Hebrews 4:14-16
May be seated. Our reading from
the New Testament today is from the fourth chapter of Hebrews,
Hebrews chapter four, verses 14 through 16. If you make a long journey, which
we are through the book of Hebrews, sometimes it’s good to stop and
look at the map. And today in chapter four, verses
14 through 16, we have a passage that in a real way, in a literary
way, and in a structural way in the book of Hebrews. It connects
us with what we have seen through the early chapters, and it connects
us to what we will see in the chapters to come. And that is
centered around Jesus being the high priest. Our passage today
will look back as we see that Jesus is the great high priest
who is a faithful son of God. And then it helps us look forward
to what’s coming, where we see Jesus is a faithful high priest
who can help us through our needs as we live life in this world.
We have Jesus, a high priest who sits on a throne in heaven,
but also Jesus, a high priest who has a human nature and he
knows and understands and feels what is taking place in your
everyday life. And so what our preacher in Hebrews
is telling us is you have a high priest that is exactly what you
need. He’s been spending the first
four chapters of Hebrews telling you that. And he’ll also spend
the next three chapters telling you that in a different way.
So hold on to your hats as we continue our adventure through
the book of Hebrews. Let us hear God’s word together
from Hebrews chapter four, beginning at verse 14, where we read since
then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens,
Jesus, the son of God. Let us hold fast our confession,
for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with
our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted
as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw
near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and
find grace to help in our time of need. This is God’s word for
us. Let’s pause now and ask for his
grace that we may understand it. Pray with me. Our God, we
thank you that you not only speak to us, but that you shine the
light of your spirit into our hearts and our minds and our
souls so that seeing we perceive, hearing we understand, and then
understanding You give us the heart and the desire to go and
do that which you command us in your scripture. We thank you
for this grace of speaking, but also enabling us to hear and
believe and interpret, and especially to go and obey. Lord, soften
our hearts, give clarity to our eyes, and make us ready and willing
and able this day to go forth from here From time to time,
there are different television shows that, as you flip through
the channels, catch your attention. One in particular that has caught
my attention over the last few years is one I believe that’s
on CBS, and it’s called Undercover Boss. And in this show, the CEO
of a company, the head honcho, if you will, he leaves the corporate
tower. He leaves the ivory tower of
the corporate office. He changes his hair, maybe grows
a beard, puts on different clothing. studies up on what type of mannerisms
he ought to get rid of and also pick up. And he basically does
this. He goes to the bottom of the
chain and serves as a day laborer, serves as an hourly laborer,
chopping and mucking and sweeping and hauling trash, working for
hourly rates, sweating, but seeing and hearing and understanding
what goes on in the nitty gritty day-to-day portions of his or
her business where they normally sit at the top and don’t see
these things. And what you begin to understand
as you watch this show is this person who is regularly up here
by serving down here learns the realities of the day-to-day business
which they operate from afar. And often at the end of these
episodes, you see that this CEO or president, he begins to value
his employees. He wants to improve conditions.
He identifies leaders. He sees character and wants to
reward good work. In some sense, you might say
it’s a project in research and development. But what you often
see at the end of these shows is this, this leader is no longer
aloof. He is no longer disconnected
from who works for him and what it takes to make that business
run day to day. He now knows, she now understands
what it takes to work in their business. If you’re into business
management or maybe are a leader in your place of employment,
you understand this is management by walking around. You don’t
sit in your office and make rules and push papers. You get out.
You walk the line. You work the line. You see what
it takes to work. You walk in another’s shoes.
