Sermon Tone Analysis

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.