Where We Are

For in one place it speaks about the seventh day as follows, “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” And again in this place it says, “They shall not enter my rest.” Since therefore it remains open for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, again he sets a certain day—“today”—saying through David much later, in the words already quoted, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not speak later about another day. So then, a sabbath rest still remains for the people of God; for those who enter God’s rest also cease from their labors as God did from his. Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one may fall through such disobedience as theirs. Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account. Since, then, 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 our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

;-16

Acts 4:4–16 NRSV

But many of those who heard the word believed; and they numbered about five thousand. The next day their rulers, elders, and scribes assembled in Jerusalem, with Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family. When they had made the prisoners stand in their midst, they inquired, “By what power or by what name did you do this?” Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders, if we are questioned today because of a good deed done to someone who was sick and are asked how this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you, and to all the people of Israel, that this man is standing before you in good health by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead. This Jesus is ‘the stone that was rejected by you, the builders; it has become the cornerstone.’ There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.” Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and ordinary men, they were amazed and recognized them as companions of Jesus. When they saw the man who had been cured standing beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition. So they ordered them to leave the council while they discussed the matter with one another. They said, “What will we do with them? For it is obvious to all who live in Jerusalem that a notable sign has been done through them; we cannot deny it.

Scripture 2

Hebrews 4:14–16 NRSV

Since, then, 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 our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Introduction

Hebrews is a powerful and difficult to understand letter. Therefore, we are going to concentrate on three verses. So, let’s get started with the background of this letter, or some believe to have been a sermon.

Background

We have no idea who wrote Hebrews and it has been unknown since the beginning of the church. Some have tried to make the case for Paul, but the Greek is not like anything Paul wrote, nor is the theology particularly Pauline either. Knowing who the author is certainly helps with interpretation, and if we went with modern scholarship, most believe Apollos, a companion of Paul wrote this. But its just a theory. But, even with the ambiguity of authorship the church Fathers put it in the canon. Also, as I mentioned, it is really not a letter, but a sermon. Most scholars are in agreement of that because of its structure. It is not structured like a Greek letter. Greek letters are a genre that has a certain structure.

The audience, however, is the most helpful context to our interpretation. Most likely the audience was a group of house churches made up of Jewish believers in Jesus. They were obviously under going persecution from the local and political authorities. Things had become so bad that many were considering leaving the faith to go back to their Jewish roots. They were imprisoned, had their property confiscated, encountered hostility, public abuse, ridicule and possibly torture. They were under immense pressure and duress.

Hebrews is theologically rich and complicated. Certainly these people had been Christians for a while to understand the sophisticated argument of the author. The author is making the case for the new covenant of Christianity and Christ as being superior to the old. Our text comes from a section where the author is saying that Jesus is greater than the high priest. As one commentator said, “establishing that Jesus was a priest, even though not a levite, is the extraordinarily theological achievement of Hebrews.” So our text is the beginning of that claim.

Let’s take a second to understand the high priests role in Judaism. The high priest was the intermediary for the people chosen from the priestly line of Levites. He had to follow tougher laws when it came to ritual purity. He couldn’t get near anything that was dead or he would have to relinquish the priesthood! The reason for this was he was the one, once a year, that entered the Holy of Holies to perform the ritual for the forgiveness of sins for the people, know as the Day of atonement. he would have a robe with bells on it, they would tie a rope to his ankle because if he was not ritually pure God would strike him dead when he went int the Holy of Holies. The other priests would listen and if they didn’t hear the bells they would pull the High Priest out by the rope attached to his ankle! The thing is, the high priest had to do this every year! He was the only one that could approach God is this capacity.

So verses 14-16 describe the High Priest hood of Jesus. First, Jesus is called the great high priest. Jesus is greater than the high priest because he has “passed through the heavens” meaning Jesus is in the presence of God, always in the presence of God. In the crucifixion stories where the curtain of the temple is ripped it means we all have access to God directly, through Jesus Christ.

Wesley: “Having therefore a great high-priest—Great indeed, being the eternal Son of God, that is passed through the heavens—As the Jewish high-priest passed through the veil into the holy of holies, carrying with him the blood of the sacrifices, on the yearly day of atonement: So our great high-priest went once for all, through the visible heavens, with the virtue of his own blood, into the immediate presence of God. “

“Having therefore a great high-priest—Great indeed, being the eternal Son of God, that is passed through the heavens—As the Jewish high-priest passed through the veil into the holy of holies, carrying with him the blood of the sacrifices, on the yearly day of atonement: So our great high-priest went once for all, through the visible heavens, with the virtue of his own blood, into the immediate presence of God. “

That is the claim here. The author tells his audience to hold fast to their confession. That is don’t go back, the high priest of Judaism is no where near the priesthood of Jesus Christ.

Remember, Jesus was human just like us,(that is God entered our human condition) he knows our frailties our sufferings, because he has experienced them, even temptation, yet he passed the test.

Because of this we are no longer separated from God, we can “approach the throne of grace with boldness.”

Application

Well, from a salvific point of view this is wonderful news. Now we have a high priest that sits with God that intercedes for us! But it gets even better. As one scholar wrote, we too can enter the sanctuary of God just as the priest did and because of Jesus we can do this boldly! In fact because of what Jesus did, we are INVITED to do so. We are invited to God’s house! If that’s not a coveted invitation it ought to be!

