Would you turn with me to Hebrews
chapter 7? I'd like to read the last three
verses of Hebrews chapter 7. I've entitled this message, The
Priest We Need. The Priest We Need. Now remember what a priest is.
A priest is someone who represents a man to God. And this is the
priest we need. Beginning in verse 26, For such
an high priest became us, was befitting to us, is exactly what
we needed, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners,
and made higher than the heavens, who needeth not daily as those
high priests to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins and then
for the people's, for this he did once, when he offered up
himself For the law maketh men high priests, which have infirmities. But the word of the oath, and
we just read that oath in Psalm 110, verse 4, thou art a priest
forever, after the order of Melchizedek. The word of the oath, which was
since the law, it was after the giving of the law, maketh the
son who is consecrated, or perfected, or completed. forevermore. Now there are two people spoken
of in our text. The one who is such a high priest
and us. Who's the us? Us means a particular
people who is the us. The us is everybody who needs
a high priest just like this. And I find in my own heart a
need for this high priest. Such a high priest became us. What is he talking about when
he talks about such a high priest? Back up to verse 23. And they, speaking of Aaron and
his sons, There truly were many priests, because they were not
suffered to continue by reason of death. But this man, the Lord
Jesus, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore, he is able also to
save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing
he ever liveth to make intercession for them. Now this is the such
a high priest. He's the one who's able to save
them to the uttermost. I love this passage of scripture.
Jude chapter, or has one chapter, so Jude verse 24. Now unto him
that is able to keep you from falling. Now I knew that. Because I know if he doesn't
keep me from falling, I will fall. This is the priest I need,
the one who can keep me from falling away. I'll leave the
Lord if he doesn't preserve me. I know I will. So I need this
high priest who's able to keep me from falling. And then he
says next, and he's able to present you faultless. Now, I want you to think about
that for just a second. He is able to present you as sinful. and weak as you are, as I am,
he is able to present everyone he represents faultless, without
fault, perfect before his throne with exceeding joy. Such a high priest became us,
one who is able to do this. This is exactly what we need. In these last three verses of
this chapter, I see four things that make Christ the high priest
that we need, everyone who needs such a high priest. First, we
see his perfect life. Second, we see his perfect sacrifice. Third, we see his perfect position. And fourth, we see the perfection
of his person. Let me show you where I got that
outline. For such a high priest became
us, here is his perfect life, who is holy, harmless, undefiled,
and separate from sinners. Here is his perfect sacrifice,
look down in verse 27, who needeth not daily as those high priests
to offer up sacrifice first for his own sins, and then for his
people. For this he did once when he offered up himself. There's
his perfect sacrifice. And thirdly, there's his perfect
position. Notice once again, verse 26,
it says that he is made higher than the heavens. What a position. And then last, the perfection
of his person. It says the son is consecrated
or perfected or completed forevermore. Now, this is exactly the high
priest that I so desperately need. You know, I need the Lord
Jesus Christ. I can say that with depth of
conviction. I need him to represent me. Now, I want to see from this
passage of Scripture what kind of priest I need. Now, what befits
him to be just the priest we need is seen, first of all, in
his sinless life. His perfect righteousness. I love this description of His
life in verse 26. For such a high priest became
us. Here's exactly what we need. Who is holy, harmless, undefiled,
and separate from sinners. Now, here's why I need such a
high priest as this. Because of my nature. This is
my nature. This is the way I'm born into
this world. I was born into this world unholy. I was born into
this world harmful. Harmless means void of evil. I was born into this world full
of sin. Like David said, in sin my mother
conceived me. Holy, harmless, undefiled. I'm born into this world defiled,
contaminated by sin. So it makes it everything that
I do sin. It doesn't matter what it is. If I do it, that makes
it sin because I'm contaminated. And separate from sinners, I'm
united to sinners. I'm by nature a sinner, so I
need a priest who is altogether different from me. Holy, harmless,
undefiled, and separate from sinners. Christ Jesus is holy. He's equal with God. He's altogether
pure. He never had a sinful thought.
He never had a sinful action. He never had a sinful motive.
He knew no sin. That's a remarkable passage of
Scripture. He knew no sin. You know, before he was placed
on the cross, he didn't, in a very real sense, he didn't understand
sin because he never sinned. He never experienced it. He's
holy, holy, holy. He's harmless. That means he's
full of that which is good. He has nothing but of evil in
him. He's harmless. He's undefiled. And he is separate from sinners,
altogether separate from sinners. He knew no sin. He did no sin. In him is no sin. And this is
the priest that has the ear of God because of his perfect life.
