let's get into some hebrews shall we this morning hebrews chapter four so open your bibles please there hebrews chapter four these are some verses that i've been really looking forward to to teaching but as i read through them in preparation i thought to myself they're so good i think i could probably just read them and then sit down and you guys would be you'd you'd be fine i know that's not what you're looking for so my goal here today is just not to screw this up i'm gonna try not to mess up as i read through this and and so i'm just here let's even pray father god open our hearts open our hearts to your word to your your spirit and and lord help me to not mess this up these are so powerful such powerful powerful words and we need to get a hold of them lord what they say and so we just pray for your holy spirit to enlighten our hearts and to fill us with insight and understanding truth jesus we need to know what your word says and i just really pray that your spirit would be moving mightily among your people today we ask it in jesus name amen hebrews 4 verse 14. we're going to read down through 16. that's the end of the chapter since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens jesus the son of god let us hold fast our confession for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need you see what i'm up against here looking at these verses they really are just incredible the author is about to launch into a very extensive sort of a treatment of the priesthood of jesus christ it's going to be coming in the next chapters and he's going to he's going to really develop it he's just touching on it here but but he's he he wants to remind you and and and and me about the priesthood of jesus and the fact that it has or provides for us everything we need now he begins simply by saying there in verse 14 since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens jesus the son of god so that clears up who that high priest is he says let us hold fast our confession and he's gonna he's laying out here for us these reasons reasons why the priesthood of jesus is all we need and he begins by giving the importance and the sufficiency of the priesthood of jesus by saying that he has passed through the heavens that's an interesting phrase isn't it the first thing we want to ask ourselves is what does he mean by that and then secondly why is it important that we understand that jesus passed through the heavens well as for what it means the author says here that jesus passed through the heavens and says in essence that he was raised and ascended after his death and burial he was raised and he ascended into heaven that's just a simple way of speaking of his ascension but as for why it's an important thing for us to hear well this kind of would have been obvious to a jewish audience and that's why i feel like there's maybe a need to explain it a little bit here among gentiles the jews understood the role of the high priest because it was an everyday situation for them the high priest was the main man he was the leader of the worship of israel as they would come to worship the god of of heaven and and he acted as the primary mediator the high priest was the primary mediator between god and god's people okay i you you're probably aware of this but on the day of atonement it was the high priest who would go into the holy of holies and he only got to go into that room once a year he would go in two times the first time he would bring blood for to cover his own sins and then he would go out and come back in with with blood that he would place a sprinkle over the mercy seat for the sins of all of israel on the day of atonement but he would go there on behalf of the people and that was and the jewish people knew that that's what a high priest does he mediates okay he mediates and so the writer goes on here to say we have we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens jesus the son of god and he's essentially summering up you know the whole challenge to these hebrew christians that he's writing about and he's saying jesus has taken over jesus is now the high priest doesn't matter that he wasn't born into the house of levi or even of the aryanic priesthood but jesus is now our high priest now again to a jewish audience that would have taken hold of their heart it means that the old priesthood under the old covenant is now obsolete in fact he's going to make that point later on in this letter the previous priesthood the levitical priest of the arionic priesthood is now obsolete it's done it's over because we have a new high priest and our high priest has gone through the heavens he is now he's not going into and again these are things he's going to talk about later on in the letter he doesn't go into a room that was made by man to sprinkle blood of an animal over an ark with a mercy seat that was made by man he goes into he went into the the the heaven of heavens the holiness of god's presence and sprinkled his own blood on our behalf and and that of course is is the beauty of what we're seeing here but it it it is it is emphasizing for you and i that because again in the jewish mind they would understand that i have to go through the high priest in order you know on the day of atonement i he's the one i have to go through they would understand now that jesus is the one who has taken over that role and now that i have to go through they they would get that it is through jesus that now i can approach and and only can approach god and in fact the apostle paul said the the very same thing when he wrote to timothy let me show you a passage from first timothy this is chapter two verse five he says for there is one god we know that but we also know that there's one mediator between god and men and that is the man christ jesus so according to first timothy 2 5 how many mediators are there between god and man there's one that's what he says there's one there's one god and there's one mediator there aren't two three ten a hundred or a thousand there's one so if i'm if i'm going to have this issue of my sin and my life mediated before the father it will be done so by jesus christ you know i have to i'm not putting anything anybody down but this is frankly one of the areas where roman catholicism has completely missed the point this is one of those areas because by teaching catholics that they must confess their sins to a roman priest a roman catholic priest they are denying the fundamental truth that jesus is the only mediator between god and man as as paul said the only mediator and there is no need for any other human mediation now jesus is a human he's also god that's the crazy part about it i can now go before god in the person of jesus christ who is my mediator and of course that takes the the saints as the roman catholics see them or even the virgin mary out of the picture in terms of any sort of a mediatorial role and that's not to put anybody down or certainly not to speak some kind of a slight against the virgin mary you know who did not remain a virgin she had other children the point is roman catholics see her in a mediatorial role paul says there's one there's one there one mediator between god and men the man christ jesus and then at the end of verse 14 the author just gives his conclusion to what he's already said concerning jesus being our high priest in the heavens and he says let us hold fast our confession and i i like kind of the way the niv says this they say let us hold firmly to the faith that we professed because to hold fast or to hold firmly well we all know what that means it's the opposite of letting go it's the opposite of releasing something it's holding on to it but the confession that they're speaking of here is not just a confession of our lips it's the confession of our heart it's the faith that we have in jesus and in the finished work of jesus on the cross let us hold fast to our faith that we have confessed in the person of jesus christ hold on tight to that faith because faith is what we need faith is the key faith is the key you guys i want to remind you something jesus said in the form of a question let me show you this from luke chapter 18.