But, as Steve Jobs was famous for saying, “there’s one more thing. “We are invited so that “we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

What the author is talking about, if you haven’t already figured it out, is prayer. We need to be people of prayer. We each have our own invitation. Can you imagine what this meant to the author’s audience? They were in great need, under pressure to leave the faith, being ridiculed. The author says, “look what Jesus has done for you. Approach God boldly and ask him for what you need. “you will receive mercy, grace, and help in time of need!

Because of Jesus we can have confidence that every word we utter in prayer God hears. We have an advocate in Jesus one who is like us in every respect and knows us from the inside out!

Let me make this very clear: We have free access to the creator of the universe, a redeeming God who gave his only son for us so we can have this kind of relationship.

We can be bold about this! We can go to God’s throne and ask him for anything!He hears us and he answers us and we can do this whenever we want, day to day moment to moment!

What we are really talking about here, is that we are invited into an intimate relationship with the creator of the universe. This intimacy can be described as drawing near to God in unabashed openness. Nothing stands in the way of being intimate with God, that is nothing but ourselves. Jesus took care of everything that separates us from God, namely sin. I like what Paul has to say here:

Romans 8:34–39 NRSV

Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:34-

The old high priest stood between humanity and God. Jesus however takes away all moral and religious things that prevented our free entrance to God’s throne. Remember this when people say one group of folk’s sins are worse than others! The high priest was kind of a gate keeper, kinda like the President’s Chief of Staff, Jesus opened the gate for us.

The writer of Hebrews encourages us to hold close to our confession, who can tell me what our confession is? Jesus is Lord. And to approach the throne of grace in all boldness. Intimate means a relationship that is a very close warm friendship developed through long association. It is of a most personal nature.

Intimacy with God plays a vital role in perseverance in the faith. God offers us help in the face of our needs, and he has given prayer as a means to communicate those needs to him. Not that he does not know them! But prayer is a relational dynamic by which we become intimate with God. We get off dead center, reach out beyond ourselves, and look to him in our time of need; and—mystery of mysteries—our seeking of his presence is as much desired by God as it is needed by us. He invites with, “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know” (), and he promises, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” (29:13).

Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations 2096 Prayer Prelude of Newton

Two or three years before the death of John Newton, when his sight was so dim that he was no longer able to read, a friend and brother in the ministry called to have breakfast with him. Their custom was to read the Word of God following mealtime, after which Newton would make a few short remarks on the Biblical passage, and then appropriate prayer would be offered. That day, however, there was silence after the words of Scripture “by the grace of God I am what I am” were read.

Finally, after several minutes, Newton spoke, “I am not what I ought to be! How imperfect and deficient I am! I am not what I wish to be, although I abhor that which is evil and would cleave to what is good! I am not what I hope to be, but soon I shall be out of mortality, and with it all sin and imperfection. Though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor yet what I hope to be, I can truly say I am not what I once was: a slave to sin and Satan. I can heartily join with the apostle and acknowledge that by the grace of God I am what I am!” Then, after a pause, he said. “Now let us pray!”

We left Gulfport early on Friday morning and we stopped and had breakfast. We got on I 10 and started the long journey home. Everyone was tired and excited. Terri was going to attend the wedding of a couple who she had spent a lot of energy counseling. Ross and Mandy both have two kids under the ages of six. The rest of us just wanted to be home with our own families, sleep in our own beds, and bathe in our own showers. Just as we are settling in for the log ride at the smell of burning rubber filled the cabin of the bus. Michael pulled over a quick as he could. When we all got out it first looked like we had a broken water house of some sort. However that wasn’t it. We soon discovered that a pulley had broken which caused the belt to stop turning the water pump, which had cause us to overheat and blow some coolant out of the recovery jar. It looked like we might be stuck for hours perhaps overnight. This was really upsetting, I think for the first time we were really homesick! We all began to pray for a quick solution. Just a few minutes after we discovered the problem. A man was nice enough to stop and call a friend of his shop. He told us that a repair truck would be by in a few minutes. Well the truck showed up, a guy came over, examined the situation. Took our bad pulley and left. He said he’d be back in about 20 minutes. As we continued to inspect the damage we also noticed that the spindle seemed to be damaged as well. So we decided to call the guy and let him know he needed to pick up a spindle as well. Long story short the guy that showed up and took our pulley was not from the company that was called! A little panic and more prayers. We told the other company that we didn’t need them. We turned down the reputable company for some individual that we didn’t know. We wondered if we had made the right decision. What was this going to cost us? How long will this take?

Don’t let yourself get in the way of a path that is cleared by Jesus Christ, directly to God. Complete intimacy so we can approach God in complete boldness, unabashed openness. Just like Newton, we can boldly approach God in all grace and say “let us Pray.”

The stranger soon returned with a new pulley and tools, he replaced the pulley put everything back together and would not take any money. He left suddenly and we were back on the road. We only lost about an hour and a half. Prayer does indeed change things. It was the stranger that was also an angel in our opinion. Was this a case of God changing his mind, no I don’t think so. But it does teach us the things that do not change about God, God’s steadfast love, his mercy and his grace, and help in time of need.

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