Turn, if you would, in your Bibles
to Hebrews chapter five. Hebrews chapter five, and actually
I'm gonna read from 4.14 through
5.11, so we'll go back a little bit to get the context. So Hebrews
chapter four, and we'll begin reading in verse 14. Therefore, 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 us in our time of need. Every high priest is
selected from among men and is appointed to represent them in
matters related to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins,
He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and going
astray, since he himself is subject to weakness. This is why he has
to offer sacrifices for his own sins, as well as for the sins
of the people. No one takes his honor upon himself. He must be called by God, just
as Aaron was. So Christ also did not take upon
himself the glory of becoming a high priest, but God said to
him, you are my son, today I have become your father. And he says
in another place, you are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek. During the days of Jesus' life
on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries
and tears to the one who could save him from death. and he was
heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a
son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and once made
perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all
who obey him and was designated by God to be high priest in the
order of Melchizedek. Let's pray before we look into
God's word together. Father, we are so thankful to
you for your word. We're thankful for the gift that
it truly is. We're thankful for the opportunity
to read it, to study it, to hear it. Lord, we pray that you would
help us to see Jesus in the text. In some texts and some times
of life, it's difficult to see Jesus, but Lord, we pray that
you would help us to discern him nonetheless. Without the
work of the Spirit of God, we're unable to see him. Lord, we pray
that you would comfort, exhort, encourage, and guide us today. Help us to be truly thankful
for all that you bring to us. and help us to look to you for
help in our time of need. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. Well, once again, I wanted to
look into Hebrews and really this passage goes well with what
we looked at last time. And really, the way to look at
Hebrews or any New Testament epistle is, for the most part,
they were meant as one unit, and we sometimes lose the force
of them breaking them up. But I want you to consider a
situation, and in fact, I'll just use an analogy here that
I think applies to a lot of people who are professed believers today,
at least I see a number of them out there, they become disenchanted
with what they perceive to be, I don't know, the cotton candy
of evangelicalism. There's a lot of fluff. but not
a lot there, right? If you were to condense cotton
candy down, it's maybe a couple square lumps of sugar, but it
looks like so much more. And perhaps they're discouraged
by that, and that causes them to look around to see what is
more respected in this world. And I have no problems with some
of the criticisms I've heard of evangelicalism. They're definitely
warranted criticisms. But it seems like some of the
alternatives that people choose ends up being worse than what
they're running from. So for some, they run to Rome. They see in the priesthood, maybe
they were like myself and others brought up in Roman Catholicism,
and they just say, you know, these evangelicals are hacks. They don't know what they're
doing. They just kind of make it up as they go along. The mass
has been around for forever and ever. I know, you know, one of
the favorite things of somebody when challenged by the gospel
to say if they've been raised in Roman Catholicism is something
like, well, our church is older than yours. So they look to that
circumstance and that pomp and they look to those sort of things. Or maybe they're not attracted
by Roman Catholicism or Eastern
Orthodoxy or any sort of high churchism, but maybe they're
attracted to the idea of being respected. And maybe, depending
on region of the country or region of the world they're in, that
might be a different denomination. It might be the one with the
big building or the important people in town or whatever the
case may be. They look to that because life
has pushed them to a point where they're starting to doubt what
it is they believed in. And perhaps in some cases, what
they believed in, they really didn't believe, but they thought
they did. And we don't know in these cases,
like I said, I have friends who've gone over to Eastern Orthodoxy
or back to Roman Catholicism or other things, we don't know
where they'll end up eternally. We know that they're going the
wrong direction going that way. But never think that it's for
no reason. And I think the same thing is
true with those to whom the writer of Hebrews writes to in this
situation. faced some difficulty in life. They faced some persecution. They could even say, even beyond
Roman Catholicism, we know that God ordained a certain form of
worship And I can still hold that Jesus is Messiah, or who
knows where exactly they ended up with that. I can still embrace
that because it's a biblical thing. Well, Satan can quote
scripture as well as anyone else. But when you read Hebrews, understand
that the burden of the writer here is he just knows that these
are people who've professed to trust in Christ, and they come
with arguments, and he, most likely being a fellow Jew, knows
