Our High Priest

Q: What does the Bible say about Christ as our high priest?

The Bible teaches that Christ is our appointed high priest, fulfilling the need for a mediator and savior for His people. The New Testament, particularly the book of Hebrews, emphasizes that Christ is our great high priest who was chosen by God and made like us in every way, except for sin. Hebrews 3:1 calls Him the 'apostle and high priest of our profession,' indicating that He represents us before God and is essential for our worship and communion with the Father. The book asserts that Christ's priesthood is superior to those in the Old Testament, as He is eternally established and performs His role flawlessly, making intercession for us at the right hand of God.

Q: How do we know Christ's priesthood is true?

Christ's priesthood is affirmed through Scripture, particularly in the book of Hebrews, which details His unique qualifications and eternal role. The reality of Christ's priesthood is firmly established in the Scriptures, especially in the book of Hebrews, which systematically compares His ministry to that of the Levitical priests of the Old Testament. Unlike those priests, who had to offer sacrifices repeatedly for their own sins and the sins of the people, Christ offered Himself once for all, perfecting forever those who are being sanctified. Hebrews 7:24-25 highlights that Christ holds an unchangeable priesthood and always lives to make intercession for us, providing us full assurance of His role as our mediator before God.

Q: Why is the concept of a high priest important for Christians?

The high priest is crucial for Christians because He mediates between God and humanity, offering sacrifice and intercession on our behalf. The concept of a high priest is vital for Christians because it encapsulates Christ's role as the mediator who reconciles us to God. As seen in Hebrews, we need a representative who can approach God on our behalf, which is embodied in the person of Jesus Christ. He is not only our high priest but also the perfect sacrifice, fulfilling all the requirements necessary for our redemption. This access to God through Christ grants us the confidence to approach the throne of grace, knowing we are accepted because of His righteousness, mercy, and faithfulness. As outlined in Hebrews 4:14-16, we can approach Him boldly, finding help in our time of need.

Q: How does Christ's high priesthood differ from Old Testament priests?

Christ's high priesthood is superior as He was sinless, offered Himself as the perfect sacrifice, and has an eternal priesthood. Christ's high priesthood stands in stark contrast to that of the Old Testament priests. The Levitical priests were appointed to serve temporarily and had to make sacrifices for their own sins as well as for the sins of the people. In contrast, Christ, as highlighted in Hebrews 7:27, offered Himself as the perfect sacrifice once for all, without needing to atone for His own sin, as He was sinless. His priesthood is eternal and unchanging, ensuring that He is always able to intercede for us (Hebrews 7:24). Moreover, His sacrifice secured eternal redemption, allowing believers to approach God with certainty and hope.

Q: What is the significance of Christ being a merciful high priest?

Christ's mercy as a high priest means He understands our struggles and offers grace and help in times of need. Christ's role as a merciful high priest is significant because it assures believers that He empathizes with our weaknesses and struggles. Hebrews 4:15 states that He is 'touched with the feeling of our infirmities' because He experienced life's trials while remaining without sin. This compassion allows Him to provide true comfort and support when we are burdened by sin and temptation. His mercy signifies that we are not met with judgment but with understanding and help. He delights in showing mercy, as seen in His willingness to bear our burdens and intercede for us, providing the grace we need to walk in faith and obedience.

