And if you get your Bibles out and
open them to the Book of Hebrews, Book
of Hebrews chapter, well, we're going to try
to get, we're supposed to get through chapters
4 and 5 tonight.
So, let's start in chapter 3, okay?
Just to guarantee that we probably may not
get that far.
We've been, as we've been going through the
Book of Hebrews, we've been understanding that this
book was initially written to Jewish Christians who
may have been on the verge of turning
back from their promised rest in Jesus Christ.
They, persecution was increasing, and it was becoming
more and more difficult to be a Jewish
Christian.
And so some of them were beginning to
slip back to the things of the world.
Well, in essence, they were the things of
the world because they were beginning to be
deceived by the old religious traditions which could
not save them, which could not give them
the rest that God intended them to have
in Jesus Christ.
And so we were looking at the end
of chapter 3, actually in the middle of
chapter 3 where the writer was quoting from
the Psalms, and he was quoting, today if
you will hear his voice in verse 7,
Don't harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
as in the day of trial in the
wilderness where your fathers tested me and tried
me and saw my works forty years.
Therefore I was angry with that generation and
said, They always go astray in their heart
and they have not known my ways.
And so I swore in my wrath they
shall not enter my rest.
Beware brethren, I mean this was written a
thousand years ago in the Psalms, of your
forefathers, beware brethren, lest there be in any
of you an evil heart of unbelief in
departing from the living God.
But exhort one another daily while it is
called today, lest any of you be hardened
through the deceitfulness of sin.
For we have become partakers of Christ if
we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast
to the end.
You know, what he's saying is hang in
there guys.
You know, it is hard, it is tough,
but hold on, don't let go just because
it's tough.
And I think in that it would certainly
be a message for the church today.
Wouldn't you agree?
That there is many forces out in the
world around us to pull our concentration off
of Christ, to put our trust in something
other than Christ.
And we find it evidenced by, you know,
the stress of the day that we live
in, the anger of the day that we
live in.
We see it by the materialism of our
day, of our culture in particular, where if
you don't keep up with the Joneses, so
to speak, you know, you're just a second
class citizen.
And oftentimes believers will begin not to disbelieve
in Jesus, but to turn their focus of
their trust into something other than Jesus, which
eventually weakens their faith.
It eventually brings them in a place of
carnality, where instead of every day being responsive
to what God wants and what God desires,
and hey, isn't that what this is about?
How many of us have learned it's not
about going to church?
Because, I mean, there's a lot of religions
out there you can go and put in
your time and, you know, do your hour
a week and that's fine.
But this is our life.
This is our life now and on into
eternity.
And I think it's only as we stay
fixed on Jesus and listen to Him and
talk with Him and walk with Him each
and every day that we really are walking
in the fullness that God's intended for us.
And there is a fullness.
The Christian life is meant to be full.
Full of Jesus, full of the joy of
the Lord, full of His power, overflowing with
His love, where worship is something that doesn't
have to be coaxed, but it just flows
out of our lives because we're just so
thankful for who the Lord is and what
He's done for us.
And the writer of Hebrews is urging these
young Jewish believers, don't pull back from that.
Don't turn back from that.
Because only He can hold you.
Don't harden your heart.
If you'll hear His voice, don't harden your
hearts.
For who having heard rebelled?
Indeed, was it not all who came out
of Egypt led by Moses?
Now with whom was He angry forty years?
Was it not with those who sinned, whose
corpses fell in the wilderness?
And to whom did He swear that they
would not enter His rest but to those
who did not obey?
So we see that they could not enter
in because of unbelief.
They trusted in their own resources instead of
God's resources.
They came up to Kadesh Barnea.
We talked about this a couple weeks ago.
The Lord said, go in, take the land.
And they went in and came back and
said, yeah, it's a nice land, but there's
already somebody there.
And they're bigger than us.
And they're stronger than us.
And we're like grasshoppers in their sight.
Only in Joshua and Caleb said, they're bread
for our eating.
Let's eat.
You know, they're the only ones that brought
a good report.
The rest of them brought an evil report.
They were looking at their own resources.
They were afraid.
They were afraid of what would happen to
their children.
And indeed, 40 years later, it was their
children that went in and conquered the land.
We need to trust the Lord, no matter
what it is that we're facing and going
through, and not pull back from Him and
get back onto our resources.
There is a rest.
And that rest, I don't believe, is just
the sweet by and by.
I believe it does speak of heaven, certainly.
And we know that when we get to
heaven, the battle will be over.
But there is also a place of rest
in the fullness of your relationship with Jesus
Christ that you can have right now.
And so this is why he says in
chapter 4, Therefore, since a promise remains of
entering His rest, let us fear, lest any
of you seem to have come short of
it.
For indeed, the gospel was preached to us
as well as to them, but the word
which they heard, and again speaking of Israel
and the wilderness, did not profit them.
Why?
Because it was not mixed with faith in
those who heard it.