that some of those arguments seem, at least on the surface,
to have a force to them. You know, if you hear people
talk about Rome, they're like, well, there's, I forget the number
they use, thousands of denominations, which one has the truth? There's
only one Roman Catholicism. Nevermind that in Roman Catholicism,
there's probably millions of different beliefs about what
it means to trust God, but officially, there's only one. So when we
read this, keep that in mind. Keep in mind what it is that
people are doing in this setting or even today when they look
to ritual or walking in Nile or outward acts that they believe
earn salvation. What do we need to do? Do we
need to debate them on the merits? Well, maybe in some cases it's
good to answer a fool according to their folly, but I believe
that the writer of Hebrews points us to the best way, and that's
to point us to Christ. Jesus is the only true high priest,
and he is the sole source of salvation. So when somebody,
if they come from Roman Catholicism or another background, says to
you, you need a priest? You can say, check, I've got
one. I've got the greatest priest, the Lord Jesus Christ. And I think in this passage,
there are three truths about Jesus in contrast to Judaism
that our author wants us to know. There's at least three. There's
probably more that I missed that I was looking to keep it shorter. First of all, he was appointed
by the Father. Secondly, he's acquainted with
our frailties. And thirdly, he's the author
of eternal salvation. So let's look at this first point,
that Jesus is appointed by the Father. Understand from Judaism
that no high priest, no one could enter the temple and pretend
to be a priest in Judaism under the old covenant without being
called by God. So verse four, no one takes his
honor upon himself. He must be called by God just
as Aaron was. So there might have been some
concern. Again, we're reading a little
bit between the lines, but I don't think too far if you were to
read on in the epistle to the Hebrews. that there was some
concern that maybe Jesus isn't really qualified to be a priest,
because Jesus is from Judah, and we all know that it's through
Levi and Aaron that the priesthood has to come. And the writer here
says, absolutely, no one is to take this honor upon himself,
he must be called by God. But in verse five, he answers
this and says, Christ also did not take upon himself the glory
of becoming a high priest. And he doesn't, relate stories
from the gospel accounts, even though they would be legitimate,
he answers them from the Old Testament. And he has two passages
here, passages that are very frequently cited in the New Testament
from the Old Testament, from the Psalms. First one is Psalm
2-7, you are my son, and today I have become your father. And
then he says in another place, you are a priest forever in the
order of Melchizedek. So when someone would say, I
think rightly so, according to God's way, no one can appoint
themselves to be a priest, no one can appoint themselves to
that honor, to that office before God, The writer of Hebrews says,
well, the Psalms teach us that God appointed one to be
a priest after or in the order of Melchizedek. There's some differences, though. The priesthood, according to
the Order of Melchizedek, was a different priesthood. In the
Old Testament, the offices of priest and king and prophet were
kept separate. And apart from this mysterious
figure, that if you need to read further on in Hebrews, the author
will speak about him more. But other than this mysterious
figure of Melchizedek, no one else combined these offices. So when they said, we're going
back, he essentially says, I'm going
back further. And I've done that with Roman
Catholics is like, well, our church was established by the
Apostle Peter in Rome, you know, 80, whatever they say, 40 or
50, I forget what they say exactly for that. I'm like, well, I go
to a church established from before the foundation of the
earth. Right? I mean, if you want to one-up
someone, and I'm not saying that that's a good way to approach
it, you need to make sure that they understand what is at stake. And the writer of Hebrews speaking
to Jewish professed believers in Christ says, Aaron is nothing. He doesn't put it that way, he
actually puts the best construction on the Aaronic priesthood, but
he says there is a priesthood that is older, one that is forever,
and that is the one after the order of Melchizedek. And he
doesn't say that Jesus succeeds Melchizedek, he's just saying
that it's according to that order. And Levitical priesthood could
never claim that. In fact, I was listening to Joe
on the way in talk about Psalm 110, and if you think about Aaron,
Aaron didn't really have a good track record. If you go back,
and I'm not going to go into all the details, he messed up. I guess the meme, Yadon messed
up Aaron, fits in this particular case because he was guilty of
leading the children of Israel when Moses was up on the mountain
into idolatry. And there were other cases as
well where he showed his weakness as a human being, but we don't
read that about Melchizedek, and certainly we don't read that
about the Lord Jesus Christ. So Jesus, just like the Old Testament
priest, didn't take this honor upon himself. He was appointed
by God to be a priest forever according
to the order of Melchizedek. Well, another question that could
come up is, Well, there were other qualifications that were
needed. And again, like I just said,
the author of Hebrews doesn't use the worst case scenario.