You gain street credit. Well, this is helpful for us
to understand. As we live life in this world,
a life that is very hard and difficult, one full of trials
and temptations, we begin to wonder, as maybe sometimes these
employees may, we begin to wonder does anybody know or care or
see or feel what we endure? We begin to wonder if God, if
the boss, if the CEO knows and sees and cares how we feel. And we have a wonderful and clear
picture today of the answer to that question. And the answer
is yes. We have a God-man, a Son of God, a High Priest who knows
and cares and sympathizes with us. In this little passage of
Hebrews, this passage which is a hinge to the past and a hinge
to the future, it tells us in chapters 3 and 4 that Jesus is
a powerful High Priest, who is able and powerful to do all that
we need as a high priest, but it also tells us and looks forward
to chapters 5 through 7 that we have a high priest like us
in every way who is able to understand and sympathize with us in our
position in life. And so I want us to understand
this Jesus, this high priest in two ways. Jesus is a powerful
high priest and then Jesus as a sympathetic high priest. And
then both of those facts, the powerful high priest and the
sympathetic high priest, will motivate us to hold fast our
confession as well as to boldly and confidently approach the
throne of grace in our time of need. First, let’s consider Jesus,
our powerful high priest. We read of him in verse 14, where
it says, since then, we have a great high priest. who has
passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God. Let us hold fast
our confession.” What does it say of Jesus? It says He is a
great high priest. He is the Son of God. He is a
better high priest, better than the high priest of the Old Covenant,
of the line of Aaron who served God faithfully, and in some cases
unfaithfully for generations. We have a better high priest.
a great high priest, even Jesus, the Son of God. As we’ve made
our way through Hebrews, we’ve read of this Jesus, this high
priest. He’s been faithful to God. He’s been mighty in power.
He is qualified as a high priest, and he is an excellent one. What
is it that a high priest does? Well, two things in the Old Covenant
we see. The high priest would teach the
law of God, but he would also make offerings and sacrifices
for the people. And we have seen demonstrated
in Hebrews, that Jesus speaks a better word than the prophets,
a better word than Moses, a better law than was mediated by the
angels. So when Jesus comes to us as
our High Priest, He is the great and best and most wonderful teacher
of the law. When it comes to making sacrifices,
we see in Hebrews, and we will see in Hebrews, that Jesus is
both the offerer and the offering. He is the Lamb of God, slain
before the foundation of the world for our sins. But He is
the High Priest who willingly and very ably offered Himself
up, a sacrifice once and for all for the forgiveness of sins. So we have Jesus, a faithful
and powerful High Priest, who has left this earth and passed
through the heavens and is seated at the right hand of God, the
Father Almighty. He does what he has been sent
and commanded and enabled to do very well. He does it perfectly
so, as the Word of God says. And he has passed through the
heavens and entered the Holy of Holies. And he is a high priest
that is no longer standing at the altar offering sacrifices,
but he is done offering. and He is seated and He is serving
us. There is no better High Priest,
brothers and sisters, than Jesus. Don’t look elsewhere. Don’t go
to a caucus or a poll or an election or a political meeting. No, our
choice has been made for us. and thanks be to God for Jesus,
His great and eternal Son, who is a wonderful High Priest, and
His work is finished. And so what is the motivation
we find? What is the command that we must
follow when we recognize that Jesus, our powerful High Priest,
is ours? Well, it tells us at the end
of verse 14, it says, we must hold fast our confession. for these many chapters in Hebrews.
We’ve been reading examples and reminders of the people of Israel
after they had been rescued from Pharaoh, after they had been
brought up out of the land of slavery, out of the house of
bondage. They were to be free and to enter the promised land.
They spent a period of time in the wilderness, a period of time
of unbelief, of wickedness, turning their backs upon God.
And God says, don’t be like that generation. If you hear the voice
of God, do not harden your hearts as they did in the rebellion.
And so he’s saying, he’s saying in a different way, hold fast
your confession. Don’t let the world influence
you. Don’t let your flesh, your remnant
sin, your weakness influence you. Don’t let the devil tempt
you. Hold fast your confession. You know how it is. We live in
the world and the voices, the voices are screaming at us for
our attention, our allegiance. You don’t need God. You don’t
need Christ. You need some retail therapy.
You need psychobabble. You need to just be richer and
freer and happier. Oh, that’s good in this life,
but friends, there’s a life to come where we’ll face a judge.