Any of these are us, and when
did we last fall in love? Who is my glory? Who has won? Who is my savior? Who are they all? This is my glory, this is my
song, Praising my Savior all the day long. All right, now turn to Hebrews
chapter 3. Book of Hebrews, chapter 3. Nearly every religion has a high
priest. Whether they call him or her
that or not, all religions have a person who is looked up to
and followed and esteemed as being more holy Just about more
holy than everyone else, more pious, more spiritual than the
common people. You know that, sir, don't you?
Nearly every religion. From the Pope to the Dalai Lama
to, you just go on and on, down to the smallest little free will
Baptist church has some. dude that people think is really
something else. It's so. And these men and some even women
are trusted, greatly trusted in and generally hoped to be
spiritual guides to lead the people to God. Now, a high priest
is scriptural. We just read about the high priest. God Almighty is the one who ordained
this office of a high priest. And there's a few things about
the high priest. Now, first of all, it was a man. It was a man, all right? Secondly,
a chosen man. chosen by God. God chose the
man. Hebrews talks about this, that
men didn't choose the man, God did. All right? Thirdly, the
reason, the purpose for this high priest was to lead the people
in the worship of God. To lead the people in the worship
of God. Show them and go through all
of the things, the means of worship which God ordained. All right? He carried it out. He did it
all. All the things necessary to approach
God. All right? And then he was a
representative. He represented the people. He
went to God for the people. He went to God for the people.
Before there was a high priest, Moses was the high priest. Right? Before God even said there was
to be a high priest, Moses. God wouldn't talk to anybody
but Moses. And Moses spoke to God for the
people. All right? Now look at Hebrews
3 verse 1. Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers
of the heavenly calling. And I just about didn't get past
that right there down, down in San Domingo, partakers of the
heavenly calling. We talked about what a high calling
this is. High, a heavenly call. God, the
Creator, calls, literally calls some people, not all people,
some people. In mercy and grace and in electing
grace, he calls some people, not all people. And if we are partakers, if he's
called us, how blessed we are. Well, Peter,
Paul says, consider, all right, those who are, now this is written
to those who have heard this call, the gospel call. That's
what the call is, the gospel. Many people have ears, but they
don't hear it. He says, let's consider the apostle and high
priest of our profession. Let's consider, let's think about
our high priest. We have a high priest. We still
have a high priest. We've got to have a high priest.
God hasn't changed. God said you've got to have a
tabernacle, that is a place. You've got to have a high priest,
a person. You've got to have a sacrifice, a thing. You've
got to have a person, a place, and a thing. These three things,
without which you can't come to God. You can't worship God. You can't know God. God won't
have anything to do with you. Well, these three are one. They're a person. The place is
a person. The person is a person. The thing,
the sacrifice is a person. Christ is all these things. All
and in all, these things. All right, he said, let's consider
our high priest, all right? The one we profess, he says,
the high priest of our profession. We, if people would ask you,
we'd say, yes, we have a high priest. We do, we have a high
priest. Christ Jesus, the priest of our
profession. So Paul says, let's think about
him a little bit, let's consider him. Now, the whole book of Hebrews,
is about the Lord Jesus Christ. Who he is, it starts out in chapter
one. That didn't get past the first
four verses. Who he is, five verses. Express
image of God and so forth. When he had by himself purged
our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high.
It tells who he is, who our high priest is. It builds up, keeps
building up. The evenings say the angels. My son, he tells the angels to
worship him. And even God the Father said
to God the Son, that throne of God is forever. Dispels all wrong notions of
who Christ is. He's God. Well, the whole book
of Hebrews is about Jesus Christ. Who he is, why he came, and what
he did. And the whole book of Hebrews
tells us that Christ is better than everything else. And we
like to say that Jesus Christ is all the religion that we need. He's all the religion that we
need. That Christ is better. Paul says
He's better than the angels. People are all infatuated with
angels, aren't they, today? Just infatuated with angels.
We don't need to talk about angels. Christ is better. Christ is better
than Moses. Better than Moses. People are
taken with the law. There's a passage in 1 Corinthians
that says, if the ministration of the law was glorious, how
much more the ministration of grace came by Christ. Well, he's
better than Moses, better than the law, just a shadow. He's
better than Moses, better than the law, better, better, better