He doesn't look at the worst possible construction for those
who were high priests. But what he says in verse two
about the priest is a qualification for a priest should be that he
is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and going astray
since he himself is subject to weakness. And this is why he has to offer
sacrifices for his own sins as well as for those of the people. So high priests, the best of
them, dealt gently with those who were ignorant and straying.
because they understood that they were weak and sinful. And according to Leviticus 16
and elsewhere, they were required to offer sacrifices for themselves
as well as for the people because they were sinners. Leviticus
16, six, if you want the reference. And I think it's true that those
who do best in the leading of the people of God are those who,
for lack of a better word, have internalized the fact of their
own sinfulness and weakness. I know that one of the things
that made Joe so approachable and so good at being a shepherd,
an under-shepherd, he would want me to qualify, of the sheep here,
was that he knew his weakness and he knew that his only strength
was in God through Christ. And it is true even under the
old covenant, God designed the priesthood as a way for people
to deal with the guilt and the weight of their weakness and
sinfulness. Yes, it was temporary, but it
was real in the sense that God felt compassion for the people.
He separated the people unto himself and he provided If you
want to use, I guess I got to adjust for inflation, a $5 word. He had a sacerdotal ministry,
and all that means is a ministry based on priestly intercession. And we need a sacerdotal ministry
as well, not from a man standing up here behind the pulpit, but
from the Lord Jesus Christ. ever lives to make intercession
for us, and that's part of the reason we can find peace in time
of need. So it's true of the priesthood,
of earthly priests, that they were able to deal gently and
that they knew compassion because of their own weaknesses and sins. But what about Jesus? Well, back
in verse 15 of chapter four, the writer had said, 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. Now it's a difficult thing for
us to contemplate, those of us who deal with our sinfulness
every day, the idea of somebody being able to understand weaknesses,
but certainly we can look at life and we can say, I understand
what it means to be hungry or to be tired or to be pushed to
a certain degree in various areas of temptation. Jesus knew all
of these. Never think that Jesus had it
easy, that he kind of floated and actually some of the older
artistic works made it look like Jesus was floating about a foot
off the ground. No, when he stepped on something
sharp, it hurt. And when temptation came like
that from the devil that we read about in the wilderness, it was
real temptation. But God, the Holy Spirit kept
him and he was obedient to God. but that doesn't mean that he
doesn't have the compassion from understanding suffering. Verse
eight says, though he was a son, he learned obedience through
suffering. Again, this doesn't mean that
he sinned or he learned like, Again, I'll take from what Joe
said, through the punishment best administered by parents
to meet the You know, the demand there, and I'm paraphrasing a
little bit what he said, but certainly we understand what
it means that you can instruct a child in a certain way, and
it might involve punishment of some sort because of sin, and
they learn from that. No, Jesus didn't learn in that
way, and yet in some way, because he was fully human, he was born
of a woman, and he was human, 100% human, he learned. Luke in his gospel says that
he grew in knowledge and stature and We know from the events of
his life There are many things that he went through that if
it was the first time he went through them. He understood things
in a way that he didn't in his humanity apart from that and We read here in verse seven,
during the days of his life on earth, of Jesus' life on earth,
he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to
the one who could save him from death. And he was heard because
of his literally godly fear, we have translated here reverent
submission. Just think of it that way. Again, I'm least qualified probably
in the building to speak to you about prayer, but here we have
Jesus and his prayer life was not structured and formal and
perfunctory, but we have him crying out to God. Now, we don't
necessarily know all the circumstances. Certainly on the cross we can
hear Jesus cry or read his cry, my God, my God, why have you
forsaken me? We can think about the sweating
blood on Gethsemane, but there are other times where Jesus called
out to his father that we don't know about. We could go back
and read a passage like Psalm 22, in the Old Testament to get
an idea of that, or Isaiah 53 was man of sorrows. He was intimately
acquainted with grief and pain. So yes, in humanity, the better
Levitical high priests, descendants of Aaron, those who learned and
were compassionate because of their own sinfulness. Yes, it's
true. They were acquainted with frailty. But Jesus was in a way they never
could be because he had all those frailties and yet, even though
he was human, he never sinned. He never gave in to the weight
and the pressure of temptation. So when you or I say to God,
there's no way that I can make it through this, I can't bear
up with this situation that's going on, and I don't wanna belittle
any situation. Think about what Jesus went through.