And so we’re commanded, we’re exhorted here to hold fast our
confession. And so why is it every week we
say a creed? Is it because we don’t want anybody
to forget the ancient night scene creed or to lose sight of the
different councils that have met over the years? Or we don’t
want the Westminster divine’s hard work to go to waste. So
we just say creeds. Something empty we do just just
to have church. No, we say our creeds because
every day of the week, especially on the Lord’s Day, we want to
see and say and hear and remind ourselves of who God is and what
He’s done. And so we say our creeds, we
recite our catechism, we have our Confession of Faith Sunday
School class down the hall, we sing our hymns, we hear the Word
of God so that we will hold fast our confession and not turn.
and forget and lose heart and give up and say like the Israelites,
our God has forgotten us. We’d rather go back to Egypt
because there we had leeks and onions and fish. No, we don’t
lose sight of heaven. of the promised land, of the
land flowing with milk and honey. We keep the faith. We press on
toward the prize. Yes, the world will scream at
us. Our flesh will fail us and we will wander and we will be
weak and the devil will certainly weigh in upon us. But we press
on. We keep the faith. We fix our
eyes on Jesus. For He is our only Savior and
High Priest who has passed through the heavens and who has sat down
at the right hand of God the Father, His work is done, it
is complete, it is finished, it is effective, and He is there
for you, interceding on your behalf, and He takes you into
the Holy of Holies. A place in the Old Covenant where
the people of God could not go, only the high priest and once
a year. But now Jesus has entered and He gives you free access
to that place. So friends, put your faith in
Him. You’re hoping Him. You’re trusting Him. You rest
in Christ alone for your salvation. And you keep that faith for the
rest of your life. What is the warning which we
have heard over and over in Hebrews? It is fatal. It is fatal. It is deadly to do otherwise. Israel in generations after fell
into unbelief and hardness of heart. and sin and rebellion
and disobedience. They wanted the leeks and the
onions and the fish. They would have been happy to
submit themselves to Pharaoh and his labor camps again and
forsake Yahweh. And what did God say? That generation
will not enter my rest. They will die. And do you remember
Psalm 95? It speaks that lesson to us well. Don’t be like that generation
looking back when you have so much to look forward to. So brothers
and sisters, we hold fast our confession in the midst of charms
and deceit and worldly and momentary offers. We hold fast our confession
to Jesus, the High Priest. so that we might enter rest with
Him. There’s a second thing we should
consider about Jesus. Not only is He a powerful high
priest, but He is Jesus, our sympathetic high priest. He is
powerful, but He’s also sympathetic. Look at verses 15 and 16, where
we see, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize
with our weakness. but one who in every respect
has been tempted as we are yet without sin. Let us then with
confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive
mercy and find grace to help in our time of need.” It’s interesting
here how the Word of God, how the writer of Hebrews speaks
of It speaks of Jesus in a superlative way, but using a negative. Maybe
some of you remember the old commercials. It’s not your father’s
Oldsmobile. What were they saying? This is
a better one. This is a more youthful one,
a sleek one, a fast one. It’s not one the old man would
drive. It’s one the young man ought
to want to drive. And this is what we see here
in this little passage, this few verses of Hebrew. We do not
have a high priest who is unable to sympathize. It’s not a human
high priest who doesn’t know you. It’s not a human high priest
who will fail and think only of himself. You know how it can
be with your pastor and probably it was the way and the Old Testament
with Aaron and his line, we’re just human. We don’t know everything
about you. We are weak and lazy as you can
be. But in Jesus, all those things
are gone. And so we have a high priest
who is powerful, but he is able to sympathize with you. in your time of need. He knows
your temptations. He knows your struggles. He knows
you’re prone to wander. He knows the devil and his temptations. He faced them in the wilderness.
He knows the charms of this world. As we might say in our modern
day language, he’s been there. He’s done that. And he’s got
the T-shirt. And yes, he’s powerful and sits
on the throne of heaven. But brothers and sisters, he’s
been here and he knows what you face. He’s sympathetic. He knows temptation. And notice
what it says about him. In every respect, in every respect,
he’s felt what you felt. And notice what else it says.
