God be with us this morning,
we're going to turn together to his word. We will turn to
the epistle to the Hebrews in chapter four. Chapter we read
earlier, Hebrews chapter four. And reading again, verse 16,
the last verse in the chapter. Hebrews four, verse 16. Let us therefore come boldly
unto the throne of grace. that we may obtain mercy and
find grace to help in time of need. When Moses was at the burning
bush in Midian, And God appeared to him and spoke to him and called
him to go to Egypt to take, or go to Pharaoh to demand the people
might come out of Egypt to the promised land. We read of how
Moses was told to take the shoes off his feet as he was on holy
ground and there was a sense that he was fearful to approach,
though he was intrigued by what he saw. He was fearful to approach
into the presence of God. And God says that he must recognize
that what he's coming to is a place of holiness, a sacred place where
God was. And we can take from that, as
well as other passages of the Bible, that to come to God is
a fearful thing. To come into the presence of
God is a fearful thing because God is so great and holy and
that God is, we read, a consuming fire. And so there's a sense
when we think of the subject of prayer to think of how God
is unapproachable. Our God is so high and lifted
up. Our God is so different from
us. that how dare we, how can we come to God? And yet on the other hand, we
have every encouragement to come. We read in the Psalms, in Psalm
55, a well-known word, to cast our burden on the Lord. and he shall sustain thee. Again in verse 16, as for me,
I will call upon the Lord. And so we have so many encouragements
to pray in the Psalms and elsewhere. The Lord himself, the Lord Jesus
told us that we are to ask and to seek to knock and so we have
if you like these two things an unapproachable God a holy
God and yet we have a God who calls us to come and to pray and I think really Perhaps that
unapproachableness of God is something that we can find as
a barrier in prayer. How is it that I could come to
the Lord? How is it that we could come
and pour out our hearts to such a God? And when we think of prayer
in coming to the Lord, The devil is never far away to remind us
of our unworthiness, to remind us of our smallness, and to remind
us of our sin. How can you come to this God?
How can you even presume on him receiving you? How could you
expect him to hear you? And in fact, the opposite will
be true. God is a consuming fire. God
who despises and must cast sin out of his presence. God who
is angry with you. He will refuse to hear your prayers. And that thinking can find a
real barrier to us, can't it? That we cannot approach to him
because he is so holy and we are sinners. And we may think
that he will take no notice of us. And yet we have these constant
reminders that we are called to pray. We're called to cast
our burden on him. We're called to confess our sins
before him. We're called to seek him. We're
called to lay it all before him. And we have examples of that
time and again in God's word and in the characters of his
people. And so we have this word, let
us come boldly to the throne of grace. It's speaking of prayer,
speaking of coming to the Lord. And this is where I want us to
really focus today, on this blessing of prayer. This morning I want
to really, based in this word, consider what it is to pray and
how we pray to the God of heaven. How we are to come and what answers
do we have to those temptations that we cannot pray or that we
should not pray? And then God willing this evening,
turning the attention more to the prayers of our Lord. To him
whom we read is our great high priest, the intercession of Christ. And so our prayers, let us therefore
come boldly unto the throne of grace. Well, this text gives
us two particular things of what we are called to pray for. That we may obtain mercy. We are to pray for mercy. We all need mercy. I wonder if we realize that this
morning. I wonder if we would acknowledge that today, that
we need mercy. We may think we don't need it.
We may think that we can come to God as we are, that we are
good enough. that he will accept us because
we are good, or at least we have tried to be good. And so God
will accept us for our efforts. He will recognize that we have
done our best. Maybe we think we're good enough.
Maybe we can't really see a problem in our lives and in our sin.
