I would ask you to turn with me
prayerfully this morning to the epistle to the
Hebrews in chapter four and we shall read
verses 14 to 16 and pray God to
make the theme and the message of this
section of his word meaningful and relevant to
all of us this morning to his glory.
Since we have a great high priest who
has gone through the heavens, Jesus the son
of God, let us hold firmly to the
faith we profess.
For we do not have a high priest
who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses,
but we have one who has been tempted
in every way just as we are, yet
was without sin.
Let us then approach the throne of grace
with confidence so that we may receive mercy
and find grace to help in our time
of need.
In our time of need.
Many of the problems of the Christian community
everywhere would shrink to dwarf significance and proportions
if only we were better versed in the
teaching of our Lord's high priestly ministry.
If we could carry with us into each
new day and face the challenge that may
come our way in the knowledge that we
have at God's right hand a faithful high
priest who is pledged to intercede on our
behalf and to bring us to glory through
all the trials and troubles and vicissitudes of
this life, I'm quite sure it would change
the whole pattern of our living.
Writing to a people whose progress in the
Christian life had been sadly retarded, the author
of this epistle to the Hebrews here expounds
this glorious and enriching theme.
As a matter of fact, it's almost a
summary of the message of the whole book.
Now there are two or three things that
appear to me we must look at in
this passage.
First of all, I would like us to
look at the prized possession of the church
of Jesus Christ.
Thinking now of the whole church, not only
Knox or some other community of God's people
from which some of you good folk come
this morning, but the whole church of Jesus
Christ has a prized possession which is brought
before us in these words.
We have a great high priest and if
you're a Christian, if you're a believer in
our Lord Jesus Christ, if you're a follower
of the Savior, a disciple of Jesus, this
by the grace of God is your infinite
privilege today.
Now let's split it down a little bit,
let's analyze it.
We have a priest.
A priest is a person divinely appointed to
act on men's behalf in things that relate
to God.
That's not my definition, you'll find it in
Hebrews chapter 5 and verse 1.
You will also be told in the epistle
to the Hebrews that his ultimate purpose is
really to bring men to God.
In the here and now, to bring men
into fellowship with God and in the ultimate
sense to bring men into the very presence
of God for eternity.
This is the work of the priest.
It is to offer the appropriate sacrifices that
are necessary to cement fellowship and communion between
man and his God, to keep the fellowship
sweet and the communion.
And of course that is done on the
basis of the sacrifices rendered and of the
prayers effectually offered.
Now the concept of a priest is universal
because the need it represents is universal.
So whether you think of pagan religions or
of Judaism or of Christianity, in all of
them you have this focal point.
In all of them you have the concept
of priesthood.
The priesthood of Jesus Christ can only be
properly understood, worthily understood I believe, against the
background of the Old Testament.
With its portrayal of the types and of
the shadows and of the ministrations of the
priesthood there.
You will remember that at the very heart
of Jewish national life in those early days
stood the tent of meeting, the tabernacle, later
the temple.
There God met with his people and from
that focal point he ruled them.
There they prayed and communed with him.
There he pardoned their transgressions on the basis
of the sacrifices rendered and that was the
vital point in the life of the nation.
Now all this was done however in and
through the mediation of a priest.
Without a priest there was no link between
the worshiper and the God they worshipped.
He was the lifeline of the nation.
God appointed him to be so and it's
no wonder that in Latin the word priest
is pontifex, which means a bridge builder.
A priest is the bridge between God and
man.
He unites both.
He brings together the two parties and he
becomes, as the writer of the epistle to
the Hebrews tells us, he becomes the mediator
between God and man and Paul elsewhere tells
us the same thing.
Now we have a priest.
We have a priest.
The innermost shrine in the tabernacle was the
Holy of Holies.
I'm reminding you of the familiar this morning.
And within that sacred enclosure stood the mercy
seat overshadowed by the outstretched wings of the
cherubim.
And it was there that the Shekinah glory
of God shed forth its mystic ray.
A light burned day and night indicating that
the God of light and the God of
glory was right there among his people in
the Holy of Holies.
Now the ordinary priests were never allowed in
there.
They offered the ordinary sacrifices of day to
day.
But on the great day of atonement there
was the high priest.
In other respects he was very much similar
to the other priests, said that he was
the head of the order.
And he assumed the responsibilities and the privileges
of being the head of the order.
One of them was this.
On the great day of atonement coming every
year it was he having first offered sacrifices
for his own sin.
Then made the appropriate sacrifices for the sin
of the whole community.
And he took the blood of the sacrifice
and moved in behind the curtain of blue
as the people watched him with bated breath.
And there with a bowl of blood in
his hands he went forth to sprinkle the
mercy seat.
And then he came out again.
And the people knew that since he came
out alive the sacrifice had been accepted.
Their sins were covered for another year.