than all pretended priests. Like I said, many pretend to
be priests today, don't they? like to act like they're somebody,
like to dress like they're somebody, like to act like they're a little
above the people. Well, our high priest is better, and
we're going to see that tonight, how much better he is. Did you
ever compare your father with other fathers growing up? Did
you ever do that? My dad's bigger than you. He
can whip your dad. Did you ever say that, Rick?
My dad can whip your dad. He's bigger, faster, and stronger.
He can able to leap tall buildings with a single band. Did you ever
do that? Well, our Christ is better. All
the way around in everything, the Jesus Christ of our profession
is better. Better than these pretended saviors
today. that man are worse, better. Our
rock, not my favorite. You can hide in our rock. Our
high priest is better. All right? Let's look at it. He says, let's consider it. Look
at chapter 2, verses 14 through 17. Chapter 2, verses 14 through
17. Our Christ, number one, he's
one of us. He's one of us. Now this is comforting. He's one of us. Look at this.
For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood,
he also himself likewise took part of the same. It says in
verse 16, he took not on him the nature of angels, but took
on him the seed of Abraham. Verse 17, Wherefore, in all things
it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren. He's one of us. He's not. Though he is separate from sinners,
as Scripture said, holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners,
altogether different, a holy man, yet Job is one of us. He's a common man, because it
says common people hurt him badly. We can talk to him and not feel
intimidated in his presence. That's right. That's right. I know you've been around religious
people like I have, and they just make you uncomfortable.
It says sinners, common people, heard him gladly. They flocked
to him. Why? He didn't act, though he was
holy, yet he didn't act. He was a servant to him. And this man received the sinners.
He received them. I spoke to him. One of us. Look at chapter 4. Look at verse
18 before you turn. Verse 18. In that he himself
had suffered being tempted, he's able to succor or help those
that are tempted. Now chapter 4, verse 15. We don't have a high priest that
can't be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. You see it? Verse 15. He was in all points
tempted like as we are, yet without sin. You know you cannot enter
into someone's troubles unless you've had them yourself. You
really can't. You know, you just can't do it. You can feel sorry for them,
but you really cannot enter into or really feel their troubles
unless you have felt those very same troubles. Is that not true?
Sure it is. Whether it's sickness, a particular
sickness, loss of a loved one, loneliness, whatever, unless
you've been there, you can't enter into it. When our Lord,
on purpose, would you go through trouble if you didn't have to? Would you go through sickness
if you didn't have to? Would you have surgery if you
didn't have to? Christ did. Look, I love this. My favorite. John 11. John 11. You remember
Lazarus' tomb here? I love this. I've got this marked. And this is why a center reference
is so good. John 11, verse 33, Christ was
at Lazarus' tomb, and it says, when Jesus therefore saw her
weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned
in the Spirit and was troubled. Do you have a marginal reference
beside that? What does it say? He troubled himself. He put himself
through a great deal of trouble. Why? Well, number one, to deliver
us from our troubles, our chief trouble, sin. That's what it
said back there, to make propitiation for our sin, but also to feel
our trouble so he could help us. help up. Brother Linda Stoniker, not brother
Linda, I started to say brother Todd, and I changed my mind. Sister Linda Stoniker went through
cancer surgery and now she's faced with weeks and weeks and
weeks of chemotherapy and radiation. And they say it's worse than
the disease, the treatment. It's just indescribable. And
you don't know until you can't tell unless you've been through
it. Well, Brother Todd and I called her up and said, let me tell
you all about it. And went through her. He's been
through it. He knows. He said, I can tell you I've
been there. Well, so did our Lord. There's nothing, nothing
that anybody in this room has gone through that Christ hasn't
been through a hundred times or more. Tempted, it says he would stand
for forty days and forty nights with the devil himself. With
anything and everything a man or woman could be tempted with
in this life, Christ was met head on, assaulted with it. Tempted,
you tempted? He was tempted. Lonely? none more than he ever no one
will ever. Be all alone and God left. God left. For sake of totally
forsaken. Cut off description out of my.
Suffering, have you suffered? None have suffered. No one has
ever suffered like Christ. He suffered in body, unlike anybody
will probably ever suffer, but more, but worse, soul suffering. So he knows. Christ, our high
priest, it says, is touched with the feeling of our infirmity. Never mind what some of these