We can't really see an issue that God would be angry with. And so when we come to that day,
When we are called to stand before God, we will stand ready and
complete and acceptable. If you think like that, the word
of God tells you that you are deceiving yourself. It tells
us very clearly if we say we have no sin, then we lie and
the truth is not in us. We are all sinners, and however
hard we try, we will continue to be sinners. Because we are
all fallen in Adam, we all have a nature which is bent towards
sin. And we know that, don't we? We
might not like to hear it, we might not want to confess it,
but we know it just by looking at our lives and looking at the
lives of the people around us. The natural inclination of the
human nature is to sin. which is why we train our children
to do good rather than to do evil, because one comes more
naturally to them. You see, sin is in our very nature. And God is holy. As I say, how
can we approach this holy God? Because he is holy. We need to
only look at the life of Jesus Christ to see the sinless nature
of Christ. to see that there was no fault
in him, that he obeyed and fulfilled the law of God perfectly. And
so how is it then that a sinner like us can come into the presence
of God? How is it that Moses can approach
the burning bush? And we may think, well, then
we cannot come. But this word tells us that we
come to obtain mercy. We don't come to obtain what
we deserve. We don't come to receive our
wages, if you like. If you're working, you look at
the end of the month and you look at your bank account and
you see that your wages have gone in. And you have received
what you deserve. You signed a contract, you said
you would do this work, you said you would do this many hours
and you have done it so you've got your wages. You deserve it
and your employer would be wrong not to give it to you. If we receive from God what we
deserve, the wages that we have earned, then we deserve death. And so we cannot come to God
and say, I need mercy because I deserve mercy, because mercy,
by its very nature, is undeserved. Mercy is to receive what we don't
deserve. Mercy is to be given the opposite,
really, to what we have earned. Mercy is for God to justly and
rightly punish and yet forgive. we may obtain mercy. You know the parable, the well-known
parable of the publican and the Pharisee. And what was the attitude? How
does the publican present himself in the temple? Well, we read
that he couldn't lift up his eyes to heaven. He couldn't hardly
look up. He was beating himself in his
heart, and he prayed for mercy. God,
be merciful to me, a sinner. The Pharisee had many things
to say about how good he was, how well he was keeping the commandments
of God, and how pleased he was that he wasn't as bad as other
people. But the publican came really
acknowledging that he deserved the wrath of God, that he couldn't
look up to God, but with knowledge in his heart that there was hope.
There was mercy in the character of God. And the Lord tells us
that he went home to his house justified. He received mercy,
because he received what he didn't deserve, because God is a God
of mercy. In fact, we're told his very
character, Psalm 103, we're told the Lord is merciful and gracious
and abundant in mercy. And that's what he is. And so as we come to the Lord,
we acknowledge in our prayers that we do not deserve anything.
And if it's that element which is keeping you from prayer this
morning and saying, but I could never come because I could never
be good enough. No, you can't. And no, you won't
ever be good enough. But that's the point. Because
as the apostle tells us, by inspiration of God, that we come to God to
find what we don't deserve. To find what we're never good
enough for. We find mercy. And then we are told that we
may also find grace to help in time of need. You see, the prayer life of the
Christian is an ongoing experience. It's not a one-off prayer when
we first know the Lord. It's not a one-off prayer for
mercy. In fact, it's an ongoing prayer for mercy, and it's an
ongoing prayer for help. We pray for mercy every day. That's not to say we don't believe
in the finished work of Christ. That's not to say we don't believe
that when a believer comes in faith to the Lord that they receive
a complete mercy. It's not that we need to keep
asking for mercy because the Lord rejects us each day and
we need to keep coming back to find new acceptance. But we come
because we have fresh sins to confess and we need that fresh
application in our experience of his mercy. That fresh deliverance. Find grace to help, because not
only is there the ongoing need for mercy in the Christian's
life, but there is the ongoing need for help. You may be a, I was going to
say a young Christian this morning, but I think even the most seasoned
and mature of Christians, you'll know that when we look at our
life as it spans out ahead of us, however many years it may
be, that there is a sense of fear and trepidation. How can you walk with the Lord? How can you be obedient to his
calling? How can you serve him? How can
you be kept? And you see, as you see the dangers
of sin and you see temptation and you see your own heart and
all that's around, I think that the natural bent of our soul
is that we will fall and we will sin. You see, this word tells us to
pray for help, to pray that God will help us
by his grace. And so today, again, thinking
of prayer, you may think, well, I can't keep praying for help. You may have been a Christian
for many years. You may think, well, the Lord expects better
of me now. The Lord expects me to be stronger. The Lord expects
me to be bolder. The Lord expects me to know more.