For we who have believed do enter that
rest, as he said, So I swore in
my wrath, they shall not enter my rest.
Psalm 91.
Although the works, I'm sorry, Psalm 95.
Although the works were finished from the foundation
of the world.
For He has spoken in a certain place
of the seventh day in this way, and
God rested on the seventh day from all
His works.
Now He's going all the way back to
Genesis.
Genesis 2-2.
And again, in this place, they shall not
enter my rest.
Since therefore it remains that some must enter
it, and those to whom it was first
preached did not enter because of disobedience.
Again, He designates a certain day in David.
This again is quoting that Psalm.
Today, after such a long time as it
has been said, Today, if you will hear
His voice, do not harden your hearts.
For if Joshua had given them rest, then
he would not afterward, hundreds of years later
through David, have spoken of another day of
rest.
If Joshua had led the people of God
into their final promised land of rest, then
David would not have written 400 years later
a warning about not hardening their hearts.
Verse 9 then, There remains therefore a rest
for the people of God.
And I believe understood in that would be
a rest for the people of God that
cannot be found in the Old Testament.
That cannot be found in the law of
Moses.
It could not be found in angels.
He already brought that out in chapter 1.
It could not be found in Moses.
Brought that out in chapter 2 in the
first part of chapter 3.
Here we're going to find out that it's
not going to be found in the priesthood,
in Aaron.
And we'll get into that in a little
bit.
But there is a rest for the people
of God.
And I like that verse.
Because that means there's a rest for me
and there's a rest for you.
And I don't know what may be causing
you unrest tonight.
If you're living in this world, the odds
are pretty good that there are forces at
work to keep you unsettled, to keep you
off balance, to keep you distracted from seeking
the Lord first.
Lots of stuff out there.
But God wants you to know tonight that
there is a rest for the people of
God.
A rest that we can have each and
every day, where the peace that passes understanding
can guard our hearts.
And I honestly don't believe that that means
that we just find ourselves in a meditative
pose 24 hours a day.
You know, just kind of in a mystical
state.
We've got a very real world that we
need to function in.
We've got very real problems that we have
to face and deal with in a godly
manner.
But it is possible to face the challenges
and trials that we have each and every
day with a supernatural rest.
A rest that will have its fulfillment, of
course, as Revelation 21.4 says, where God
will wipe away every tear from their eyes
and there shall be no more death, nor
sorrow, nor crying.
There shall be no more pain for the
former things have passed away.
And that's another good promise too.
Amen?
That the things that have caused the pain,
the sorrow, the crying will one day pass
away and will be swallowed up in glory.
And we get to taste that now.
We get to taste that the moment we're
born again, the moment we surrender our lives
to the Lord, where His rule and His
peace takes over.
And we realize that it's not something that
we strive to do in our own efforts,
either our own moral efforts or our own
religious efforts.
Verse 10 says, For he who has entered
his rest, speaking of the Lord's rest, has
himself also ceased from his works as God
did from his.
Entering this rest means no longer needing to
work.
Now, I don't mean that you can just
go quit your jobs now because the pastor
said we don't need to work.
But the work he's speaking of, the idea
isn't that there is no longer any place
for doing good works.
The idea is that there is no longer
any place for works as a basis of
our own righteousness.
Like, God, look how good I am.
And I'm doing all this stuff, and I'm
a pretty upright, disciplined person.
And I deserve to get into heaven.
Well, if that's what you're basing it on,
woe unto you.
Because God will reveal the prideful attitude of
your heart, which is sin.
And you'll realize that you weren't perfect, and
you were counting on impressing God with your
perfection.
That won't work.
And I don't know about you, but I
take a deep sigh of relief at that
because I'm so imperfect.
And I fail so much.
And I'm so thankful.
So thankful that he is made.
He has made a way that is beyond
my abilities.
Because I know, again, there's a lot of
us that put a bit of a challenge
in front of us, and we'll try to
meet it.
And if you say, well, it's not easy
to get saved.
It's not down here.
It's kind of way, way up here.
Well, I'm going to try to invent some
way to get to that.
And then once I get there, I'm going
to go, yeah, did it.
I'm better than you.
Sadly, we've seen that in religious history throughout
the centuries, where those who have so-called
or seem to have arrived have lorded it
over others.
And that's never what Jesus did.
You know, I think the more spiritual you
are, the less people really know or are
drawn to you as how spiritual you are.
Because the more spiritual you are, the more
you get out of the way.
The more the glory goes to Jesus, the
more broken you are to the Lord for
the mighty work that he's done in your
life.
And there's not a prideful thing.
It's a humble thing.
And I think the more you grow in
the Lord truly, the more broken and humble
your life is going to be.
And that's because it's all Jesus.
He's done it all for us.
There's no longer any place for my works
as a basis for my righteousness.
Now, there's plenty of room for good works.