Don't you love to think about the Lord's perfect life? I do. He honored God perfectly. He never sinned, and the obedience
of the Lord Jesus Christ that I'm speaking of right now, that
is my righteousness before God. I love that song we just read,
Jehovah's Akinnu, The Lord Our Righteousness, and the writer
was talking about how there was a time when that meant nothing
to him, but it does now, and I thought it does to me now.
The Lord Jesus Christ is my righteousness before God, and how I delight
in that. His obedience, His law-keeping. The sinless, the perfect obedience,
the righteousness of Christ is the believer's personal righteousness
before God. Let me show you a passage of
Scripture in Matthew chapter 3. Verse 13. Then cometh Jesus from Galilee
to Jordan unto John to be baptized of him. But John forbade it,
saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me? I mean, I try to put myself in
John's place. What if the Lord Jesus Christ,
the Son of God, He who knew no sin, came up and said, I want
to be baptized of you? I would feel utterly unfit for
something like that. I understand John's objection. He said, I have need to be baptized
of thee. And you're coming to me to be
baptized? You understand why John reacted
this way. Now, look what the Lord said.
And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer to be so now, for
thus it becometh. Oh, how precious these words
are. Us. Us. To fulfill all righteousness. You know what that means? When
Jesus Christ fulfilled all righteousness, so did I. When he kept the law,
I kept the law. When he was holy, harmless, undefiled,
and separate from sinners, that's my righteousness before God. Aren't you thankful for his perfect
life? Oh, the holy, spotless, without blemish life of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Looking back in our text in verse
28, for the law, talking about the Levitical economy, For the
law maketh men high priests, which have infirmities, which
have weaknesses, which are sinful men. Aaron was a sinful man. Look what he did. He made a golden
calf. We have the examples of Nadab and Abihu, how God sent
fire down from heaven to kill them because of their sinfulness.
Eli's sons, Phineas and Hophni, the law maketh men like me, priests. And that's why a priest like
that can't really represent anybody before God. They represent something,
but in and of themselves they couldn't represent a man to God.
But he can because he has the ear of God. He has the favor
of God. He never sinned. That's wonderful to think about.
So, first of all, this is the high priest that became us. Someone
with a perfect life. Someone who never Second, he's just the high priest
we need because of his perfect sacrifice when he offered up
himself. Every day, morning and evening,
the Levites had to offer up two sacrifices. First, one for their
own sins that made them representatively fit to represent somebody else,
and then they would offer up a sacrifice for the sins of the
people they were representing. So two sacrifices every morning,
two sacrifices every evening. First for their own sins, and
then for the sins of the people. Look what verse 27 says of our
text. This high priest needeth not
daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice first for
his own sins, and then for the people's. For this he did once
when he offered up himself. Now, notice it doesn't say that
he did not offer up sins. Well, look at the way it reads.
Verse 27, who needs not daily as those high priests to offer
up sacrifice first for his own sins and then for the people's.
For this he did once. You see, his people's sins became
his own sins. That's why this sacrifice was
only offered up once. His people's sins literally,
actually, truly became His own sins. Now, I tried to talk about
this last Wednesday night, and it's something that's been sticking
with me, thinking about it. It gives me a lot of joy when
I think about Christ on the cross. There He is, hanging, forsaken
by God. Now, the only reason God will
forsake somebody is because there's sin on them. Sin in them. He'll
never forsake the righteous. The sins of God's elect actually,
literally, truly became the sins of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
so while he was on the cross, it's a horrible yet a glorious
thing to think about. When Christ was on the cross,
he had no smile from his Father. He had no favor from his father.
You see, the Lord, his father was not looking at him and saying,
now I realize that these sins are not yours. They belong to
somebody else. But I'm going to treat you as
if they were yours. And I'm going to make you, I'm
going to punish you for these things. It wasn't like that at
all. No, when the Lord poured his wrath out upon the Lord Jesus
Christ, it's because he was sin in his sight. He was made sin
and God saw nothing but that which He hated. His wrath came
down upon the Lord Jesus Christ because Christ was guilty, guilty
as charged. My sin became his and he bore
the guilt of it. He became sin. What all that
means, I don't know, nor does anyone else. I can't understand
that, but I believe that he was made sin. God's wrath came down
upon him and the Father saw him as utterly obnoxious. When the Lord Jesus was hanging
there on the cross, crying, I'm a worm and no man, not even be
fit to be called the man when he was hanging on the cross.
He didn't have the satisfaction of knowing, well, I didn't really
do this. I'm doing it for somebody else.
That thought never passed through our Lord's mind. He knew that
this was his sin. My sin became His. He took my
sins and my sorrows and made them His very own. He bore the
burden to Calvary and suffered and died alone. He didn't have
the satisfaction, no, I'm not really guilty. No, He felt the
shame. He felt the humiliation. He felt
the degradation of this sin before His Father. That's why He was
ashamed. It actually was His. So He couldn't say, I didn't
really do this. When he was hanging on that cross,
he didn't have any of his disciples saying, oh, thank you for doing
this for us. We know you're doing it for us.