And so I can't keep praying for help because, in fact, praying
for help is an acknowledgement that I'm failing in the Christian
life. I'm acknowledging to God that I'm not doing good enough. and therefore he will cast me
out because of my failing. And so what I need to do is I
need to go and get better, I need to go and get stronger, I need
to learn more, I need to be bolder, I need to prove to God how well
I'm doing, then he'll hear my prayers. And you may have got
really caught up in this circular way of thinking, that you need
to be better to pray, but you never get better. But you see, the word tells us
not only do we come to the Lord to pray for mercy, but we come
to pray for help. Because the reality is that the
Christian never stops being a beggar, never stops being in need, never
stops being destitute. They keep having to come. And we read, don't we, account
of that woman who came to the Lord Jesus Christ, speaking of
her sick daughter, I think it was. And what she receives, or
seems to receive, is nothing but discouragement from the Lord. First of all, he doesn't take
any notice, it seems. He doesn't answer her a word.
Then the disciples say to send her away. Then he says, I'm not
sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And he calls
her a dog and says, I can't cast the bread to dogs. But you see,
she keeps coming. She keeps praying because she
needs help. And she owns the label. Truth
Lord, the dogs eat the crumbs from off the table, from the
master's table. She acknowledges that she's destitute. She acknowledges she's unworthy.
But she won't stop coming. Because she can't stop coming. Because she's still got a daughter,
grievously vexed with the devil. And despite the discouragements,
she's still got a daughter, vexed with the devil. So she keeps asking. And we know
how the Lord does turn to her. And he says, woman, greatest
thy faith, be it unto thee, even as thou wilt. Because she keeps
coming. This is the point, isn't it?
I say, how can I keep coming? How can I keep bringing the same
prayer? Because you've still got the need. because you're
still weak in self, because you're still a sinner, because you still
need the Lord. And so like the woman, you keep
coming for his help. And again, you might say, but
my keep coming shows how poor I am. But the Lord says your
keep coming shows in fact how great your faith is. You might
think you have little faith, but he says to the woman, your
keep coming shows how great your faith is. And so your cry, your
prayer, your groan for his help every day is in fact an evidence
of faith that the Lord loves to see. We come empty handed. We come, as the hymn puts it,
wounded and poor and sad. And yet we find mercy and grace
to help in time of need. And so this verse tells us these
two things. What do we pray for? Mercy and help. But then moving on, how? How do we pray? How can we pray? What encouragement is there to
pray? Well, the word gives us, let
us therefore come boldly. And you might struggle with that
word, boldly. How dare we come boldly to God? Because to us, boldly seems to
imply a sense of self-confidence, slightly brash, that if we're
bold, we're puffed up, we're strong, we're confident, aren't
we? And that seems to fly in the
face of what prayer is. How can we pray in a confident
way or in a brash way? Well, of course, we don't pray
like that. we don't pray coming to God and
showing him how good we are. This boldness means confidence. It means a certain liberty in
speech, freedom in speaking. Not because
we have just a good ability to frame words together, not because
we're just eloquent in speaking and we can show God that we're
good at that, but it means to come with that freedom before
the Lord because there's confidence that he will hear. You see, the
confidence isn't in us in coming boldly. The confidence is in
him. It's in what he has said. It's in his promises. It's in
who he is as the prayer hearing and prayer answering God. That's the reason for our boldness.
And so what this text is doing is it is telling us that when
we pray our attitude is not to look within ourselves at how
good or bad we are at prayer. The attitude of prayer is to
look outward to Him, to find our confidence in Him because
there is our basis and there is our encouragement to find
mercy and help. And so it's this confidence,
but the confidence may well look like brokenness. You see, we may have confidence
in God, and yet look broken in ourselves, to pour out before
the Lord. to empty out that cup, if you
like, to upend that cup, and to just pour it out before the
Lord, which to us may look such a mess, and yet is prayed in
confidence in Him. I was reading a book this week
of a experience of a Christian family who were caught up in
the first Gulf War. in Kuwait. He was in the army
and they were taken hostage, really, by the Iraqi soldiers
in Kuwait and spent a long time in captivity before they were
released. And there came a point that the
mother and the children who were there were allowed to go home,
back to the UK, but the father, who was the soldier, was kept
there for time. And there's an experience where
the lady, she gets weaker and weaker in her faith and everything
seems to be falling apart as they're separated for so long.
