Jesus the High Priest

Good morning and welcome to anther week of church online here at the Bridge. I am so glad that we can be join together for worship.

Last week we talked about the pastor and their role and the importance of that role. We breiefly touched the importance of Jesus and our understanding of him in the role of high priest over all of us. this mornings passage though directs us more to Jesus and our understanding of him.

Hebrews 7:23–28 NIV

23 Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; 24 but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. 25 Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. 26 Such a high priest truly meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. 27 Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. 28 For the law appoints as high priests men in all their weakness; but the oath, which came after the law, appointed the Son, who has been made perfect forever.

Jesus Lives Forever

One of the first thing that i noticed when i read this passage was the fact that it begins with dealing with the mortality of us humans. It is a reminder that the human priests are only here for a short time and that Jesus will surpass us all. It was interesting i encountered a fact that there was 83 high priests from Aaron to the fall of the temple in 70 A.D.. The truth is that death prevents us human priests from continuing in this office and Jesus came and changed that.

Even when Jesus died he didn’t stop being our high priest. IT continued on because his death was not the final act of his priest hood unlike us humans. He was raised form the grave and ascended into heaven where he sits at the right hand of God in the place of honor and he is there on our behalf working for our benefit. This is the power of v. 25

Hebrews 7:25 NIV

25 Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.

Jesus Saves Completely

This isn’t a new idea for many of us. We have heard this idea that Jesus saves. Yet, it is was that word completely grabbed my attention. One of the activities that i do when i am preparing a sermon is i read the passages a couple times and i will write down questions or observations that i have about the passage and then i will begin my study so that i can find the answers to what was speaking to me in the passage. This word stood out to me and was one i focused on particularly because it is an interesting description.

As i said the idea of Jesus saving isn’t new to us but what did this completely mean. Then i thought about the book of Hebrews and the continued references to Jesus and his role in our lives. We have these examples to help us see this idea of how much Jesus really is there for us.

Hebrews 2:18 NIV

18 Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

Jesus is not only able to save us but he helps us in this. He has experienced the temptations that we may be going through and he has suffered through them and he is there for us.

There are also passages like

Hebrews 4:15 NIV

15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.

Jesus is able to emphathize with us. This is an attribute that makes his ability to save us even more amazing. Think about that for a moment. We have a God who not only wants to save us from ourselves and the pains of this world and eternity. We have a savior who empathizes with us who has experienced our pains and struggles and is there for us. This feature is so important because it takes it from some impersonal view of a God off in some distant place to one that is personal to each and everyone of us present in our lives caring for each of us.

That is powerful and makes us appreciate that this didn’t stop when Jesus ascended into heaven but he continues to intercede for us and we need to be thankful for that.

Jesus ideal as High Priest

One of the things that i have been challenged the most about my faith in the last year or so is that there are moments in the Bible that we are reminded that we speak of the ideals that we are striving for. It is important to remember this because and ideal by its very definition is often something that we aren’t able to obtain. The beauty is that Jesus is able to do this and he does this in his role as priest for us. He sets the standard that we are to pursue but it also helps us remember to not be burdened by the ideal that is Jesus’ life. Instead we can be empowered to remember that Jesus experienced what we have. That he has walked through our world and gone through the same challenges. This should make us even more amazed by verses like this.

Hebrews 7:26–27 NIV

26 Such a high priest truly meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. 27 Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself.

Jesus is the one who is holy, blameless, pure, and should be exalted above all others. This is the ideal that we are striving for and that we are to be working for.

That is one of the important aspects of these attributes that are listed about Jesus is they are references to his personal holiness. These attributes help us realize that while Jesus was really something special and above us as humans.

It is in this we recognize that Jesus was more than a man it was in this that we recognize that all the priests that have come before him and all those that come after him were still just men. They fall short of what God sent in his son Jesus.

Jesus doesn’t have to offer the daily sacrifices, because he was the final sacrifice that was need to allow us to be able to come to God and restore that relationship as he intercedes for us.

Where do we go from Here?

One of the challenges i had when i started writing this sermon is i didn’t want this to just be another salvation message. The truth is that one of the greatest challenges i face with sermon writing and seeking what God wants me to say is i worry about repetition. There are times that i think repetition is important because it helps us see the importance of a message. There are times that a Pastor can use it as a crutch and never expand their messages beyond a couple of key talking points. I struggled with this all week as i contimplated this message. Than as i was sitting there writting out this sermon it hit me that there is never a bad time to be reminded of the salvation of Jesus.

It is never a bad thing to be reminded that Jesus was with God and that he came down to this earth and entered into this life and gave up everything he had to be considered nothing.

There is nothing wrong with being reminded that Jesus suffered and was tempted but he didn’t give into those temptations or the pains of suffering instead he embraced the suffering and not only took on his own but took on ours as he was willing to make himself a sacrfice for our sins and his death allowed us to be made pure again.

It isn’t a bad thing to be reminded that we are called to set ourselves apart for Jesus and to look to honor him and to glorify him in our lives by trying our best to live a life that is in pursuit of being more like him. Though we can only possibly achieve anything close to this through his grace we still work to be more like him each day and that is important.

There is nothing wrong with being reminded of the truth of the Gospel and the power of the Gospel and the promise that is Jesus and what he came to do in our lives. This is the message that we have in Him. This is the hope that we have in him to know that he died on the cross to forgive us of our sins so that we no longer have to offer sacrifices each day to have any hope of being free of the burden of our sins but we can know that we instead offer ourselves up as sacrifices because we thank God for what he has done for us on the cross.

It is never a bad thing to be reminded of this.

Philippians 2:6–11 NIV

6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

We are reminded that the High priest died on the cross for us. That in his perfect and blameless life we can celebrate the joy that he brings to us in who he was and who he still is to this day. WE can take joy in being reminded that he is in heaven right now in the place of glory interceding on our behalf.

Let’s pray