you would go to the priest who would offer a sacrifice in your place. Today we don’t have priests we have Jesus the great high priest. Jesus is our intermediary. If we want to approach God we have to approach Jesus.

For Jesus to be a High priest, he is responsible for interceding for the people to God, to offer a sacrifice for the people, and being the one that we go to when we want to approach God.

Throughout the centuries the Israelites had experienced dependency on human fallible high priests. We have examples in Scripture of priests that failed in their position, like Eli in the time of Samuel, who failed miserably to discipline his sons while they despised God and the offerings of the people to God. And even when there was a good priest, he would be replaced by someone else at his death. All of these years of many different high priests created a huge longing for a stable, faithful, trustworthy high priest.

V14 not only describes Jesus as the high priest but as a great high priest, meaning Jesus is far greater than any high priest that ever existed or ever will exist. He is the only high priest anyone will ever need.

Jesus is the perfect high priest, His love and zeal for God are perfect, and everything that Jesus did and does is perfect. When Jesus intercedes for you, He does it perfectly, when He offered himself as a sacrifice, it was the perfect sacrifice.

In Jesus, we not only have a great high priest, we have a perfect high priest. What an amazing truth! We have access to God through Jesus. We possess such a treasure. What an encouragement.

But I don’t think we realize just how amazing this truth is because we are so familiar with the current way of approaching God through our great perfect high priest Jesus. We’ve never known it any other way. But for the first readers of this letter, this was an astonishing thought. It was so unthinkable and hard to imagine that it would be similar to us believing that the Browns could consistently win the Super Bowl, or at least be in the running to make it there while the Packers and New England would be classified for many years as the two worst football teams.

That’s hard to picture. I know and I’m sorry :)

In the same way for the first-century believers, Jesus being the high priest forever, was quite an amazing truth that cause them to worship and praise Jesus for being our intermediary.

With this almost inconceivable truth presented. The author of Hebrews goes on to give us more truths about Jesus our great high priest. V14 goes on to describe what kind of high priest Jesus is… He is one“who has passed through the heavens”

Wait, what?

Does the author literally mean He travel through the sky? To fully understand we need to look back at the OT. The high priest would go to the temple inside the holy of holies once a year on the day of atonement to offer sacrifice. The priest would pass through the curtains that divide the different sections of the temple. The holy of holies was the most sacred part of the temple where the ark of the covenant was found. The ark of the covenant was a wooden chest covered with gold, inside the ark there were the two tablets of the Law given to Moses, a pot of manna and Aaron’s rod that budded. But more importantly, the ark was a symbol of God’s throne, the ark represented God’s very presence on earth. Therefore, it was a big deal for the priest to pass through the curtains and enter God’s presence.

However, Jesus as the great high priest did not just pass through the curtains, but rather through the heavens when He ascended and entered not the symbol of God’s presence but the very presence of God. Furthermore, Jesus not only entered God’s presence, but He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on High, something no human being could ever do.

The Hebrew audience would have immediately made this connection and further understood how much greater Jesus is as a high priest.

Because we have such a great high priest God commands us in this verse to hold fast to our confession. But, what is our confession?

Our confession is the faith we confess, that Jesus is the Son of God, fully God and fully man, offered as a perfect sacrifice for our sins. That we were dead in our trespasses and sins, but by faith, we believe that Jesus died for us, for our sin, so we repented and believed in Jesus that He paid the full price for our transgressions and gave us His righteousness so that through Him we have eternal life.

I pray this is the confession of all of you. If it is not, or you are unsure please come see me or one of the elders before you leave today!

But assuming you have made this confession, how do we hold fast to it?

The verb of this commandment here indicates that is an action that we continually do. That means we must continually hold on to our confession.

That means if we truly believe the gospel. That is. We believe that God is the creator, and He is completely holy and righteous. We are sinful and destined to receive the just payment for our sin. But through repentance and faith we believe that Christ came live the perfect life. He took our sins to the cross and paid full the debt we owe, and He gave us His righteousness. Then after three days Jesus rose from the dead and passed through the heavens and is seated at the right hand of God. Finally, we believe that He is coming again to judge the living and the dead.

If we believe this gospel, it will affect everything in our lives. It should impact how we treat others, how we respond to our spouses, our children, to co-workers, to our neighbors, how we work, how we live…(pause) Everything!

How do we hold fast to our confession? By living it out. How we live should demonstrate to the world that we are living for Jesus. That we value Jesus more than everything, even our own lives. Let me quote Augustine again “Christ is not valued at all unless He is valued above all.”

When someone gives their life in order to hold fast to their confession, that shows that Christ is valued above all. We could look at many examples throughout the centuries of people that died because of their confession of Jesus. But, let’s examine the last few hours of Bonhoeffer’s life, which is well described by Guthrie.