this is an interesting question jesus said this when the son of man comes will he find faith on earth that's kind of a penetrating question isn't it he's basically saying when i return i wonder what i'll find what's he looking for more than anything he's looking for faith people who have faith who are trusting in what he did on the cross that's what he's looking for more than anything we try to shine spit polish our lives in such a way that you know they're going to look good and will certainly impress him when he returns he's looking for faith looking for people with a sound strong faith all right the writer goes on to explain why jesus is the perfect high priest verse 15. look with me there for we do not have a high priest who is not able to sympathize with our weaknesses but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin and and this is such an important verse for us to ponder and to think about because jesus was and in fact is human in every respect and so he is able then to sympathize with everything that we go through in terms of all of our weaknesses all of our temptations he understands jesus understands because he has dealt with the the weakness of of human flesh even though being without sin he can directly relate to what it is to be tempted to feel tempted and even though he he was was he never gave into that temptation he understand what's involved on a personal level for you and i to deal with temptation and and all that goes along with it and so we're being told here in verse 15. that when jesus is before the father which i believe is always as he's there in the presence of god the father he's he's he's taking you you are you are there you are because he's he's also human he represents you now he represents you before the father but but it's it's it's more than just um it's more than just representation like you know someone who's in the house of representatives we're talking about representing you on his heart and it it's a much more intimate and personal picture and there's actually a snapshot of this that is given to us in the old testament i want to show it to you on the screen it's from exodus chapter 28 check this the passage out uh it goes like this verse 29 it says so aaron and remember he was the very first high priest shall bear the names of the sons of israel in the breast piece of judgment on his heart when he goes into the holy place to bring them to regular remembrance before the lord i don't know if you've ever read that in the book of exodus but this was a picture you know everything in the old testament when you read through exodus and how they did things it's all a picture of jesus christ in his his high priestly work and as aaron was told to bear the the names of the tribes of israel on his heart as he would go in before the lord this is a picture of jesus christ taking you with him into the holy of holies into the presence of almighty god as he speaks to the father on your behalf as he plays out that mediatorial role as he as he intercedes for you and talks about you and your needs and and the things that are going on in your life does it does it amaze you to think that jesus might be talking to the father about you about what's happening in your life it's such a beautiful picture it's a foreshadowing of the work of our great high priest as he bears upon his heart his bride his people and then we have what is given to us as essentially the conclusion in verse 16 given all these insights and understanding he says let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need and i got to tell you something guys it is my considered opinion that this is one of the most powerful verses in the whole of the new testament i really believe that this single verse verse 16 is so critical not just for us to understand but to really truly embrace in light of the fact that jesus is our great high priest in light of the fact that he shares and understands our humanity in light of the fact that he is mediating and bringing you and me before the father in in a sort of perpetual constancy and so forth we are told then to draw near to the throne of grace with confidence do you have confidence going before god we're told to to approach his throne with confidence you know we sang that song this morning and i loved it because it's very much a dovetail of what we're talking about it's your blood we talked about the blood of jesus christ and can't even prayed afterwards about how it's it's only it's only with your blood that we can enter and we enter with confidence because of what jesus did on the cross that is what our confidence is in as the apostle paul said we put no confidence in the flesh there's no confidence in me what i can do the kind of a good person i can possibly try to be no confidence in approaching god i don't i don't think about how well i've had a pretty good week so i think i'm probably pretty good to go as i go to pray talk to the father this week i'm feeling confident because i had a pretty i didn't yell at anybody this week and i don't think i had any awful thoughts i don't think and so i think we're okay i think we're going to do okay no just none none of that he says let us come with confidence in the fact that jesus already bore our judgment jesus already bore our penalty he was punished for us so now the throne of god is a place that we can approach confidently but it's also a place where we find grace wow it's amazing to me that it's called the throne of grace that's that's the thing that makes this passage so so beautiful the throne of grace he he doesn't call it the throne of judgment it could be called the throne of judgment but he doesn't call it that for you and me because jesus bore our judgment he doesn't call it the throne of punishment he could could he could