And God calls us to do good works,
but not as a basis in which we
can be saved and our sins can be
washed away.
The good works are a fruit of what
God has done in our lives.
And our rest is in Jesus and nowhere
else.
And this cessation from works as a basis
for righteousness fulfills what we call our Sabbath
rest.
God rested from his works on the original
Sabbath of Genesis 2 because the work was
finished.
Right?
It was done.
It was evening and morning the first day,
evening and morning the second day, but he
got to the seventh day when he rested
and doesn't say anything more about evening and
morning.
Because it was a completed deal.
It was a finished work.
We, similarly, we cease from self-justifying works
because the work is finished by Jesus on
the cross.
And our salvation comes when we've learned to
rest in what God has done for us
on the cross and we stop trying to
earn our salvation through our own works.
That's why you find a lot of church
people getting saved.
A lot of times we'll find folks coming
forward, turning their lives over to the Lord
and they've been in church all their life
or been exposed to church or they thought
that they were Christians because they went to
church occasionally on Easter, Christmas.
And they come to find out that it's
not about a membership that you have in
a particular denomination.
It's not about your church-going track record.
You know, it's not even about the rituals
that you may have performed.
It's not even about getting baptized.
I mean, you can get baptized.
You can get dunked in the water and
still be as carnal the next day as
you were the day before.
The baptism itself, just the act of going
into the water is just like the children
of Israel.
They didn't mix it with faith, as we
read there in chapter 4.
It wasn't connected with faith.
And it's that faith in what Jesus has
already done for us.
And that's why we sing, I cannot tell
at all.
He's done so much for me.
Wiped away my sins.
Removed them as far away as the east
is from the west.
Filled us with His Spirit.
Changed our hearts.
Taught us His Word.
Poured out His love through us.
Keep it coming, Lord.
I want more of that.
And so the application of this, verse 11.
Let us therefore be diligent to enter that
rest, lest anyone fall according to that same
example of disobedience.
Again, looking back at the example.
He says, remember the story of your forefathers.
Remember their history.
Remember their failure there.
And their lack of belief in trust in
Me.
Don't forget that.
Because the Word of God, and I'm sure
he's specifically referring to the exhortation in Psalm
95 that he just quoted.
But I believe this certainly speaks to the
whole body of truth.
The Word of God is living.
You know, he's taken a poem that was
written a thousand years earlier.
And he's saying, this Word is living.
This is not dead poetry.
This is alive and powerful.
And if you'll open your hearts to it,
if you won't harden your hearts to it,
it'll convict you, and you'll understand what the
Lord was trying to teach through that.
Not just the history of the people of
Israel that we read in Numbers, but God's
assessment of what all of that was as
we looked at the Psalms, and now here
in Hebrews.
That it was because of unbelief, that they
couldn't enter into the rest.
Yeah, they didn't go all the way back
to Egypt, but they didn't enter into the
promised land either.
And they died there in the wilderness, and
there's a lot of people, a lot of
Christians, sadly, that are still kind of roaming
in a wilderness.
The joy of the Lord is not their
strength.
You know, they're not overflowing with thanksgiving day
in and day out.
Instead of having victory in their trials, the
smallest thing just overwhelms them and throws them
into a tizzy, into confusion.
Church shouldn't be that way.
You know, if we've been feeding on God's
good word, and I'm happy to say and
thankful to say that God is doing a
work in this fellowship.
He's doing a work in so many of
your lives.
And I just want to encourage you, let
Him pull at full throttle.
I mean, let Him pour all that He
wants.
Let your cry when you go out of
here tonight be, Jesus, fill me more.
Fill me up.
Pour it into me, Lord.
Lord, I just want to walk with You.
I just want to know You.
I want to hold on to Your promises.
Even if I don't see them.
Even if I don't see the immediate fulfillment.
We read in Psalm 91, well, the first
few verses of Psalm 91, beautiful passage.
We used to call it, when I first
got saved, God's insurance policy.
Unfortunately, some folks went beyond wisdom and chose
not to get automobile insurance and so forth
as a result.
They said, well, Psalm 91 is my insurance.
Tell that to the officer.
There is a place for our responsibility as
well.
And I think as Christians, we are called
to be responsible.
Here He says, He who dwells in the
secret place of the Most High shall abide
under the shadow of the Almighty.
Man, if I'm dwelling, walking close with the
Lord, there's going to be a sense of
abiding.
I'm home, man.
I'm where I'm supposed to be.
There's a settledness there.
And I will say of the Lord, He
is my refuge and my fortress, my God,
in Him I will trust.
Surely He shall deliver you from the snare
of the fowler and from the perilous pestilence,
and He shall cover you with His feathers,
and under His wings you shall take refuge.
His truth shall be your shield and buckler,
and you shall not be afraid of the
terror by night, nor of the arrow that
flies by day.
Beautiful passage.
But I like that second part of verse
four.
His truth shall be your shield and buckler.