leaders today say. They say, I feel your pain. Yeah,
right, man. Sitting up there in that big
house. Yeah, right. You feel our pain. Christ had not a roof over his head. One pair of shoes and one
suit of clothes. He's touched with the feeling
of our infirmities. He took our likeness and our limitations,
yes? Made a little lower than the
angel. Scripture says. Flesh. Our favorite version of
that. See, he knows our frame. He knows
what it is to deal with flesh. Why? He wore the frame. He wore flesh. Yep. Without sin. These sheltered priests, you
see, most of these priests today, so-called priests, they live
in monasteries, you know, shelter themselves, separate themselves
from sinners lest they become defiled. Christ became sin, was
made sin. I've read stories about missionaries
in days of old who ministered to lepers. who went to leper
colonies, and they became lepers. They went into the leper colony
and became lepers, never to return, so that they could minister to
lepers. That's exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ did. Philippians
says he was made, Romans 8 says he was made in the likeness of
sinful flesh. How repulsive to his holy nature,
but he troubled himself, he did it. You ought to know what we're
putting up with. Yeah, our high priest is better.
I don't want some fellow who came out of a seminary who's
never sinned, who's never sinned, doesn't know
what sin is, doesn't know what I'm going through out there in
the world. I want some fellow who's right in the midst of it
and can help me, right? Been through what I've been through.
Our high priest is better. He'd better. Oh, for the life
of me, I can't understand people confessing all their sins to
some man who's never had any of them. Well, in chapter 5, verse 2,
Hebrews chapter 5, verse 2, look at this. This is a good word
here, a word in season. Hebrews 5 verse 2, our high priest
says, can have compassion on the ignorant. I like that. Compassion. Compassion is a composite word. Compassion means common passion. As we said, you cannot really
feel what someone is feeling unless you've been through it.
Common passion means feelings. Common passion and have compassion. And it says on the ignorant. I like that. I feel so ignorant
at times because I don't learn lessons. You feel that way? You
ever feel like, when am I ever going to learn? Well, he can
have compassion on that. He immersed himself in this world
and its troubles on purpose. I told you about, you know, taking
Hannah to Mexico and And me, myself, going down to
the Dominican, and that first night, being alone in that strange
city, a stranger in a strange place, not speaking the language,
not knowing anyone, and I thought, why am I here? And then it dawned
on me. That's what my daughter's going
through right now. And so I'm able, I was able to call her
and write her and say, honey, I know. what you feel. I know exactly what's going through
your mind. And here's what you need to think about." And wrote
her. Words of comfort. I've been there. I've been there. A stranger in a strange place
all along. And so I could write her and
give her those words that she needed. And so did our Lord. What about Him? A stranger in
a strange land. All right, look at the next thing.
Chapter 2, verse 17. We sung about this, chapter 2, verse
17. In all things it behooved him
to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and
faithful high priest. A merciful and faithful high
priest. Now, mercy is the most wonderful
word in the English language. Mercy. And maybe grace, you know. Christ, the three, it's a toss-up. These three are in one, aren't
they? Mercy, grace, love, grace. Mercy
means not getting what we deserve. Mercy means being spared the
punishment that we're due. Spared the judgment. Well, the
scripture here says that Christ is full of mercy. Mercy full,
that means full of mercy. Scripture says that he delights
to show mercy. In other words, there's nothing
that gives him more pleasure. Is there anything you delight
to do? When you delight in something,
that means, oh, that's just what I want to do. You ever, you know,
thank somebody for doing something? Oh, I don't thank me. It's my
privilege, my pleasure. He delights to show mercy. Well,
I'm glad of that, because I need a lot of it. And he delights
to show me. He's not grudging at all. You've
done that again. Well, I had mercy on you yesterday. Oh, all right. Oh, no, he delights to show me.
You got that, sinner? He delights to show me. Scripture
says he's ready to pardon. I love that, John. He's ready,
good partner. That means he's waiting. That's
the scripture even says that, doesn't it, John? He waits to
be gracious. No, he's not waiting on every
son of Adam, that's for sure. No, no, he's not waiting at the
heart's door or anything like that, but he is waiting on his
people. He's waiting to be gracious. And he's already determined.
I love this, my favorite verse. He says, I know my thoughts toward
you, thoughts of peace. He's waiting
to be merciful, to be gracious. Man is not, he's prone to mercy. You know, we're prone to, we're
prone to sin, prone to wonder, prone to lie, prone to cheat,