We love you for this. No, he was all alone, bearing
the wrath of God as the sin-bearing substitute. He offered up himself. 1 Peter chapter 2, verse 24 says, who his own self bear, you might
know the rest of the verse, our sins. It doesn't simply say he
bore the punishment of our sins or that he bore the guilt of
our sins. It says who his own self bear
our sins in his own body on the tree. that we, being dead to
sin, should live unto righteousness, by whose stripes you are healed. Now, here's what is so glorious
about this. Just as literally and truly as
my sin becoming His, and Him bearing it, just as literally
and actually and truly as my sin became His, His perfect righteousness,
His holiness, His harmlessness, His being undefiled, His separation
from sinners, all that is mine. Now, that's a perfect sacrifice.
And what is said about this perfect sacrifice? He offered up Himself. He offered up himself. All that
means he offered up himself and he did so voluntarily. He said,
no man takes my life from me. I have power to lay it down.
I have power to take it up. This commandment have I received
of my father. He offered up himself, and I love thinking about this. He offered himself. I don't try offering anything.
Where the remission of these is, there's no more offering
for sin. He offered up himself. I don't
offer up anything. He offered up himself. You see,
the offering's already been made. And I rest in him. He offered
up himself. Better offer up to God something.
Better not. There's one offering that's been
accepted. And to offer up anything else is obnoxious to God. He offered up Himself. And then
to think that He offered up Himself and all that that means. Now, the fact that He offered
up Himself tells us that He actually died and He was raised from the
dead, and His sacrifice is a perfect sacrifice. Turn with me to Hebrews
chapter 10. Now, He had a perfect life. That's
the priest I need, someone who can represent me before God,
someone whom God will hear because of his perfect life, the righteousness
he worked out for me. Now look at Hebrews 10, beginning
in verse 9. Then said he, Lo, I come to do
thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that
first, the Old Testament, that he may establish the second,
the covenant of grace, by the witch will, by God's will. He
said, I came to do thy will, by God's will. We are sanctified
through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. When Jesus Christ died on the
cross, God said regarding every single person he died for, they're
holy, they're sanctified. And that once for all means it's
perfectly completed, never to be repeated. You see, he offered
this sacrifice in such a way as where it never has to be done
again, because it's perfect. Perfect. He had, let's go on
reading, verse 12. And every priest standeth daily,
ministering, offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which could
never take away sins. But this man, after he had offered
one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of
God, from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his
footstool, for by one offering he hath perfected forever been
bitter sanctified. Thank God for this one offering,
this perfect sacrifice. Now that's the high priest I
need. I need one who is sinless, one who has the ear of God. I
need one who offered up a perfect sacrifice. His holy life becomes
us, His perfect sacrifice becomes us, and His high position becomes
us. Look back in our text in Hebrews
chapter 7. It says in the last phrase of
verse 26 that He is made higher than the heavens. This refers to His place of ministry. his position. He is made higher
than the heavens. He's seated at the right hand
of God, the place of favor and the place of power. Now, this
is the priest we need, one who is higher than the heavens, not
one who's down here like us, but one who is higher than the
heavens, one that has favor with God, one that God must hear,
because he offered up himself. Now, because this high priest
became the lowest, and that's exactly what he did. He became
least in the kingdom of heaven. He became where he said, I'm
a worm and not even fit to be called a man. Because he became
the lowest. And that's what happened on the
cross. Who can understand it? I don't, but I believe it. He
became lowest. And because he became the lowest,
God hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is above
every name. Turn with me to Philippians 2.
Let's read that passage of scripture. Philippians chapter 2. Let this mind be in you, which
was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought
it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation
and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the
likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled
himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the
cross. Wherefore, God also hath highly
exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name, that
at the name of Jesus Every knee should bow, things in heaven
and things in earth and things under the earth, and that every
tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of
God the Father. Now, the place of his ministry
is not some dark confessional booth where men confess their
sins to other men. That's so unclean. That's so
ungodly. But that's not the place of his
ministry. He's not some dark confession.
He's at the right hand of the Father. He's there right now
at the very right hand of the Father. Turn with me to Hebrews
chapter 9, verse 24. For Christ is not entered into the
holy place made with hands, which are the figures of the true,
but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God
for us, nor yet that he should offer himself often as the high
priest entered into the holy place every year with the blood
of others. For then must he have often suffered since the foundation
of the world. But now, once in the end of the
world, hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of
himself. And that's exactly what he did.
He put away sin. All my sin, put away. I don't
have any sin. It's blotted out. And as it is
appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment,
so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many and unto
them that look for him. And I'm one of those people.