The New Living Bible translates it, His faithful
promises are your armor and protection.
His faithful promises are your armor and your
protection.
It's as we trust in what God has
said that we find ourselves protected and strengthened.
Trust God's word.
Trust His promises.
Hold on to Him.
Every word of God is yea and amen.
Every promise of God is a good promise.
And we can look at those promises, those
promises of His peace, those promises of His
cleansing and His forgiveness, those promises for wisdom,
to walk uprightly in Him.
We can count on those.
We can stand on those.
Even those promises for our kids, those promises
even concerning our healing.
We stand on them.
We know that God is a God who
heals.
He's our healer.
And I know that this world is going
to pass.
And there is that day that we're going
to be standing before Him.
100% complete.
Perfect.
Spotless.
Fearless.
Worryless.
Oh, bring it on, Lord.
Bring it on, Lord.
Sometimes God chooses to heal immediately, physically.
And we've seen it.
We've seen God's hand of healing upon folks.
Sometimes He chooses to wait and teach us
different things as we suffer, as we go
through hard times.
And sometimes that healing will come when we
hear Him say, get up here.
It's now appointed for you to enter into
your rest.
Either way, His promise is still sure.
And we stand on His promises.
Amen?
Solid.
So, let's be diligent, because the Word of
God is living and powerful and sharper than
any two-edged sword, piercing even to the
division of soul and spirit and of joints
and marrow, and is a discerner of the
thoughts and the intents of the heart.
And I need that every day.
I need God's Word to bring me back
to center, bring me back to focusing my
heart and life on serving and loving Jesus
Christ, on living my life for Him, on
trusting completely in what He has done.
I mentioned this over the weekend, and if
you want to get a little deeper study
on this, you can get the tape from
the weekend.
John Corson pointed out that he always thought
the Word was quick and powerful and sharper
because it would bring to light and deal
with our failures.
And he pointed out, well, this wouldn't really
be true according to the context of this
verse.
The Word pierces the heart as it recounts
stories of people who were robbed because they
just didn't believe how good God is.
They were robbed.
You see, it is all about Him.
And it's so not about me or thee.
So what is your heart trusting in?
I believe the Word of God will reveal
that.
As you find yourself immersed in the Word
of God, studying the history of God's people,
looking at how the Lord not only worked
in the Old Testament, but how He worked
in the church, in the early church, you'll
find where your heart is.
You'll understand what the motive behind your works
would be if you're trying to impress God
and earn His favor.
God's Word will nail you on that.
The Word will reveal the futility of that
course.
The Word of God is powerful.
The Bible isn't a collection of musty stories
and myths.
It has an inherent life and power.
The preacher doesn't make the Bible come alive.
The Bible is alive and gives life to
the preacher and anyone else who will really
receive it.
Sharper than any two-edged sword.
You know, God's Word can deal with us
with surprising precision, can't it?
And the Holy Spirit empowers the ministry of
the Word to do deep work in our
hearts.
And, you know, many times people wonder how
a minister's message can be so relevant to
their life.
You know, they sometimes honestly wonder if the
preacher doesn't know some inside information about their
life.
But it isn't necessarily the preacher at all.
It's the sharpness of the Word of God
delivering the message in just the right place.
And I can preach the same passage and
have a deal with a hundred of you
a hundred different ways.
You can be facing issues and things in
your life completely different from the people on
the other side of the sanctuary, but the
same Word will go right to the deepest
place of where you're at, if you're open.
And He'll draw you out from that place
of bondage.
He'll draw you out away from that place
of confusion.
He'll bring you into that place of rest,
which is in Him.
And kind of as a postscript to that,
verse 13, there is no creature hidden from
His sight, but all things, all things are
naked and open to the eyes of Him
to whom we must give account.
There is no one hidden before God.
And He's probably bringing it home to these
Jewish believers.
He's saying, hey, you can run, but you
can't hide.
You know, you can sneak away.
You can kind of, you know, not press
on and follow Him, but God knows your
heart.
And you can't play both sides of the
fence.
There is no one hidden before God.
He sees our hearts and, you know, He
knows how to touch them.
Thank you, Lord.
And our responsibility, we must give account for
how we respond to His touch.
You know, God is touching you tonight.
He's touching you through His word.
And not just because there's some mystical aura
or presence here this evening.
I mean, you can be watching this on
video six weeks from now or three or
four years from now in the Philippines.
You know, when the tapes get over there.
And the Holy Spirit can speak to your
heart because it's His word that's alive.
And if His word speaks to your heart,
and here's the warning, don't blow it off.
Don't go, well, that was real inspiring.
And I'm going to just go off like
it.
Okay, I had my religious experience and I
felt that conviction and that burning.
All right, yeah, preacher.
And then it's like, was that a show?
Was it just something you got a buzz
off of?
And then that's it.
No, we got to give account to Him.
And so what we hear tonight, we're responsible
for.