prone to, prone to this. He's prone to mercy. That's his
nature. Prone to mercy. Man is vindictive. Man is vengeful. Man is ready
to cast out. Ready. Looking for excuse to
cut somebody off. Is that not right? Looking for
excuse to condemn somebody. Looking for excuse to be done
with somebody. Not Christ. He's prone to mercy. Our high
priest is merciful. David said this, my favorite
verse. David said, after the Lord told him what all he was
going to do for him. The Lord, you know, took David
from the sheep coat or from out in the pasture looking at the
hind end of the sheep, just a little boy, and raised him up to sit
him on the greatest throne and the greatest kingdom in all the
world. gave him wisdom and promised him mercy and grace all the days
of his life and promised mercy and grace to his household all
the days of his life. And he would never depart from
him and would always remember his covenant toward him. And David said that. He said,
Is this the way of man? No, this is not man. Man wouldn't do that. Man's not
merciful. Well, God is. Our high priest
is. He sure is. Remember me talking to you about
that young preacher who's just ready to cut people out, the
disciplined people? He wrote me another letter, you
know, talking about how you've got to excommunicate people. I'm glad I got a high priest
who's ready to not excommunicate, but ready to include me, people
like me. I want you to turn here. Isaiah 55. Isaiah 55. I could quote it to you, and
you know it. But you know, I have never rightly
quoted these words in context. 55, though the way we use these is
right, yet I want you to see the context of these words. All
right, look at Isaiah 55, verse 6. Seek ye the Lord while he
may be found, call ye upon him while he is near. Let the wicked
forsake his way, the unrighteous man his thought. Let him return
unto the Lord. He will have mercy upon him.
To our God, he will abundantly pardon. That means he'll do a
lot of it. Four, here's the concept. My
thoughts are not your thoughts. That's not what you do, he said.
You don't abundantly pardon, but I do. My ways are not your
way. You don't forgive and forget.
I do both, he said. For as the heavens, and this
is talking about God's mercy and God's grace, God's forgiveness. As the heavens are higher than
the earth, so are my thoughts higher and my ways higher. You
see the context there? He's talking about his mercy,
John. And I love this. It's new every morning. One of the brethren came up after
the service the other day and said, remember when we said that
every believer starts every morning with a clean slate? An absolutely clean slate. His
mercies are new every morning. Yesterday's sins are gone. They never were written for that
matter. They never were recorded. We start with a clean slate.
Isn't that good? Have you ever felt your guilt
just bring you down? You thought, like David, you
pray, Oh, the heavens are brass. Is His mercy clean gone? Remember
when David said, Is it clean gone? Surely He's done with me
now. And you wake up in the morning,
clean slate. It's forgotten. Now don't do
it again. And Joe, we do it again. But he's full of mercy. Isn't
that a word in season and comfort? Ah, we've got a better high priest.
Look at the next thing. He's faithful. Merciful and faithful
in things pertaining to God. That's Hebrews 2, 17. Merciful
and faithful in things pertaining to God to make reconciliation
for the sins of the people. This is important. This is what
the whole book is about. Right here. This is what the
whole book of Hebrews is about. People down there just hung on
the edge of their seats. Listen. We've heard this a lot.
They hung on their seats. Brand new, everything brand new. Brother Rinaldo just wrote me
a letter, an email, and said, would you send me all your notes
on Hebrews? I want to continue preaching through it. He said,
I'm going to start in chapter 6, hurry. Well, God told Moses, he said,
see that you make all things according to the pattern. It
better be right. He said it shall be perfect to
be accepted. God said every jot and tittle
of the law must be fulfilled, every jot and tittle. He said
to offend in one point, you've broken it off, guilty of it all.
Well, Moses failed, didn't he? You remember? Remember, Vicki,
when Moses struck the rock again and God killed him? And God said
to him, he said, You didn't sanctify me before the people. You did
not sanctify me before the people. And God was angry with Moses.
The law can't sanctify. Can it? John, that happened on
purpose, buddy. It happened on purpose. The law
can't sanctify. Well, Christ did. God said from heaven, I am well
pleased with him. He's glorified me. He's kept
my law. By his knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify me. He knew the law inside and out,
every jot and tittle. Paul said, I used to be a lawyer. Paul said that. He said, I used
to be a lawyer before I knew the law. He said, I used to be
blameless before I heard the law. And so Paul said, we need a high
priest. We need a high priest. And by
his knowledge, Christ's knowledge of the law, shall he justify
a minute. He knew every jot and hymn of the law perfectly to