I mean, even Job, at the end of the book of Job, had to repent.
Even though he started out well, he started answering, trying
to defend himself in such way, I believe, sinned worse than
he would have if he would have been guilty of some of the things
his friends thought he was guilty of. But Jesus is our compassionate
high priest. He doesn't have an academic understanding
of the weight of suffering and anguish and pain. He underwent
something that none of us could withstand, even a small fraction
of, and that is the complete and utter bereavement by God and the weight of the sins of
his people being put on him. There's times I can't even bear
one of my own sins. There's no way I want to bear
any of yours or that I could even do so. No, Jesus is not
academically understanding about our sin, but he's intimately
equated with it and yet without sin. Those earthly priests were sympathetic
because they needed forgiveness, but Jesus sympathizes, I believe,
more fully. Well, lastly here, I want to
look at Jesus, and I would say most importantly, as the author
of eternal salvation. We read in verse one, every high
priest is selected from among men and is appointed to represent
them in matters related to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices
for sin. And if you think about the progression
of the old covenant and you think about Moses going up on the mountain
and meeting with God and then coming back in his visage, being
so terrible that people said, cover your face. They didn't
want to touch the mountain because they couldn't bear to be there. And Moses acted as a intercessor,
as a priest for them. And God erected this system as
a type of what he would do in the Lord Jesus Christ. But to those who would say, well,
we have a priesthood and it's organized and every so often,
you know, if I sin, I can have a dove or another animal brought
and sacrificed to pay for my sins. But then you have to do
it again. and you have to do it again.
And oddly enough, well I shouldn't say oddly enough, all false religion
is the same. It's based on do instead of done. There isn't a finished once for
all sacrifice because that doesn't keep people coming who are without
life and hope. But they would have to come back
again and again and again, and the same thing is true with religions
like roman catholicism or or even you know let's let's be
honest if maybe you're not familiar with roman catholicism maybe
you're familiar with free willism and the idea of an altar call
come in dedicate and rededicate and re-rededicate and we have
acquaintances and friends who've been baptized multiple times
because they believed in the idea, or at least they were led
to believe in the idea at the time, that they could wash away
their guilt and their sin by rededication or similar things. And there are strains of other
religious groups where it might not be that gross of a, uh, description where people are
pointed to their outward acts, but they'll say, are you really
sure that you believe? Because people who believe look
like this. And usually in those circles,
they may even claim to believe in a version of sovereign grace,
but they'll say, well, you know, there's some debate on whether
or not Paul was saved in Romans 7. So you can't hide behind a
passage like that and say, that if you sin as a believer, that
that's normal, that you have two natures. Well, of course
you have two natures, but, and I saw this recently on a TV show,
it's the dog you feed more, right? That gets on top, or some similar
sort of analogy where they say, just work harder. You need to
progress in your sanctification, putting the emphasis on what
you do instead of on what Christ has done. And yet, when we read
this passage, I don't see that emphasis. In fact, I see repeated
emphasis on what Christ has done. When Jesus, again, during the
days of his life, verse seven, on earth, he offered up prayers
and petitions with loud cries and tears. And if you stop there,
there's plenty of people in religion who do that. But it says he offered them to
the one who could save him from death, and he was heard. He was heard. That is an important
element to understand. Oftentimes, and the book of James
talks about this, we have not because we ask not, and we ask
and we ask amiss. Jesus never had that problem.