And so He's just saying, hey, have a
sober heart towards it.
Don't take it lightly.
Take it wonderfully.
Take it beautifully.
Take it powerfully.
Take it personally.
Don't take it lightly.
And it is comforting to realize that although
God knows us intimately, He still loves us.
And you can thank God for that right
now.
You really can.
Verse 14.
Seeing then that we have a great high
priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus,
the Son of God, let us hold fast
our confession.
The writer to the Hebrews wants to call
attention to the specific unique character of Jesus
as our high priest.
No other high priest in the Bible was
called great.
No other high priest passed through the heavens,
certainly.
No other high priest is the Son of
God.
So knowing that we have a high priest
and knowing how unique and glorious He is,
is so wonderful.
It is even greater to know that He's
passed through the heavens, that He's ascended into
heaven, and now ministers there on our behalf.
Wow, that's even greater.
Both of these things should encourage us to
hold fast our confession.
For we do not, verse 15, have a
high priest who cannot sympathize with our weakness,
but was in all points tempted as we
are, yet without sin.
You know, to the Greeks, the primary attribute
of God was apathia, the essential inability to
feel anything at all.
That was the Greeks' attitude of God.
Jesus isn't like that.
He knows.
He feels what we go through.
The ancient Greek word for sympathize literally means
to suffer along with, and He does that
with us.
What makes the difference is that Jesus added
humanity to His deity and came and lived
among us as a man.
And when you've been there, it makes all
the difference.
And Jesus has been there.
We might hear of someone stricken with cancer
and feel a measure of sorrow, but it's
nothing like the pain we would feel if
it were our own family.
I'm learning that.
Goodness, for 30 years of ministry, I've been
ministering to cancer patients, and I'll be honest
with you, I've hurt with them and I've
cried with them, but none of it has
been anywhere near what it's like with having
your own wife have it.
You know?
Jesus went through it for us, yet without
sin.
So let us...
See, there's a therefore, verse 16, and that
kind of sums up everything.
A therefore is sort of like the action
word, okay?
On the basis of all these things, now
do this, okay?
Therefore, because we have a high priest who
is sympathetic with us, who does understand what
it's like to be human, he's been here,
and now he's in heaven interceding for us.
Therefore, let's come boldly to the throne of
grace that we may obtain mercy and find
grace to help in time of need.
Let's come boldly.
I think the living Bible says, let's come
before the throne of grace and stay there.
No, just park yourself there.
Don't ever leave that place.
David Gusick said, because we have a high
priest who is both omnipotent and compassionate, we
can come boldly to his throne.
Now, discouraging us from this access is a
central strategy of Satan.
The devil sometimes wants us to consider Jesus
as unapproachable, unapproachable.
I don't know how many of you were
raised in a Catholic tradition.
I was, and I never really understood that
I could come to Jesus.
No, I had to go to St. Patrick,
of course.
Or Mother Mary or some other saint because
Jesus was unapproachable.
That's a lie of Satan.
And it's sad that that church, that the
huge Roman Catholic church, many parts of it
have bought into that.
We can come directly to the throne of
grace because of the passion of the Christ,
because of what he did and suffered for
us.
It wasn't to establish a bunch of other
mediators.
He's the mediator.
And Timothy points that out there.
There is one God and one mediator between
God and man.
The man is Christ Jesus, the Messiah.
And he's alive.
He rose from the grave.
He ascended through the heavens.
He's interceding for you and I even right
now.
You might think nobody's praying for me.
You're wrong.
Jesus is praying for you.
Whoa.
Jesus is praying for me.
I don't know about you, but that gives
me a little encouragement that maybe I will
get through this.
Maybe you will get through that, what it
is you're facing.
Because the Lord on high is interceding for
you.
Sometimes the devil wants us to think of
Jesus as being powerless to help, not as
one who sits on a throne in heaven.
And again, that's why on our crosses we
don't have Jesus crucified.
He's risen.
He's been victorious over sin and death.
He's conquered it.
And he reigns on high.
So in the Protestant churches, you usually see
an empty cross.
It's not being disrespectful.
It's recognizing the power because sometimes, you know,
poor Jesus.
You know, poor Jesus hanging there on the
cross.
That's not where it ended.
That was just the pain of the price.
Three days later, he rose.
And he's alive forevermore.
And I think that's one of the things
that blew my mind when I first gave
my heart to the Lord was that I
realized that Jesus was alive and that he
knew me and that I could know him
and that I could talk with him.
I could have fellowship with him because he's
alive.
We're celebrating this Easter.
He's alive.
We don't serve a dead Savior.
We serve a risen Savior.
And he's in the world today.
Amen?
How's the rest of that hymn go?
Whatever man may say.
I hear his voice of terror.
See, Mark does the senior study, and they
got all these down.
The good old classic hymns.
It's true.
Do you see his hand of mercy tonight?
Do you know he's near tonight?
Oh, brother and sister, he is.