“Dietrich Bonhoeffer—German theologian, pastor, seminary professor, and participant in the Resistance movement—had been imprisoned by the Nazis for his role in the latter. In the final days of the war, Bonhoeffer and his fellow prisoners had experienced a strange mixture of hope and panic as they heard the Allied guns on the horizon. Moved from place to place in advance of the American and British forces, the little group of prisoners was finally brought to a schoolhouse in Schönberg.

This is where time finally ran out for Bonhoeffer. An interrogator from Berlin named Huppenkothen arrived with orders for Bonhoeffer’s immediate trial and execution. On Sunday the theologian was entreated by his fellow prisoners, among them Roman Catholics and even a Communist from Russia, to hold a worship service. He gave an exposition on “By his wounds we are healed” (Isa. 53:5), and “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3). The sermon touched the others deeply. Following this message Bonhoeffer was called out of his cell and transported to Flossenberg, where he was interrogated, tried, and condemned. The next morning between five and six o’clock, Bonhoeffer, stripped naked beneath the scaffold, knelt to pray one last time in a woodland spring. In his final morning meditation to reach the outside world, the professor wrote:

The key to everything is the “in him.” All that we may rightly expect from God, and ask him for, is to be found in Jesus Christ…If we are to learn what God promises, and what he fulfills, we must persevere in quiet meditation on the life, sayings, deeds, sufferings, and death of Jesus. It is certain that we may always live close to God and in the light of his presence, and that such living is an entirely new life for us; that nothing is then impossible for us, because all things are possible with God; that no earthly power can touch us without his will, and that danger and distress can only drive us closer to him.

Bonhoeffer embodied the principles inherent in Hebrews 4:14–16: Perseverance depends on one’s relationship to Jesus, the Son of God. He lived that truth to the very end and left an enduring picture of true Christian faith and stability.”

I don’t know what the future brings, but it doesn’t look hopeful. Days are coming when at noon it will be as dark as midnight. Just as it was when Egypt was covered in darkness, or when Christ died.

If we come to live in a time when it would cost you to follow Christ, would you still follow Him? Are you going to hold fast till the end?

You know some of the trials I went through when I decided to hold fast to Christ. If I could go back in time, I would not change my decision. The only thing I would change is to be even bolder for the testimony of Christ. It was very painful, but I count it as a privilege and honor to suffer for Christ’s sake.

If it would cost you to follow Christ would you still follow Him?

Is our faith God-centered or self-centered? Are we going to hold fast as long as the church serves us, or do we get what we want, comfortably worshipping and a sermon not too long or too challenging? Are we going to hold fast to our confession and be bold for Christ? Or are we going to leave Christ because it is going to be too hard? Too uncomfortable?

I know I said this before, but I’ll say it again we need to count the cost of following Christ.

Jesus said in Luke 14:25-33

25 Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

Let’s picture this, Jesus was quite literally the most popular teacher, and He had more followers than we could imagine following Him. And at this point, rather than celebrating these huge numbers or elevating His status Jesus turns to them and warns them saying if you don’t love me more than everything and everyone you cannot follow me. Essentially, Jesus was saying if you want to suffer and die follow me. Then he continues in v28 saying:

28 For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, 30 saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’

This warning is for us today before difficult times come. Are you counting the cost for when the mocking comes? How do we prepare today for tomorrow’s suffering? By counting our lives as nothing when compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ. We look at everything we have, possessions, successes, pedigrees, reputation, and achievements and we consider them as nothing, we make a conscious effort to count them as nothing when compared to Jesus. We don’t let all these things take priority in our hearts. We willingly would give up everything today to gain Christ.

But Jesus continues the warning about counting the cost in Luke 14:31 saying:

31 Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33 So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

Are you equipping yourself to win the battle that’s coming? We are living in a time when following Christ is easy and it doesn’t cost us. During the time we are living now are you willing to give up TV or phone time to spend more time in God’s word, more time praying? If you can’t give up time or sleep or a Sunday morning now, what about when it will be hard? You are either all in or you are in Him.

Jesus was saying to them if you want to follow me, you need to consider the cost, are you willing to pay the price to follow Christ? Or are you following Christ because of the gifts and not the giver? If you think that it is outrageous to lose everything but gain Christ, then I’m sorry to say you probably don’t know Him as you should, or as He longs for you to know Him.

Phil 3:7-11 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, let us hold fast our confession. As we hold fast we don’t need to fear the future, everything is in God’s plans. We don’t need to fear losing our grip on Him, because He is holding us. We are to rest in Him. While we hold on to the truth of who He is. This is a true juxtaposition. We hold on to Him, but He is the one holding us. It is not how much faith we have but who our faith is in.

Jesus said in John 10 “27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. 30 I and the Father are one.”

Pray