They may live in peace with God.
We, says the writer of the epistle to
the Hebrews, have a high priest.
Not only the priest that offers these sacrifices
for our ordinary little sins.
But the priest was made the one sacrifice
that could be taken into heaven itself.
And having been accepted has brought an end
to all the sacrificial system of the Old
Testament.
And to the necessity of any sacrifice ever
being made by any sinner to be received
by God.
We have a high priest who offered himself
first a sacrifice and then went in and
sprinkled the mercy seat in heaven itself.
We have a great high priest.
Our high priest is superior to every other.
His greatness none can comprehend.
That's part of the message of this great
epistle.
There is none other like him.
Now if you're not a committed Christian this
morning you may think that that is a
dogmatic statement that ought to be qualified.
The only qualification I will make to it
this morning is to read you three verses.
As the writer of this epistle comes to
introduce our great high priest these are the
words he uses.
Listen to them.
In the past God spoke to our forefathers
through the prophets at many times and in
various ways.
But in these last days he has spoken
to us by his son whom he appointed
heir of all things and through whom he
made the universe.
The son is the radiance of God's glory
and the exact representation of his being sustaining
all things by his powerful word.
After he had provided purification for sins he
sat down at the right hand of the
majesty upon high.
That's how great he is.
He has actually passed through the heavens into
the very dwelling place of deity and taken
his seat there at God's right hand.
I suggested a few moments ago that the
high priest in ancient Israel when he went
into the holy of holies once a year
did not stay there very long.
He would be afraid to.
He went in he performed his task and
as quickly as possible he went out again
for he was going into the presence of
the living God.
But our great high priest having passed through
the heavens into the very presence of God
is now seated there.
He's in the holy of holies in heaven.
He sits at the majesty at the right
hand of the majesty upon high.
He sits with God in glory.
Before the throne of God above we have
a strong a perfect plea.
A great high priest whose name is love
who ever lives and pleads for me.
My name says the writer of the hymn.
My name is graven on his hands.
My name is written on his heart.
I know that while in heaven he stands
as my high priest and representative.
No tongue can bid me thence depart.
Is Jesus Christ your savior this morning?
Is he your master?
Is he your lord?
Do you worship him?
Do you come to God through him?
Then my good friend this is your privilege.
Live up to it.
But now the writer of this epistle to
the Hebrews goes on.
He says some things in this passage much
outside of this passage but he says at
least two very important things in this passage
about the perfections of our great high priest.
And I want to underscore them and you
will see that they have a practical end
in view.
First of all he has something to say
about the sympathy of our great high priest.
You see having read these first few verses
from Hebrews chapter 1 and if you and
I have really taken in what those words
mean we might very well ask what sympathy
has a person such as that with people
like me.
He who bears the cosmos in the hollow
of his hand and carries it forward to
the goal destined by God.
He who is lord of all and who
sits at God's right hand.
Now what sympathy has he got with a
man or a woman a boy or a
girl like me living in my mundane yet
very challenging circumstances.
We do not have says the writer of
the epistle we do not have a high
priest who is unable to sympathize with our
weaknesses.
Lurking behind that negative there may well be
a veiled suggestion that some of the high
priests of ancient Israel were not all that
friendly and not all that sympathetic.
Now I'm sure you and I have come
across ministers and leaders in Christian church who
have not always been as friendly and as
sympathetic as we would like them to be.
It was the same then and the writer
of the epistle is eager to say that
our high priest is not one incapable or
unwilling to sympathize with our frail human weaknesses.
Even if Jewish priests were sympathetic however there
were some current pagan ideas abroad about God
which which tempted the people to believe that
God himself was not interested in them.
I've no time to enlarge upon these but
some of you will remember the old stoic
ideas about God.
They said that his chiefest attribute was apathy
which is best interpreted or translated by our
English word apathy.
By which they meant a remoteness that made
him incapable of sympathy and the Epicureans believed
something similar and something equally libelous about God
and of course there were some Jewish people
who presented God in his majesty and his
holiness in such a way that the people
would be too much afraid to draw near
to him.
Add these facts to the existence of an
unsympathetic priesthood and you have present all the
ingredients that go to the making of despair
in those who are sensitive to their personal
and domestic needs.
Now over against all such groundless labels and
lies the inspired writer testifies we do not
have a high priest who is incapable of
sympathizing with our needs and our problems or
rather as we have sung to put it
in the positive in every pang that rends
the heart the man of sorrows has a
part.