And he loves you so much.
So come boldly.
We need to come daily for God's help.
Daily.
Hourly.
Sometimes by the moment.
Dwight L.
Moody said, A man can no more take
in a supply of grace for the future
than he can eat enough today to last
him for the next six months.
Nor can he inhale sufficient air into his
lungs with one breath to sustain life for
a week to come.
We are permitted to draw upon God's store
of grace from day to day as we
need it.
There's a great store there, folks.
How much grace do you need today?
How much mercy do you need today?
The Bible says His mercy is higher than
the heavens.
How much is that?
Well, it's certainly more than enough to meet
whatever your need of mercy or grace is.
How much love do you need?
You know, I'm not very loving, or I'm
not very lovable.
Well, because you have that faithful high priest,
Jesus, who can sympathize with your weaknesses, you
can come before His throne.
You can know Him and walk with Him,
and He can use you and work mightily
in your life.
Thankfully, God provides help in our time of
need.
Amen?
No request is too small because He wants
us to be anxious for nothing.
But in everything, by prayer, supplication, with thanksgiving,
let our requests be made known to God,
Philippians 4, 6, and the peace of God
that passes understanding will guard your heart.
Chapter 5.
We continue the thought.
We're talking about Jesus as our perfect high
priest.
And unlike the priests of Israel, Jesus is
an eternal priest, a priest forever.
Warren Wiersbe notes that in the first couple
of chapters, the writer has shown that Christ
is greater than the prophets and the angels.
In chapters 3 and 4, he has shown
that Christ is even greater than Moses.
And now he points to Aaron, Israel's first
high priest, and proves that Christ is a
greater priest than Aaron.
If his readers were to abandon Christ for
Judaism, they would be exchanging a great high
priest for a lesser high priest.
And he's saying, don't go there, guys.
For every high priest taken from among men
is appointed for men in things pertaining to
God that he may offer both gifts and
sacrifices for his sins.
You know, there were the burnt offerings, the
sin offerings in the Old Testament, but there
were also sacrificial offerings.
There were thank offerings that the people brought,
not because of sin, but just to say
thank you to the Lord.
And this was the ministry of the priest,
to receive those gifts and those sacrifices and
lift them up to the Lord.
And every high priest taken from among men,
he can have compassion on those who are
ignorant and going astray, since he himself is
also beset by weaknesses.
A good priest would know what the people
were going through because he went through the
same things.
And because of this, he is required as
for the people, so also for himself to
offer sacrifices for sins.
A normal priest not only makes sacrifices for
the people, but has to make sacrifices for
his own sins as well.
And the Jews that were reading this understood
that.
And no man takes this honor to himself.
You don't just make yourself a priest, not
in the Old Testament times.
But he was called by God just as
Aaron was.
And there is a lesson for that, because
God chooses people for ministry.
A person wasn't supposed to decide on their
own whether or not they wanted to be
a priest.
God did the calling.
God chose Aaron.
And you remember back in Numbers chapter 16
and 17, there was the rebellion of Korah.
You know, Korah and his friends in the
wilderness, this guy thought he had just as
much a right to be a priest as
Moses' brother Aaron.
And he gathered a group of people to
stand with him and demand to be made
a priest.
And God decided to have a little pop
quiz there.
God decided to show Korah who he had
chosen to be priest.
And you remember the story, Korah and Aaron
were both to offer incense before God, and
whoever survived would be priest.
And as they were offering the incense, you
remember the Lord said to Aaron, separate yourself
from these guys.
That should have been their clue.
You know, a lot of times when we
hear someone cursed or something, we kind of
jokingly back away, you know, like lightning bolt
might hit them or something.
Well, it's kind of what Aaron was doing.
The Lord said, back away, Aaron.
And fire came out from the altar and
devoured them, destroyed them right there.
The only thing that was left was the
censers, you know, the incense censers.
That's all that was left, smoldering in the
ash.
Pretty radical.
And then the earth swallowed up.
The guys who were supporting Korah, fire came
out from God and consumed the guys who
were trying to be priests on their own.
And then to make things even clearer, God
asked Moses to take his staff from each
of the tribes, you know, the staff that
he carried, you know, to take a staff
from each one of the tribes and put
it in the tabernacle overnight.
So the heads of the tribes, and Aaron,
of course, was the head of the tribe
of Levi.
And Aaron put his staff in there.
And Naphtali and Judah and all the different
tribes brought their staffs in.
And the next morning, the staff of Aaron
stood out because it had blossomed and produced
ripe almonds.
Get the point, you know?
It was God making a statement.
God picks who he wants to.
And interestingly, God shows us who he's picked
because they will bear fruit.
Think about that.
So also Christ did not glorify himself to
become high priest, but it was he who
said to him, you are my son, today
I have begotten you, quoting from Psalm 2
-7.
This is a psalm of the Messiah.
