58 Hebrews 4c-5: Teaching/Preaching

The Great High Priest!

Introduction:

When Scarlett wants something from me she is fearless to come to me. I am Scarlett’s go between when she wants something. When she wants food she will grab my hand and just pull me. If she is exhausted she will just nudge her head on me until I pick her up. All my kids come to me fearlessly when they really want something.

What if how Scarlett came to me is how we came to God?

Who is your go between in life?

In the Bible there is this person who is called the high priest. The high priest job was to bring sinful people into a connection with a perfect, great and holy God.

We are going to talk about the high priest, don’t get worry, this sounds like a big word.

Who is your go between?

We were created to have God as our go between.

Who we make our high priest is one of the most important issues we will ever have to answer.

It will affect our eternity [heaven and hell]

But it will also affect whether we mature in Jesus or not. In other words to become the person that God haws created us to become.

Our maturity in Jesus is directly tied to how we related to Jesus as our high priest.

We need to embrace Jesus as our great high priest:

1. Our Longterm Growth is directly connected to it (4:14-16).

What we will see is that the author tells us what we have to do but more importantly why we have to do it: He tells us two things we have to do

Hold Fast our confession

Draw near to him with Confidence

Hebrews 4:14 NASB95

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.

Therefore-Remember we are always looking back and asking why is it there.

We have a great high priest. These Hebrew believers actually had high priests they could turn back to but none of them were great.

We have a lot of things we can turn to. Some people can even turn to their pastors or religion. But their is only one great high priest.

Why is he great?

He has passed through the heavens.

He tells us the why before he tells us what to do:

He tells us to hold fast our confession.

Our confession is that we believe Jesus is the one who connected us to God because what he did on the behalf of mankind for our sins.

Bridge Illustration-This is our confession for life.

The Epistle to the Hebrews 4:14. Let Us Hold Fast to Jesus, Our High Priest!

Westcott takes κρατέω to mean taking possession, and κατέχω holding on to what is already possessed,

These believers were in danger of not maturing in their faith and if they wanted to walk with Jesus for a lifetime they need to hold fast to their confession.

Illustration 1 and done in Basketball.

Hebrews 4:15 NASB95

For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.

Jess is both:

God

Man

This is a mystery and even great minds have a hard time unpacking this.

Hebrews Theological Implications

As Grudem said: “Jesus’ human nature never existed apart from union with his divine nature.… Both his human nature and his divine nature existed united in one person.”

But it is essential that we believe that Jesus never sinned. His being human allows him to relate to us.

Hebrews 4:16 NASB95

Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

The second thing we must do is draw near to the throne of grace.

Scarlett comes to me every time she needs something and she is confident. I love giving my kids grace. But I am by far not a perfect father. But when my kids are hurting and if they ask for grace I will give it to them just about any time.

Why

Receive Mercy -We are daily in need of mercy

Find Grace - We don’t graduate from needing grace. The more I have grown closer to God the more I have seen that I need God’s mercy and grace. If we want to mature in Jesus we have to hold fast our confession and draw near. But the truth is the more we draw near naturally we are just going to confess our confession of what jesus has done in our lives.

How are you doing confidently coming to the throne of Grace?

We need to embrace Jesus as our great high priest:

2. Because only Jesus deals with our ultimate need (5:1-4).

There are a lot of needs in the world. We could list a long list of things that need to be taken care of. But one need that has to be dealt with is sin. We all try to deal with it in different ways. Some try to atone or make up for our own sin. We apologize there are different ways. But in the Old testament their was a system set up so that they could deal with sin.

God was setting up a system in the Old Testament that would evetually be fulfilled through Jesus.

Let’s look at the system God masterfully set up.

Hebrews 5:1 NASB95

For every high priest taken from among men is appointed on behalf of men in things pertaining to God, in order to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins;

These priests role was to offer both sacrifices and gifts for sins.

Hebrews 5:2 NASB95

he can deal gently with the ignorant and misguided, since he himself also is beset with weakness;

Here is how the process went. They had to go and offer up a sacrifice and the sacrifice was not supposed to be one of the worst sacrifices it had no defects and was supposed to be one of the best sacrifices. They actually killed the sacrifice and it was a picture of their sins being paid for.

And as imperfect as I am if I will do this to my kids how much more will God give us grace. And he wants us to live confidently in this grace.

These priests knew that if they were going to offer up sins for others they first had to offer up sins for themselves. This was supposed to lead them to a life of understanding and a reminder that something has to be done about their sin.

Hebrews 5:3–4 NASB95

and because of it he is obligated to offer sacrifices for sins, as for the people, so also for himself. And no one takes the honor to himself, but receives it when he is called by God, even as Aaron was.

These priests were called by God. Here is the reality. This system that was put in place in the old testament was a temporary system. That is why each year there was a day of atonement.

But when Jesus died on the cross he dealt with sin once for all. GOSPEL!

Application:

We need to embrace Jesus as our great high priest:

3. Because He is Greater (5:5-10).

So far we have seen that he is greater than Angels, He is greater than Moses and he is greater than the priests and the system that the represent.

These high priests who these believers were tempted to go back to: Jesus is greater.

The things you are thinking about going to instead of Jesus, today Jesus wants to remind us that he is greater!

In the book of hebrews a key theme is Jesus is greater. This is a major theme.

Jesus is greater! IF we miss this in the book of Hebrews we miss the book.

Hebrews 5:5–6 NASB95

So also Christ did not glorify Himself so as to become a high priest, but He who said to Him, “You are My Son, Today I have begotten You”; just as He says also in another passage, “You are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek.”

These Psalms that are quoted are from Psalm 2:7 and 110:4 and they are known as Messianic Psalms.

The Bible Knowledge Commentary 5:5–6

It is likely enough that the writer assigned the proclamations of both psalms to the moment when the Son “sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven” (Heb. 1:3).

Who is Melchizedek?

The Lexham Bible Dictionary Melchizedek

MELCHIZEDEK (מַלְכִּי־צֶדֶק, malki-tsedeq). The king of Salem and priest of God Most High. Blesses Abram in Gen 14, referenced in Psa 110 in God’s promise to bless the Davidic king, and invoked in the letter to the Hebrews to affirm the priestly status of Christ.

The Lexham Bible Dictionary The New Testament

While not messianic in his own right, Melchizedek serves as a prototype for Christ by establishing the eternal priesthood that the Son of God now possesses.

The letter was also pastoral, written to reaffirm the faith of Christians who had been ostracized because of their beliefs. The author uses the heavenly reality of Christ’s priesthood to bring security to a struggling community. Thompson observes: “The exaltation of Christ offers the community the opportunity to ‘grasp the hope that is made available’ (6:18). As the author indicates in 7:19, the community now has a “ ‘better hope’ than that provided by the Levitical priesthood … giv[ing] the wavering community a reason to persevere, knowing of the future that awaits them” (Hebrews, 159).

Melchizedek provides Christians with a template for understanding the heavenly priesthood of Christ. This challenges our attempts to substitute human mediators for the divine, revealing a high priest whose saving work cannot be confined to any one culture or bloodline (Thompson, Hebrews, 164).

Hebrews 5:7–8 NASB95

In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety. Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.

Hebrews 5:5–10 NASB95

So also Christ did not glorify Himself so as to become a high priest, but He who said to Him, “You are My Son, Today I have begotten You”; just as He says also in another passage, “You are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek.” In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety. Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation, being designated by God as a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.