It was necessary that he should be made
perfect through sufferings not perfect morally but perfect
to fulfill the function of his high priestly
ministry and one of the necessary functions is
this that he should be able to sympathize
with you and me and he is able
so to do and that's why we have
such glorious hymns in our hymn book what
a friend we have in Jesus all our
sins and griefs to bear do you remember
how how men and women flocked after him
in the day of the days of his
flesh do you remember how they came to
him they did not go to the scribes
they did not go after the pharisees you
didn't see the crowds at their at their
heels but they came to him why because
they found in him sympathy they could tell
him everything they could open up to him
they could open their hearts to him you
see he was different and he's the same
as he sits at God's right hand this
morning men and women you can be open
with him that's one thing but the writer
of the epistle also wants to stress his
sinlessness we have one who has been tempted
in every way just as we are yet
without sin now this is necessary for a
number of reasons the implication of this statement
when taken in its context is that contrary
to what is commonly believed it is sinlessness
not the experience of sin that capacitates us
to sympathize with others now you see we
tend to believe that in order to have
genuine sympathy with someone we've got to have
partaken in their sins and so you say
well if if a man is to help
a drunkard it's best to have somebody who
has been a drunkard if a man is
to sympathize with such and such a person
well let's get one of his kind who
has been converted from that there's some measure
of truth in that but it's not the
whole truth by any means and it can
be transformed into a lie it would disqualify
our Lord Jesus from sympathy from his sympathetic
ministry no no ultimately sin coarsens our spirits
and participation in sin means that we are
less capable of sympathy or we may get
physically alongside people and we may talk to
them and we may impart to them such
knowledge as we have but sympathy is something
infinitely deeper than that and what the writer
of the epistle to the hebrews says is
this our Lord was tempted in all points
and he thus is able to sympathize now
you ask the question i know you do
how can the sinless sympathize i'm tempted you're
tempted how can the sinless son of God
sympathize with me for this reason it is
he alone that knows the real power of
temptation let me illustrate that there is an
illustration to be found there is an analogy
between the moral experience of temptation on the
one hand and the physical experience of pain
on the other here is somebody involved in
an accident God forbid that it should happen
to any of us today here is someone
involved in an accident in an automobile and
his legs are crushed and for a long
time he writhes in pain or she writhes
in pain suddenly there comes a point where
he or she becomes unconscious and beyond that
point though the pain goes on and on
and on he or she is unconscious of
it the pain did not end when he
or she became unconscious the pain went on
there was more of it so it is
with us and our temptations when temptation comes
to us and we give in then there
are aspects of temptation there is power in
temptation that we we don't experience we don't
recognize it because we don't stand up to
it it is only the person that stands
up to temptation to the very end who
knows its power and is able to sympathize
with those who are tempted let me give
you another illustration which brings it out even
better perhaps i was once privileged to preach
alongside the late archdeacon hw cragg more than
once actually but on one occasion i heard
him use this illustration he was an anglican
minister in the midlands in england and one
for one period and he saw this with
his own eyes looking out from his study
window he said there were two very high
chimneys taking the smoke of the foundries up
into the sky now don't let's pass judgment
on that for the moment but at any
rate there they were polluting the skies two
very very high chimneys and the storm broke
out and the winds began to blow gale
force and they blew and they blew and
just a couple of minutes before midnight one
of the chimneys crashed but the other one
stood erect and went through the night and
the wind was blowing and the gale was
still massively angry with everybody it would seem
the second one stood erect until the storm
petered out at 5 30 next morning i
can remember mr cragg asking the congregation now
you tell me which of those two high
chimneys really knew the power of the storm
the one that fell at two minutes to
midnight or the one that stood upright through
the gale and is still standing well the
answer is evident isn't it brothers and sisters
our blessed lord jesus christ faced the fury
of the gale of temptations unremittingly for over
30 years as a boy as a child
as a young man into his manhood he
faced the temptations and he did not give
way and he still stands he knows what
temptation means and out of his grace he
is able to sympathize with those that are
tempted he knows what you're going through as
no one else does we have a great
high priest so what and that's my third
point this morning some practical requirements for every
christian what are we to do then what's
the implication what's the application well here it
is let us hold firmly to the faith
we profess as one and secondly let us
then approach the throne of grace with confidence
so that we may receive mercy and find
grace to help in time of need we
have such a great high priest one let
us hold fast our profession because we have
such a high priest we may reasonably and
with pride in him hold fast our profession
of faith the first century hebrew christians addressed
here appear to have become uncertain of the
propriety or the wisdom of their having made
a decision to break with the old jewish
faith it was so picturesque it has such
an appeal to the eyes and to the
sensual they thought they had done wrong here
they are now with following the savior the
lord jesus christ who in his in his
humanity wore an ordinary simple dress and those
around him they were they were dressed so
simply there is nothing ornate there is nothing
to attract the eye and the liturgy is
so very very simple nothing like that of
the great day of atonement or of the
great feasts in ancient israel and they thought