And he says in another place, you are
a priest forever according to the order, not
of Aaron, but of Melchizedek.
He goes all the way back to the
beginning of Genesis.
During Moses' day, God made a choice that
Aaron would be the priest and his sons
would follow as the priests.
So all priests under the law of Moses
would be of the order of Aaron.
They all had to be descendants of Aaron.
But there was another priest in the Bible,
Genesis 14, a mysterious man named Melchizedek.
And we'll talk later about who this Melchizedek
was, chapter 7, he's brought up in more
detail.
But the point the writer here is trying
to make is that King David mentioned that
the Messiah would be from the order of
Melchizedek, not from the order of Aaron, not
of the tribe of Levi.
It turns out Jesus was from the tribe
of Judah.
And God already established that in the Psalms.
Psalm 110, verse 4, the Lord has sworn
and will not repent, you are a priest
forever after the order of Melchizedek.
And a priest forever is certainly an important
contrast, isn't it?
Jesus' priesthood, like mysterious Melchizedek's, is unending, but
no high priest descended from Aaron ever had
a forever priesthood.
The writer is simply trying to make a
point here that the Messiah would be called
a priest.
And to understand all that Jesus has done
for us, this is important, folks, to understand
all that he's done for us, we need
to grasp what a priest does.
And before you grasp what a priest does,
you need to establish that Jesus was a
legitimate priest.
The Jews might object to Jesus being called
a priest because he was of the tribe
of Judah, not descended from Aaron.
Not even of the same tribe as Aaron,
but that's okay because of Melchizedek.
We'll get more into that later on in
Hebrews.
Who in the days of his flesh, when
he had offered up prayers and supplications with
vehement cries and tears to him, who was
able to save him from death and was
heard because of his godly fear.
Here we have a picture of Jesus, our
high priest in the Garden of Gethsemane.
And if Jesus asked that the cup be
taken away from him and the cup was
not taken away, how can it be said
that he was heard?
Because his prayer was not to escape his
father's will, but to accept it.
And that prayer was definitely heard.
I delight to do your will.
Not my will, but your will be done,
Father.
That was his prayer.
Sweat great drops of blood.
Lord, if it's your will, let this cup
pass.
If there's any other way, the people can
get saved.
Any other way but the cross.
But nevertheless, not my will, but your will
be done.
God answered that.
And Jesus took our shame and our guilt,
and he bore our sin on that tree,
that you and I could have eternity.
And again, not just sweet by and by
eternity, but eternity in our hearts right now.
That certainty and that peace and that rest.
Right now.
Though he was a son, yet he learned
obedience by the things which he suffered.
Jesus did not pass from disobedience to obedience.
He learned obedience by actually obeying.
Jesus did not learn how to obey.
He learned what is involved in obedience.
He learned obedience by things which he suffered.
Suffering was used to teach Jesus.
If suffering was fit to teach the Son
of God, we must never despise it as
a tool of instruction in our lives.
Amen?
And God help us in that.
Because, you know, life is hard.
Life in Jesus is good.
It's the best there is.
But that doesn't mean we as Christians are
immune from hard times.
Or, you know, that we'll never suffer.
If Jesus had to suffer.
You know, the Bible never teaches that strong
faith will keep a Christian from all suffering.
In fact, 1 Thessalonians 3.3 says that
we are appointed to affliction.
That's not a bad thing.
Because it's through many tribulations.
Acts 14 says that we enter the kingdom
of God.
And Romans 8.17 says our current suffering
is the prelude to glorification.
You don't know glory without suffering.
So it's not a bad thing.
It's a hard thing.
Just because something is hard doesn't mean it's
bad.
I know as kids, if something is hard,
it's bad.
If it's not easy, it's bad.
If it's uncomfortable, it's bad.
But we begin to learn, wait a minute,
you know, God's got a lot of ways
that He's working in our lives and teaching
us lessons and helping us to grow up.
How else do you learn patience?
But by having to go through some trial.
You come out the other side.
And you know what?
Your temper is not quite as hot as
it was when you went into the trial.
Because God's used the trial to soften you
a little bit.
Don't despise the chastening of the Lord.
Because like a good dad, his chastening is
not punitive.
It's corrective.
It's instructive.
He's not there to hurt you.
Amen?
Hallelujah.
And those of you that have been watching
on TV, stay tuned.
There's a few more things that we'd like
to share with you.
Get close to Jesus.
Don't let anything move you away from Him.
Amen.
We still have a few more minutes.
So let's just finish off the chapter, okay?
And having been perfected, verse 9, He became
the author of eternal salvation to all who
obey Him.
Some don't want Jesus to be the author
of their salvation.
They want to write their own book of
salvation.
But God won't read it.
You can write it, but God won't read
it.
Only Jesus can author your eternal salvation.
And notice this salvation is extended to all
who obey Him.
In this sense, all who obey Him is
used synonymously for believing on Him, which simply
assumes that believers will obey.
