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Welcome
Good morning everyone and welcome to church once again.
This morning we are finishing our short series in Hebrews 4, looking at the “Let Us” statements that we find there.
Two weeks ago we talked about the special rest that is offered to us through our relationship with Jesus.
The author of Hebrews directs our attention to the wilderness generation, who didn’t trust that they could enter into the promised land and into God’s promised rest and as a result spent 40 years in the wilderness.
But because of Jesus, we can enter a Sabbath rest ourselves.
This means we rest from our work, we can rest from our jobs, and spend time with God.
Rest is something that we need and we find perfect rest in knowing Jesus and spending time with him.
Last week we talked about the importance of holding firm in our faith and how we do this because we have a great high priest who has made the perfect sacrifice for us.
This morning, we are going to continue on with the idea of Jesus as our high priest.
Because Jesus is our high priest, we are able to go boldly before God’s throne.
Let’s read our scripture for this morning and then pray that God would be the one to teach us.
Prayer
Engage
One neat experience I had in college was during freshman year.
There was a band that started at Judson, in recent years they have gotten into the mainstream Christian music, their name is Citizen Way.
But one day the lead singer of the group sent an email out to students looking for volunteers.
There was a big Christian concert happening that weekend and they needed volunteers to work it.
(I can’t even remember what bands were playing) Some friends and myself decided that would be a cool experience and signed up.
And you know what?
It was pretty cool.
Right when we got there we got these special badges on lanyards that we got to wear and look real official and important.
We got to walk around wherever we wanted during the concert because we were authorized to do so.
Even during the show we got to go backstage and see the bands and everything they had back there.
Really, it was just cool to be able to go to all of these restricted places that others couldn’t go.
We didn’t even have to wonder about it, we knew we could go in these places, they told us so, gave us badges that said we could, just a neat experience.
But I bring this up because during that concert, we went into different parts of the concert with confidence.
We weren’t shy or hesitant about entering into these places, because we had been told that we could.
But as I think about our text this morning and that experience, I wonder, how do you approach God?
I think for a lot of us, we treat God like the item from the children’s sermon.
We think it to great to even be around.
Which, without Christ is true.
God is holy, perfect, awesome, and so we sometimes have this mindset that we have to be nervous when we approach him.
But according to our passage, that isn’t the case.
Let Us Then Approach God’s Throne with Confidence
Hebrews 4:16 (NIV)
16 Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence...
We have this invitation to come before the throne of God with that same sense of confidence that I had at the concert.
Because of the goodness of God through Jesus, we can boldly, confidently, and without reservation approach God’s throne.
Think of how kids approach their parents.
When Kanan is older, I don’t expect him to be nervous when he comes to talk to me, I don’t want him to think that he can’t talk to me about things.
He isn’t going to have to go through a ten step process in order to talk to me, we want him to come to Amy and I and talk to us without feeling nervous or hesitant.
That is how we can approach our heavenly father.
Yes, we still have reverence for God and that holy fear of who he is, but at the same time he is our Heavenly Father.
We can approach him with the same confidence that we approach our loved ones.
The very fact that God’s throne is a throne of grace should cause joy for us.
To the ancient world, a throne was not exactly a great place.
The throne was a place you were taken to receive punishment, people didn’t just approach the throne of kings expecting sympathy and love, especially if it was a small matter.
But the author of Hebrews says that God’s throne is a throne of grace, it is clear that we are welcome and invited before the throne of God.
The author gives us four reasons why we should draw near to God’s throne.
Approach the Throne Because of Our Weakness
The first reason we we approach God’s throne is because of our weakness.
We don’t go before God because we have life all figured out and just need a word of advice a couple times a year.
We go before the throne of grace because we are weak.
I love how one writer explains this, he pointed out that in John 15:5, Jesus doesn’t say, “Without me you can get along pretty well most of the time.
If you need something call me.”
No, that verse says...
John 15:5 (NIV)
5 ...apart from me you can do nothing.
We don’t go before God because we are strong and have life figured out, we go before the throne of God because we know that without him we can’t do anything.
And God responds the same way a loving father should.
He doesn’t ridicule us or belittle us because of our weakness, no, he welcomes us as a father welcomes his children to protect them.
Approach the Throne Because of Our Need
The second reason we approach God’s throne is because we are going to have times of need.
We’ve all likely known people in life and thought, “Man, that person is really needy.”
But the truth is, we are all needy.
We like to think that we have life under control, that we can handle things on our own.
In reality though, we depend on God for everything that we have.
The air that we breathe, the food we eat, the condition of the earth and universe, all of these things we ultimately depend on God for.
Our time of need is not just when life is falling apart, it is every moment of every day.
It’s part of the reason we are told in 1 Thess 5:17 to
We are always in need of God’s help, we are always needy for what we have in life.
That is why we should approach God’s throne.
Approach the Throne Directly
The third reason we should approach God’s throne is because of how we can do it.
The author of Hebrews doesn’t say, “Approach your local pastor to be near to God.”
He says, “Let us.”
Us means all of us, every believer can approach the throne of God directly.
We don’t have to have a middle man when it comes to our relationship with God.
We don’t even have to have perfectly crafted prayer written out and rehearsed in order for God to hear us.
Spurgeon pointed out that God will overlook our shortcomings and poor prayers just as a loving parent will overlook the mistakes in the sentences of his toddler.
Even when we have sinned badly, if we draw near to confess our sins, He will cleanse our wounds and begin the healing process, just as a parent would carefully clean and bandage the wounds of his child.
Approach and Receive Mercy and Grace
Hebrews 4:16 (NIV)
16 ...so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
The last reason we should approach God’s throne is so that we may receive mercy and grace.
This is, once again, not what people would have approached the kings throne for in the ancient world.
If we went before the kings back then with the problems of our life, they would ignore us or even make our problems worse for taking up their time.
But with God we are told that when we go before him with these problems, he will give us mercy and grace.
Something I want to point out though, is that it says the mercy and grace will help us in our time of need.
The author doesn’t say that God will fix everything, but that his mercy and grace will help us.
Something that I learned this week in this passage is how the word help in this verse is used.
The Greek word for help here can also mean ropes, and it is only used in one other place in scripture, Acts 27:17.
Paul is on his way to Rome as a prisoner in a boat when a storm comes up.
The storm is so bad that they start trying to do things to make it through.
The same word used for help in our passage is the word used to describe the ropes in this passage.
Just as the ropes help the ship hold together, so God’s mercy and grace helps us hold together.
When life seems to be coming apart at the seams because of a storm, we can approach our sympathetic high priest on the throne of grace and receive mercy and grace to help us.
Approach the Throne of Grace
In closing for us this morning, I want us to look at how two people approach Jesus in Mark.
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