I'm looking for him. I look for Him in His Word. I
look for Him in the preaching of the Word. I look for Him on
Judgment Day. When my name is called on Judgment
Day, I'm looking for Him to stand before me and to represent me. To them that look for Him. Would
that describe you? Somebody who looks for Him? I'm
looking for Him right now. I'm looking for Him to come and
say, Lord, have mercy on me. Lord, save me. Lord, do something
for me. I'm looking for Him. To them that look for Him shall
He appear the second time without sin. unto salvation. Because of his high place, the
right hand of the Father, having finished the work the Father
gave him to do, he's exactly the high priest I need. Look in verse 28 of our text
in Hebrews chapter 7. Now, we've talked about his perfect
life, we've talked about his perfect sacrifice, we've talked
about his perfect position. But look at verse 28. For the
law maketh men high priests which have infirmities. But the word
of the oath, thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek,
the word of the oath which was since the law maketh the son
who is consecrated. who is perfected forevermore,
who is completed forevermore. Now, what all does that mean?
I think that's an interesting... As a matter of fact, I never
really thought about this passage of Scripture where it says the Son is perfected
forevermore. I thought He already was perfected.
Well, in His person He was, but I want you to think about this,
and this is one of the great mysteries of the Gospel. Our
Gospel is such a glorious, mysterious, awesome, And here's why. The Lord Jesus Christ, in and
of himself, I realize that he doesn't need me, he doesn't need
you. He's the God man. But it's also true that he is
united with every single one of his people. And he would not
be complete. He would not be perfected. He
would be incomplete without me. If you're a believer, he would
be incomplete without you. You see, the head has a body. You're the body of Christ and
members in particular. The groom has a wife, has a bride,
and the Lord Jesus Christ would not be complete without all of
his members. To finish the work the Father
gave Him to do. And what was that? To save His body. To save His members. To save
His bride. To save everybody that the Father
gave Him. That was His purpose. And when
He did it, the Son was perfected. The Son was completed forevermore. Now, you want to talk about a
reason to feel like you have some significance. Take this away that I don't have
any significance. A fly, you're a fly, worm, whatever you want
to call it. Not a lot to us. But in the Lord
Jesus Christ, I have such significance that He would not be complete
without me. Now, do I understand it? No. Do I
believe it? Yes, I do. The Son is perfected. forevermore. Turn to John 17. It overwhelms me to think that
Jesus Christ actually loves me, that He knows me, and that He
would not be complete without me. That just overwhelms me to
think that. I belong to the Lord. I'm special. I'm special. Every believer is
special. Every believer is special to
the Lord Jesus Christ. Isn't that a wonderful thought?
Because I know the way we think about ourselves. We think about
ourselves and you think, you think, how could the Lord love
me? We think he tolerates us somehow, but that's not the way
it is. To him, every believer is special, and bears my significance. Look at John chapter 17, beginning
in verse 20. Neither pray I for these alone, the eleven, but
for them also which shall believe on me through their word. Notice
he says, if anybody ends up believing. No, he doesn't say anything like
that at all. He says they shall believe because all the elect shall believe.
This is his prayer for all of the elect. Neither pray I for
these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through
their word, that they all may be one. As thou, Father, art
in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us, that the
world may believe that thou hast sent me, and the glory which
thou gavest me I have given them, that they may be one, even as
we are one. I in them, and thou in me, that
they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that
thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou has loved me." If
that wasn't in the Bible, I wouldn't believe it. But there it is. However God
the Father loved His Son, that is how He loved me. Now I want
to close by looking at a few verses out of Psalm 138. And
this is the high priest who became us. One who had this perfect
life, this perfect sacrifice, this perfect position, one who
is perfected forevermore. What about me being perfected?
Well, if I'm one with Him, I will be perfected. But this is a scripture
that came to my mind when I was trying to meditate on Christ
being perfected and me being perfected. Can you see if you
can enter into this passage of Scripture? Psalm 138, verse 6. Though the Lord be high, yet hath he respect unto the
lowly, but the proud he knoweth afar off. Though I walk in the
midst of trouble, thou wilt revive me Thou shalt stretch forth thine
hand against the wrath of mine enemies, and thy right hand shall
save me." Now look at the confidence of this statement. The Lord will
perfect that which concerneth me. And here's how it comes. Thy
mercy, O Lord. That's why we can say with such
confidence that the Lord will perfect that which concerns us
because of his mercy. It endures forever. And then
he says, forsake not the work of thine own hands. And let me ask you a question.
Your salvation. Is it the work of your hands
or is it the work of his hands? I know this. My salvation is
the work of His hands. So I say, forsake not the work
of thine own hands. Now, every believer, every believer
can have this joyous confidence. The Lord will perfect that which
concerneth me. Let's pray together.