I think that's a fair assumption, isn't it?
You say, I believe in you, Jesus.
What that should be communicating is, what Jesus
wants you to do, you're going to do.
I believe, trust in, and rely on you.
Yes, Lord.
Called by God as High Priest, according to
the order of Melchizedek, of whom we have
much to say and hard to explain since
you have become dull of hearing.
Well, let's get into the point there again.
Being dull of hearing, what's that about?
It's not a problem with the ears, really,
but it's a problem of the heart.
You just aren't really interested in what God
has to say to you.
Not wanting to hear the Word of God
points to a genuine spiritual problem.
And these Christians who felt like giving up
with Jesus were also dull of hearing.
The dullness usually comes first and then the
desire to give up.
Watch out when the Word of God starts
seeming dull to you.
Notice it says they have become dull of
hearing.
Become is an important word because it indicates
that they didn't start out that dull of
hearing, but it became that way.
And he rebukes them here, he says, for
by this time you ought to be teachers.
You need someone to teach you again the
first principles of the oracles of God.
You have come to need milk and not
solid food.
I think the writer here is a little
frustrated with him.
Saying, you guys have been Christians long enough,
you should be teachers of God's word, but
instead you need constant reminding of the very
earliest basics of Christianity.
And you guys ought to be teaching this
rather than arguing about it.
You guys are just on milk.
And everyone who partakes only of milk is
unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he's
a babe.
And the writer isn't just talking about God's
word in a broad sense, but God's word
and how it encourages us to change our
ways and live as God wants us to
live.
You know, a little baby sucking on a
bottle is cute.
A 40-year-old sucking on a bottle
is sick.
There's a lot of Christians, though, who are
still sucking on a bottle.
And I might suggest, if you've been under
the word for a couple of years here,
you yourselves ought to be teaching.
You ought to be having Bible studies in
your house.
You ought to be having discipleship meetings with
younger believers.
You ought to be going through the word
together with others.
If you've been sitting week after week under
the word of God, ask yourself tonight, where
am I being used?
How am I being used, Lord?
How am I transmitting what You have so
graciously given to me?
I don't know if there's any...
That would have been great if we had
needs for Sunday school right now, wouldn't it?
So just fill it, but there's always needs.
And I dare say in your family and
in your neighborhood, there's needs.
You can have a Bible study.
In fact, you can just take what we're
studying on Sunday morning, if you want, or
Wednesday night, and get a few people who
aren't here and share it with them.
I know in the early days of Calvary,
when we didn't quite understand how to do
that, we'd just get tapes from Pastor Chuck.
We'd get eight or nine people around in
a circle.
We'd put a little cassette player in the
middle of us, and we'd turn on Chuck,
and we'd have a Bible study.
And you know what?
We'd get fed.
We'd worship.
We'd get fed.
We'd pray for each other.
You know what?
We had church.
In fact, a lot of those little Bible
studies became churches.
Some of the largest churches in the nations
started like that.
Just a little home fellowship.
So I don't think He's given this to
us to be discouraged that we can't go
forward from this place.
He's saying, look, guys, you've got so much.
You've been given so much.
Let's step it up.
You know, let's move on.
For everyone...
I'm sorry, verse 14.
But solid food belongs to those who are
of full age, that is, those who by
reason of use have their senses exercised to
discern both good and evil.
Solid food.
What's that?
It's what you apply to your life from
God's Word.
And again, like a lot of pastors...
I heard Rick Cathers say this.
He said, people will come up and tell
me, wow, pastor, what a great sermon.
That was solid meat.
And I've come to learn for most people
this means that I either, number one, said
something they never heard before, number two, kept
them awake during the entire message, or number
three, said something that they think their wife
needed to hear.
But the whole idea behind solid food is
not about how much the pastor kept your
attention.
It's all about how much God said to
you that you turned around and put into
your life.
And I pray you've gotten some meat tonight
to put into your life.
Maturity comes as we make a habit of
telling good from evil.
God wants our understanding, our perception to be
sharpened through constant use.
And God bless you guys for being out
here tonight and for opening up the Word
of God and daring to listen to it
and receive it into your heart.
Keep it up all week.
We grow in discernment as we stay in
God's Word and find out more and more
what God wants and what he doesn't want.
So let's grow and let's press on.
And Matt, why don't you come on up
if you could and let's stand together, okay?
And would you pray with me?
Father, we do thank you for tonight and
we thank you for this time in your
Word.
We thank you, Lord, that you have a
rest, that there is a rest for the
people of God and that, Lord, you have
done it all.
You have gone into the Holy of Holies.
You have gone into heaven itself, Father, and
you are there, Lord Jesus, to intercede for
us and to draw us close to you.
And we thank you tonight, Lord.
We thank you for being our faithful, compassionate
high priest.
We love you, Jesus, and we so want
to follow after you.
And so, God, have your way in our
lives, Lord, and use us for your glory.