Untitled Sermon

Introduction

Story:

In high school I played basketball, it’s the only sport I played in high school past freshman year.

And back then, I was a little bit more hot headed than I am today.

One basketball game, some short guy from the other team, probably around 5’8” or so, shoved me in the back as I was going up for a rebound. If you play basketball, you know that undercuts are probably the dirtiest move you can make, usually by dudes who can’t dunk, and is grounds for a fist fight if you’re playing at the park.

i turned around and said words Jesus wouldn’t say and called him things Jesus wouldn’t have called him. And firmly shoved him.

Dude fell back so hard he’d make LeBron James proud and got up and swung at me.

I have reflexes better than MIke Tyson so I dodged it and swung but unfortunately at the time I punched about as well as my 98 year old grandmother so I wiffed.

The scuffle got broken up pretty fast but the referee wanted to throw us out so badly.

But my coach was a smooth talker and managed to talk the refs into letting me stay because I didn’t start it and I never punched him.

Angry the dwarf did get thrown out though.

In that instance, my coach talked to the ref when I wasn’t able to, and I was able to stay in the game.

There, my coach was kind of like a priet.

Jesus as Priest

I don’t know how many of you have heard of Jesus being like an old testament priest but when I heard about it in college I was surprised myself! I didn’t think there was any reason for there to be any high priests anymore, Jesus died to get rid of all that stuff right?

Well the first thing you need to know is that God doesn’t make mistakes. In the Old Testament, specifically in Leviticus, you see God implementing the laws of the tabernacle, where God would dwell with the Israelites.

The tabernacle was like a bunch of different walls of tents, really like a tent temple, and there were different areas of the tabernacle itself. Different individuals who served as priests were able to go in and out of those different walls, but in very middle of the temple, the place where God dwelled with his people, was called the Holy of Holies.

Sin and Gospel

You see when you come face to face with the living God, when you are able to be in his presence and know what it’s like to be in that holiness, you’ll die, plain and simple, you’ll die. God is completely holy and blameless. When we, as sinful, human beings, not covered by the blood of a sacrifice, come into contact with that kind of otherness, of purity, we simply can’t stay alive.

So before Jesus, to be cleansed of sin, a sacrifice had to be made. Something had to die. Paul says the wages of sin are death.

How many of you have a job?

With how high minimum wage has gotten you’re probably making twice what I did in high school.

How many of you like getting paid?

That’s what I thought, me too.

The same way that your wages for your work is cash, the wages for the sinfulness that is ingrained in our bones is death. When you disobey God, that holy being, the end result is separation from the love of that holiness, is death.

But God wanted to give his people some way to be close to him, and that’s done through the practice of sacrifice, of killing a pure white lamb in order to pay for the sins that the people of Israel for the past year, and enable them to be at least adjacent to that holiness.

The high priest is the one who makes that sacrifice each year in order to cover the sins of the people of Israel.

But that wasn’t God’s permanent plan to free people from their sin. Many of you know the gospel but if you don’t, hear it is. God sends his only Son, to live the sinless, perfect life that you could never live, die in your place for what you earned yourself, and rose again,in order to be closer to you. All you have to do is accept that free offer of grace and you get to be infinitely closer to that holiness, that love, than you or anyone alive in the time of the temple could.

That’s one way that Jesus himself functioned as a priest, specifically a high priest, by being that sacrifice.

Hebrews 7:27 and 28

27 He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself. 28 For the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made perfect forever.

But that wasn’t the only thing Jesus did as priest, Jesus healed the sick, open the eyes of the blind, and made lame men walk for the first time in their lives. Jesus showed us what true priestly compassion looks like.

Jesus taught the law to his disciples, something which priests would have regularly done

Jesus and the way he prayed so frequently, points us to priestly intercession, kind of like a pastor praying for a congregation, priests would intercede, or talk to on their behalf, to God.

But something that I love from a few verses earlier in this chapter, of Hebrews, it says:

23 The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, 24 but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. 25 Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

There is never a need for another high priest because Jesus will continue on forever.

You can’t get much closer to God the Father than sitting right beside him, where Jesus is now, and because he’s so close, eternally close, to the Father, he’s able to talk to him on our behalf, interceding for us.

Jesus blood is enough to cover anything you’ve ever done or will do in the future!

So when you as a Christian, continue to sin over and over and over, Jesus can look the Father right in the eyes, and say: “I died to pay for that sin”. Every time. “I died to pay for that sin,”. “I died to pay for that sin too,”. Now this isn’t an excuse for you to sin more. It’s meant as an encouragement.

Because you will sin again, whether you mean to or not, you will sin again. I’m sorry but you simply can’t be perfect.

But Jesus blood is, was, and always will be, enough to cover you.

Let’s pray.