We read of how she becomes to rock bottom, if you like. And
at night, she just cries and pours out her heart in an unordered,
groan-like way, hardly knowing if it was prayer or not, but
just telling the Lord that she could not go on any longer. It wasn't a well-ordered and
eloquent prayer. It wasn't a pretty prayer, if
you like. It wasn't in front of others. It wasn't impressive
to anyone else. It was just a groan from the
heart. But it was prayed because there
was simply nowhere else to go. And she goes on to explain that
the next day, the news was received that these hostages were to be
released. And a few days later, he was
home. But the point is, the answer to prayer is remarkable, but
my point is the style of the prayer. It was just an outpouring
of our heart. But it was boldness because it
was in confidence or in just desperation to her God. Let us therefore come boldly,
because we believe in a living, we believe in a God who hears
us and a living God. And so we come boldly, but the
previous verses also tell us how to pray, not just the attitude,
not just to pray boldly, but we pray through Jesus Christ. We pray in his name. He said, no man cometh unto the
Father but by me. He said, if you shall ask anything
in my name, I shall do it. And so it is our great privilege
to come in the name of Jesus Christ when we pray. He is our way. He is the only way unto God for
a sinner like you and me. And what do these verses tell
us about him? Well, we're told that he is a
great high priest. He is a great high priest. And it's taking us back to the
Old Testament. You remember the Old Testament
tabernacle and then the temple that you have in the tabernacle,
the holy place, and then the most holy place where the Ark
of the Covenant is, where God is. and where the cloudy pillar
was there, the presence of God hovering over the two cherubims
of glory over the Ark of the Covenant. And you remember that
no one could enter into the most holy place apart from the high
priest once a year on the Day of Atonement. If there was no
high priest, then there was no access to God. No one else could
enter into the most holy place. And so without him, there was
always this barrier. There's always the curtain, always
the veil which separated the most holy place from the holy
place and everybody else. But there was a high priest.
And the high priest was that minister, that intercessor who
went between the people and the Lord. And we won't go into all the
detail this morning, but one item that the high priest wore
was this breastplate and also shoulders. And on the breastplate
and on the shoulders were stones, precious stones, and in each
stone was graven one name of the tribes. of Israel and so
on his breastplate he has 12 stones and in each stone is a
tribe and so on his breastplate he is holding all the tribes
of Israel on his shoulders the same thing and if you're in the camp of
Israel in those days one of those stones has got your name on it
you are from one of those tribes and so you are in that way engraven
into the heart of the high priest on the breastplate. And so as
the high priest goes about to minister and serve in the tabernacle
he is representing all of the people. They are all there, graven
on the breastplate. And so he is there as a representative
and so when the high priest enters into the most holy place it is
as if they've all gone in. He's gone in as their representative. And we read of how when he goes
in, he goes in with the blood of the sacrifice. He goes in
to sprinkle that blood, the sacrifice which has been taken for the
sins of the people. And so you can see the picture,
Jesus Christ, the great high priest. Without a high priest,
there's no access. without the high priest it's
true to say that we cannot come to God. It's like we stand at
the edge of the burning bush experience or we stand at the
edge of Mount Sinai which quaked and thundered and lightning and
you can't approach because God is holy and you're
unholy because God is pure and you're a sinner because God is
just and must deal with all rebellion against himself. And so he can't come into the
most holy place. There's a veil between, but there
is a high priest. There is a great high priest,
and this is our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Oh, look at our
high priest this morning. Look at him when you come to
prayer. Look at him when you don't know
what to say. Look at him when you're tempted
that you cannot come or that he will not hear. We come through
him. Look at our great high priest.