call the throne of wrath he could but but not for you and me because jesus bore our wrath so for you and me it's the throne of grace and i want to remind you that grace means unmerited favor now as he's talking about this in this verse it refers to strength and spiritual power the favor of god to give us the power to live our lives but but it's not just grace that we find there look at verse 16 again let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy now this is interesting we go to the throne of grace to receive mercy but see grace and mercy aren't the same thing they're they're different in fact whereas grace is unmerited or unearned favor mercy is not getting what we do deserve you see so if i come to god and i say have mercy on me what i'm saying is i deserve the worst i deserve punishment i deserve the hottest spot in hell have mercy on me and so we come to the throne of grace and we find mercy and i don't think i need to tell you that mercy is pretty great but it's especially great in light of what we just saw in our previous study of hebrews now i know for you and me it's been a couple of weeks since we did that and that's you know that's one of the problems with breaking up the word of god and teaching it to you over a period of several weeks we tend to compartmentalize certain aspects of the word of god when they are not compartmentalized so here he is talking about the throne of grace where you go to find mercy but what did he say write in the verses right right before this we'll put it up on the screen so we can all see it together hebrews okay here's here's verses 12 and 13.
this is right before we start remember what we read what we dealt with last time it says the word of god is living and active sharper than any two-edged sword piercing to the division of soul and spirit of joints and of marrow and oh boy this is kind of you know makes you uncomfortable discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart do you want to have your thoughts and intentions exposed and it says no creature is hidden from his sight but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account you guys stay with me this was spoken right before we get to the throne of grace that's really important that you would see that right before we talk about the throne of grace where we find mercy we learn that the word of god exposes like a double-edged sword it cuts fillets open and exposes and reveals what's really going on in our inner lives and it tells us in the in the last part of that passage that none of us can hide we can't hide from god's scrutiny isn't that a wonderful thought you can't hide what's going on deep in your heart neither can i so what he's telling us is the sin is completely and entirely exposed our sin my sin is exposed when i read the word of god it exposes me and that's really never a fun sort of a situation but it it happens so how do we typically respond when we feel exposed when our sin is exposed how do we usually respond well let me show you how every human being has been hardwired to respond ever since the first sin was exposed this is this is great genesis chapter 3 this is after adam and eve partook of the fruit it says then the eyes of both of them were opened and they realized they were naked so they sowed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves and then the man and his wife heard the sound of the lord god as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day and they hid from the lord god among the trees of the garden so interesting isn't it this is this is how we naturally respond to the exposure of sin when when when the word of god exposes who we are the intent of our heart and we lie naked before the lord in the sense that he sees everything going on in our lives this passage illustrates it well we realize first of all just like they did that we're sinners and we feel shame instantly and then what do we do we try to cover up our shame just like they did and and we try to make it a little bit less obvious it might be just some quick mouthwash let anybody know i'm not going to tell very you know anybody what's going on in my life i'm going to cover it and cover it up i don't want people seeing the kind of person i am good grief so we're just not going to say anything don't talk about it we don't talk about it we don't talk about you know how we do things in our home what goes on in our home is private natural response to sin we're just covering it up and then lastly we hide from god just like they did oh man i don't know going to church today i was ah i got so much to do around here i only get one day off a week you know it's kind of i have i just really got some things i need to take care of you know and so just stop bugging me about we'll just i'll yeah don't worry yeah we'll do this sometime maybe next week we'll see we'll see what's going on i'm hiding i'm hiding from god i feel that shame trying to cover it and i'm hiding from the lord the problem is the word of god tells me i can't hide and there is no covering it up with him it's not possible so you see there's only one thing left to do and that's to go before god so how am i going to do that verse 16 again let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace once again i have zero confidence in myself so my confidence must be in him jesus you died for me of that i'm sure i am confident and so i now approach your throne with that confidence that you gave your life for me and i come to you and i confess all these things that you've revealed in my life and you know what they're all true every single stinking one of them they're all true and i confess my sins and what happens when i do that i'm forgiven aren't i and i find mercy you know one of my other favorite passages is first john 1 9.