they were missing something oh writes this great
writer of the epistle to the hebrews don't
you believe it the glories of our holy
religion they he would say rests in the
person and in the work and particularly in
the high priesthood of our blessed lord jesus
christ to know him in the exercise of
his sympathy and strength as the occupant of
heaven's throne as our high priest to know
him thus is to leave oneself without any
reason to go back but with every reason
to go on listen my friends it is
only the people who do not know our
savior well that ever think of putting their
hands to the plow and turning back those
who know him love him they go forth
with him they go forward with him they
suffer with him they die with him and
they count it a privilege and a pleasure
those who know him only those whose knowledge
of him is incomplete and inadequate will ever
think of turning back says the writer let
us hold fast then our profession because of
the person he is and then let us
draw near now we're coming down you see
to the very exigencies of life in which
you and i are involved and are going
to be involved because we have such a
high priest we may confidently draw near to
him and to god through him and not
only acknowledge our weakness and sins but also
receive the help we need in our time
of need now this touches the nerve end
of our ongoing experience you and i have
needs we have personal needs we have needs
in the family we have needs of various
kinds in all the circles where we turn
you are going to have needs as a
congregation what are we going to do about
them well there is one place where our
very needs can become our greatest blessing if
we allow them to bring us to the
feet of the christ and the throne of
god if you concentrate on your needs and
simply look about upon your needs they can
cut out the vision of god and of
his grace and of his glory and leave
you in the mire just wallowing you and
i can do that it is possible for
us even though we know all these things
if we allowed sin so to blind us
we would be left wallowing in the mire
but says the writer of this epistle no
no that's not the way he says let
us draw near to the throne of grace
to receive something to receive what well he
says we'll need mercy for one thing you
see however far we have gone in the
christian life however much we've grown however mature
we think we are we sin we sin
we trespass we either go beyond the word
of god or we come short of it
in spirit in word in motive in one
way or another we we we trespass we
sin and sin requires the mercy of god
and so we need my friends you and
i are going to need as we need
today we need mercy we live by mercy
and without the mercy of god you and
i are dead in the utmost sense it
is only the mercy of god that preserves
us but we also need grace grace is
more than mercy and it would seem that
in this particular context the view is not
so much of the grace that comes to
the unworthy though that is there the grace
that comes to welcome the prodigal home the
grace that puts a new robe on him
and a ring on his finger that's there
but it's more than that enabling grace grace
that capacitates us in the face of our
weaknesses that we have confessed to our high
priest in the face of the sins that
we've had to acknowledge grace that will enable
us to arise and stand above the circumstances
grace to make us more than conquerors as
paul says in all these things romans 8
and he's looked at some horrible things around
him and he's mentioned them by name you'll
read the end of romans 8 when you
go home this morning and yet paul says
in the midst of all these things we
are more than conquerors through him that loved
us where do we get that kind of
grace from or hear from our great high
priest he mediates the grace of god to
those whom he represents on the throne having
first represented them in death and in resurrection
now i want to continue with this thread
this evening but for the moment i want
to leave it there brothers and sisters the
great summons to you and to me this
morning is this it's to keep on confessing
the christ whom we have embraced it's to
be witnesses to him it's to hold fast
the profession of our faith concerning the glories
of his person and the adequacy of his
work and of his promises to his people
in every conceivable exigency in life and in
death and then to keep on drawing near
oh there is nothing impossible for those who
keep on drawing near as i conclude my
thoughts go back to our lord jesus in
john 7 you remember the end of that
great feast in jerusalem and this was the
last day the great day of the feast
and he says if any man thirst let
him come unto me let him keep on
coming to me that's what he said and
i will give him to drink i'll quench
his thirst but listen to this and out
of his inner being there shall flow rivers
of living water rivers of water i'll give
him to drink and then as he goes
out to serve me on the basis of
what i have given him rivers of blessing
will flow out through him brothers and sisters
this is the vision and it is possible
because our blessed lord jesus is not only
exalted as we were seeing a few weeks
ago and has been given the name that
is above every name but in his exaltation
he is our great high priest he's there
for us he ministers to his people and
he has everything you need and i need
to live for him and to die with
him and to come to glory with him
god grant us god grant us that the
vision may entice us that our eyes shall
not be downwards or on the waves or
on the enemy unduly but upon him who
is able to serve to the uttermost those
that come to god through him seeing he
ever liveth to make intercession for us let
us pray approach my soul the mercy seat
where jesus answers prayer there humbly fall before
his feet for none can perish there and
blessed be your holy name none need languish
for need of grace at the throne of
grace oh our lord and our father cause
your word to become a lamp unto our
feet today members of this congregation and those
who are uniting with us as our brothers
and sisters in christ today each one of
us individually and all of us together make
this word meaningful and relevant and applicable may
we see it as a blank check made
out to us and may draw us to
the throne that we may draw from the
throne those promises concerning whom jesus is still
the amen as well as the alpha and
the omega we ask it in jesus name
amen