We have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feelings
of our infirmities. Or if you like, turn it the other
way around. We have the double negative for
emphasis here. We do have a high priest who
can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. We have a
high priest who is a real man. We have a high priest who came
and lived and dwelt amongst us in this world. We have a high
priest who was moved with compassion for the people. There's a number
of times we read that phrase, once when he heals a leper, once
when he feeds the 5,000, he was moved with compassion. You see the heart of our great
high priest. He who has been touched with
the feelings of our infirmities, he knew they were faint on the
mountainside, and so he gave them food. He knew he was a leper
who everyone else was fleeing from because of his uncleanness,
so he touched him. He knows your infirmities. He
knows your weaknesses. He knows your sin. He knows your
leperous soul in that picture. He knows you're weak and famished
and hungry. He knows that if you've tried
to walk a spiritual life in your own strength, you're flagging,
and you're not making progress. He knows. Now, what do we try
to do with that knowledge? We try to hide it, I think. We
try to pretend we're not flagging, or we try to pretend we are making
progress, or we try to pretend we're stronger. We try to give
God the good front and show us how well we are. But this word
tells us he knows our infirmities. But not only does he know your
infirmity, not only does he know your sadness, not only does he
know your struggles this morning, but he is touched with the feeling
of them. He's moved with compassion. You're not walking the darkness
alone. You're not walking the valley
of the shadow of death by yourself. You're not truly lonely. He is touched with the feeling
of our infirmities. This is our high priest. But not only that, but he was
tempted on all points like as we are, yet without sin, Not
only is he touched in a slightly remote way. You see, we can be
touched with the feelings of other people's needs. We can
sympathize with them. We can come alongside them. But
if we've not been there ourselves, we can't fully enter into where
they are. But if you meet someone in your
difficulty, be it a sickness or sadness or bereavement or
whatever it is, and you come to people and they say, I've
been there, I was there, whenever, a few weeks ago or whatever,
I know what it feels like. Then they're a real friend, aren't
they? They're a real help. And here we have one who's not
only just sympathetic to the feeling of our infirmities, but
we've one who's been there, he was, in all points tempted like
as we are. He has been cast down into those
depths of temptation. He has known all of those railings
of the devil to give up. He has known what it is for the
devil to question his sonship like we know what it is for the
devil to question our place in the kingdom of God. He has known
what it is for the devil to tell him not to go on any further
and to give up his calling to the cross. And so he knows what
it's like when the devil tells up not to go out any further
and to give up our following of the Lord. He has been there. And yet, without sin. He didn't falter. He was perfect
and holy and spotless in every single aspect. He has done what we could never
do. He doesn't apply for mercy because
he deserves to be in the presence of God. He's the great high priest
who by his very being and position can enter in through that veil
into the presence of God for us. Which is why he says that
he has passed into the heavens. He has passed into the heavens. I guess most of us, if not all
of us, watched the coronation last Saturday. And there in the
theater as they called it there at the top by the altar in Westminster
Abbey was the old ancient coronation chair. I think there's 40 kings and queens
is it that have now sat on that chair. Can you imagine just for
one moment if on Saturday morning someone else had got up from
the congregation and gone and sat in that chair. Can you imagine what would have
happened if anyone else had walked up and sat down in that chair?
But it would have been, well, it would have been interesting,
but it would have been a most dramatic thing. Because it couldn't
be done, it shouldn't be done, because no one else but the king
has a right to sit in that chair. But because he's king, he has
every right to sit in that chair. he is there by right and this
is the point we have a high priest who was passed into the heavens
because he deserves to be there like the high priest went into
the most holy place because he was the high priest so jesus
christ has passed into the heavens as the spotless holy son of god
who has shed his blood and as it were taken that into glory
into the most holy place bearing his people on his heart just
like the high priest had on the breastplate into the presence
of his father with his own heart's blood and with his people engraven
unto his heart. How are we to pray? How can we come? How dare we
come to the Lord this morning? Because our great high priest
is there already. Because he's passed in already. And there's a certain sense,
therefore, that we can say, just as all the tribes were in the
most holy place because the high priest was as their representative,
so all God's people are already in glory on the heart of their
Savior. They're there already in Christ. As he shows his wounded hands
and side and feet, with his same compassionate heart, he represents
his church in glory. Which is why this morning, if
we are finding it a burden, a hard work to pray, or if we have many
reasons why we think we cannot or should not pray, then we remember
that we pray in the name of this great High Priest, Jesus, the
Son of God. You may face many things that
tempt you to stop coming. But looking to Christ gives us
every reason and every encouragement to seek him and to worship him. Because this is the name the
Father loves to hear, This is the name in which he has told
us that we should pray. This is the one who is already
there. And so this morning, whatever
your trials, whatever your needs, whatever your sadnesses, whatever
your impossibilities, whatever your temptations, whatever that
may be hindering you in the path of prayer this morning, remember
Psalm 55, cast your burden on the Lord. And remember, you will
never be good enough. You will never be good enough
to come to him. But your worth, your everything,
your righteousness, and the mercy that you need is found not in
you, but in him who has passed into the heavens, Jesus, the
Son of God. Let us, therefore, come boldly
unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find
grace to help in time of need. We pray the Lord's blessing on
his word this morning.