fulfill it perfectly for us. And how did he know it? He wrote
it. He's faithful in all things pertaining
to God. To bring us to God, it behooved
Him. It was becoming to Him and bringing
many sons to glory. Before we made our trip to Mexico,
I was very careful in getting everything together, all things
ready, to take my daughter into the country of Mexico. I know
now why my father doesn't like to go out of the country anymore. The older I get, the more it's a pretty fearful, for lack of
a better word, thing. Going through customs and, you
know, all your papers, you've got to be right in order, and
then going into a foreign country, they can throw you, Joe, they
can throw you in jail if they don't like you. They can just
throw you in jail. They can do it. And my father,
you know, he doesn't hear well, and going through all that, those
customs and all that, and searching your bags. All that sort of thing. I was very careful to get everything
in order, in order to get my daughter into the country of
Mexico, so that she would get there safe. I was very careful
in getting all things ready to ensure that she would enter Mexico. All right? And there's three
things. You may have heard my pastor say this. Three things
you need in order to enter a foreign country. Three things. Number
one, you've got to have a birth certificate. You've got to have
a birth certificate. Passport has your date of birth,
city, and all that. That's your birth certificate.
Number two, you've got to have a visa. After you show your birth
certificate, the country to which you're going or entering, they've
got to grant you permission to enter the country. They've got
to say, we accept you into our country, and they write on that
visa how long you can stay. If they say you can stay one
hour, that's it, buddy, you better be out. If they say six months,
if they say you're a permanent resident, then that's how long
you get stuck. That's what a visa is, all right?
And thirdly, they don't let any people in
with a criminal record. Are you listening? You see where
all this is going? In other words, you can't be
a felon, you can't have anything, a crime, on your record, and
they won't let you in. So I was very careful to get
everything in order. Well, our high priest says he's
faithful in all things pertaining to God, to bring us to God. We
look for a heavenly country, all right? We're going to have
to have a new birth, a birth certificate, if you will,
a new birth. And those scars, that ribbon
side shows us where we came from. New birth, new creature. We're
going to have to have a visa, that is, an acceptance from the
one to whom we're going, to God. We want to get to God, we want
to get to heaven. He's going to have to grant us entrance.
Well, Ephesians 1, 6 says that, doesn't it, John? He says, we're
accepted in the blood. Well, how long? How long can
we stay? He says, I give unto them. eternal life, forever in
this country. And thirdly, you better not have
one crime on your record. Well, that's taken care of there. Our high priest, you see, has
gotten everything in order. New birth, acceptance with the
Father, and there's nothing on our record. There's therefore
now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. Because
we get to enter, and he says, Come, you blessed of my Father.
Enter. Enter. And it says, when we got
to Mexico, we were starting to set up things
in Cody and Winna's house, and they put Hannah in a guest bedroom.
Well, it was not like her bedroom, you know. And I wanted her to be, you can
go and stay there nine weeks. I'm glad her mom is not sitting
up here right now. But that room was very sparse, nothing on the
walls, no table beside the bed, no nothing. Very, very sparse,
just a guest bedroom. Well, I wanted to make it like,
you know, a comfortable, nice, her room. So I did everything
to prepare a place for her. Well, our Lord said, I go to
prepare a place for you, didn't He? And when I go, I'll come
again and receive you unto myself. And that place, I hadn't seen,
the ear hadn't heard, neither had any of the heart. But things,
we're sure not going to want to go home. That will be our
home. And look at the next thing. And
I asked the people down there, I said, I got to quit. They said,
no, no, no. Everyone, no, no, no, stop. Look,
we've been going, no, don't stop. Chapter 7, verse 24, look there. Chapter 7. Here's another thing
about our high priest. Verse 24. Rick, that's when one
of them said, You're like an army, we want to squeeze all
the juice out of you. Chapter 7, verse 24, says, This
man, because he continueth ever, or forever, hath an unchangeable
priesthood. In other words, Nancy, we're
going to have the same priest forever. Now, that's good. Isn't it comforting
to have the same person in the same place? Is the help bad? Is it a bad place
to be? Don't mess up my illustration. Don't you like to go to that?
You do like to go to that drive-thru, don't you? Isn't it nice to have
the same person there that knows your name, knows everything about
you and all that? Huh? Same person there, been
there for a hundred years. You know what I'm saying, the
same old husband, you know? Isn't he a nice barber? In spite