When Jesus prayed for his people, God heard his prayer. God honored
him. God saved every single one and
will save every single one for whom Christ died. Now, Jesus
was heard, and there's certainly assurance in that, assurance
that we would never get from any sort of earthly religion. And it says, though he was a
son, talking about his, and I hesitate to use the phrase
because there's people who misuse it, eternal sonship, but certainly
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit existed from eternity, and Christ
has always been the eternal Son of God, one in being with the
Father and the Spirit. And that is the sense that I
believe you read this first part. Although he was the son, he learned
obedience from what he suffered. How is that? Because he took
on human flesh. Because he came here to save
us from our sins. And once made perfect, not he
sinned and he was restored, but once his work was complete, he
became the source of eternal salvation or the author of eternal
salvation for all who obey him. the source of eternal salvation,
or the author. Actually, this word is only used
one other time. I didn't write down the reference.
I believe it's in the book of Acts, where it talks about a
riot. And in the, yes, recovery from
the turmoil of the riot, As the ruler, and again, I'm
doing this from memory, is trying to explain to them why they need
to be worried, he says, there is no reason, same word, for
this assembly. There's no legitimate cause. And I think that's a way we can
read it here as well. Jesus is the only Source, he's the only legitimate
source of eternal salvation. And yes, it says here, for all
who obey him. Doesn't mean that suddenly we're
now put back again. He'll save you, but you have
to meet a certain standard of righteousness. No, I would look
at passages like Ephesians 2, 8, and 9. By grace are you saved
through faith. And that not of yourselves, it's
a gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should
boast. No, when we obey him, our obedience
is evident by our faith. And that is shown in reaction to a life that is already
there. Yes, continuing in faith and
dependence upon God is expected of believers, but it is not,
and it is obedience and understood in the right way, but it's not
an obedience that earns us favor with God. It's an obedience that's
borne out, and yes, it's imperfect, Yes, it wavers. Lord, I believe,
help my unbelief. Jesus didn't say to that man,
sorry, try harder and come back later. No, because we're still
human and have the flesh, the fallen, sinful nature, We have
this struggle, and as I heard Joe say many times, we're the
only ones who truly struggle if we have the Spirit of God
in us. But what a great comfort here
to know that Jesus suffered and died for his
people and what he obtained for us was eternal salvation. Not partial salvation, not conditional
salvation. He wasn't a partial source of
eternal salvation, but he was obedient, and thus our salvation is secure. not dependent on our imperfect
obedience, not dependent on sinful, temporary, weak measures, but
dependent upon the one who was appointed by the Father, fully
human and yet sinless, the one who was perfected through suffering,
the only one who could be called the eternal high priest and author
of salvation, Know, child of God, that salvation
doesn't rest on our effort, it doesn't rest on any human ritual,
but it rests on what Christ has done once for all. The Father appointed the Son
who obeyed, and the Spirit of God is the one who applies redemption
to his people. I'm so thankful that salvation
doesn't depend on my grip on Christ, but on his grip on me. He ever lives to make intercession
for his children, and it's because of that we can have boldness,
and confidence, and we have no need to turn back to any partial,
sinful, human ways, but we should only look to Christ. Let's pray. Father, I'm once again amazed
by your word. I pray that you would take and
implant the truth, the true gospel in everyone who hears this message,
not because of the speaker, but because of the subject, not because
of the arrangement, but because of the miraculous, powerful work
of the Spirit. Father, as your people go forth
from this place today, We need you. We need to be reminded again
and again of Christ's perfect work on our behalf. And we need
to be encouraged and comforted in our weaknesses based on what
he's done. Thank you for all that you provided
for us. We can in no way repay you for
it, but I pray that we would be thankful and grateful for
all you've done. Amen. James.