of all his faults, it's the same old Charlie. Wake up, same old
Charlie, nothing goes surprising. Well, that's really comforting,
you know what I mean? That's really comforting. And, well, our high priest is
the same yesterday, today, and forever. He's always going to
be the same. He always going to be the same, and always going
to be there. Unchangeable. Preachers come
and go. I, for the life of me, I don't
see how, why people stay at these places. Preachers are like, you
know, tourists, coming and going. Who do you? I don't. Well, a great deal of comfort
in that. And it says he's a priest forever.
After the order of Melchizedek. And lastly, I think it's lastly
now, second to lastly, chapter four, verse fourteen. It's too
good to quit. Chapter four, verse fourteen
says, we have a high priest. Well, where is he? He's passed
into the heavens. He's in the heavens. He's with
the Father right now. I love... 1 John 2 says we have
an advocate. We have a lawyer. Where is he?
He's sitting by the judge. Well, that's... I want him. Don't you? Especially if you're
guilty. Right, Dan? I mean absolutely
guilty. All the evidence is against you.
You're sentenced. You're on death row, ready to die, and you need
a lawyer. Where is it? He's with the judge right now
in the secret chamber with the judge right now, pleading your
case, and he's never lost a case. That's, I want him. Don't you? And the high priest, I want one
who God has absolutely accepted, absolutely accepted everything
he is and everything he does. Every prayer he makes, every
offering he makes, which was one. Then, is that the high priest
you want? I couldn't help but think about
some of this, just the mass and all that that goes on today.
And when we read that in chapter nine, eight and nine, where it
says they continually offer this thing, they serve the mass every... One second. And lastly, Hebrews 1. This is the last. At least the
last thing I have written down. It's certainly not all there
is about our high priest. We're just skimming the surface. You know, I often hear people
say this. People talk about what God can
do. You ever hear that? Well, my
God is greater than any prophet. Well, that sounds real good,
doesn't it? Or does it? Jesus can. God can. That doesn't really help me. I want to hear something in the
past tense. Don't you? Huh? In the past tense. Look at Hebrews 1 verse 3, "...who,
being in the brightness of his glory, expressed the image of
his person, upholding all things by the word of his power, when
he had by himself purged." E.D. Past tense. Our sin. "...sat
down on the right hand of the majesty on high." Being made
so much better. So much better. My Christ not
only can, He does. See the difference? He's so much
better. Our God is not only able, He's willing, and He does it.
Whatever He wills to do, He does it. And it's not left up to me. Chapter 9, verse 12 says, When
he had by himself heard, and it says, he obtained eternal
redemption. All right. He entered into the
Holy Place, one, having obtained eternal redemption. All right.
That's done. It's a done thing. Yes, we have. Paul said, such
a high priest. He said, see, and then we have
such a high priest who's passed into the heavens right now, who
offered one sacrifice, successful, complete, accepted, and now ever
lives to make the intercession for us. Yes, even the chief of
sinners. Well, he said, What need have
we of any other? Ours is better." He said, Come
boldly, come boldly. All right, let's stand. Our Heavenly Father, we thank
you for the book of Hebrews and the book of James and Peter and
John and all your word, but tonight especially we thank you for revealing
to us our great high priest, great high priest, not just any
high priest, but the great high priest, not just any shepherd,
not just a good shepherd, but chief shepherd. And we thank
you that we have such a one as he, such a high priest. And so
we come, doing as you told us, we come freely, we come with
liberty to the throne of grace to find help from a merciful
high priest. In time of need, which is daily,
hourly, we come boldly and we believe we are accepted. and
heard by virtue of Christ's blood and righteousness. So we thank
you for revealing this to us. Reveal it not just to our heads,
but to our hearts, giving us peace and comfort. And we've
said and done all these things in Christ's name for his glory.
Amen. Thank you.

Our High Priest

What does the Bible say about Christ as our high priest?

How do we know Christ's priesthood is true?

Why is the concept of a high priest important for Christians?

How does Christ's high priesthood differ from Old Testament priests?

What is the significance of Christ being a merciful high priest?

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Our High Priest

What does the Bible say about Christ as our high priest?

How do we know Christ's priesthood is true?

Why is the concept of a high priest important for Christians?

How does Christ's high priesthood differ from Old Testament priests?

What is the significance of Christ being a merciful high priest?

Sermon Transcript

About Paul Mahan

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