Yet, he did not sin. Think back to the two Adams we
bump into in the Bible. The first Adam in paradise. The
first Adam in a garden. The first Adam with every provision
he needed. And God said to that Adam, Do
not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for
in the day you eat of it, you shall surely die. And then think
about the second Adam, Christ. Not in a garden of paradise with
every provision, but in a wilderness. with a rock as a pillow for his
bed at night, without food for 40 days and 40 nights. The serpent
comes to the one Adam in paradise, the man Satan, to Jesus in the
wilderness. One time the serpent questions
Adam and he, did God really say? But he comes to Jesus and he
says, bow down to me and I’ll give you the kingdoms. Jump and
challenge your angels to save you. It goes on and on. Tell these stones to turn into
bread and feed yourself. What does Adam do? Looks good. Tasty. I’m now a God unto myself. I rule myself. But what does
Jesus say? The Word of God says. Worship God only. Man shall not
live by bread alone. God alone, Him alone shall you
serve. And so we see one failure, one
great and cosmic failure, but one grand obedience. And so we have a Savior, we have
a high priest who has been tempted in every way and under worst
circumstances. Tempted and tried, but he passed
where Adam failed. There’s another interesting thing
that we should consider from this passage. When it says he
understands or he can sympathize with our weakness, it’s not just
that he’s sitting in heaven sipping his sweet tea by the throne. He really feels your pain. You remember after 9-11, the
phrase that went around, it said, we’re all New Yorkers. I’m not
a New Yorker. I’m a Southern boy. I’m from
North Carolina. I’m not a New Yorker. But we
felt their pain. We suffered with them. We hurt
with them. We cried with them. We sent help. We went and helped. And that’s
how we need to understand life in the church, but how Jesus
understands and is involved in your life. He really is involved
in your pain and hardship. When you’re weak, He knows it.
When you’re in mourning, He mourns with you. When you’re suffering,
He knows exactly what you’re facing. He is saying, you can
come to me and you have a shoulder to cry on. He knows your frame.
He knows you are fallen. He knows the cursed world you
live in. He knows the sin that is around you. He knows every
bit of it and He can sympathize with you. Think of what our catechism
says about Jesus. Who is the only Redeemer of God’s
elect? It’s the Lord Jesus. What do we know about the Lord
Jesus in His incarnation, His coming to earth? He took to Himself
a true body, He really became human, and a reasonable soul. And we speak of His entering
this world as one of a humiliating entrance. He was born, and that
in a low condition. He was made under the law. He had to obey God perfectly
just as you and I do. And He did, we didn’t. He suffered
the miseries of this life, the curses of God, the wrath of God
at the cross. And he died. He was buried and
he stayed in the grave for a time. Friends, we have better in Jesus
than an undercover boss. We have one who knows life and
suffering and hardship and pain. He knows treason. He knows lying. He knows backstabbing. And he
knows what it means for the father to turn his back in order in
order that he might sympathize with you. He’s been through death
and the grave and hardship. Thanks be to God, he has been
raised from the dead and he is exalted at the right hand of
the Father and he is sitting in heaven as our faithful high
priest. And he is powerful and he is also sympathetic. And so what is the motivation
here? The motivation for him being a powerful high priest
is let’s hold fast to our confession. Don’t give up on this one. He’s
the good one. And now it says of our sympathetic high priest
at the end of 15 and verse 16, it says, let us draw near with
confidence to the throne of grace. Why would you go elsewhere? Why
would you seek help and peace and counsel? Why would you seek
sympathy and forgiveness elsewhere? When God can take you right into
the Holy of Holies, right into the throne room of heaven where
Jesus is, behind the veil, to your great high priest, why would
you go elsewhere? Why would you not hold fast to
your confession? Why would you not enter and go
to the throne of grace? He encourages us to go because
we need grace under fire. And we need grace to give us
forgiveness of our sins. As we saw last week, the Word
of God exposes us. It gets deep into us. It lays
us bare so that God can do His work. And so we are exposed by
the Word. We are worn out by the world.
We are chased by the devil. We are discouraged by our own
sin and weakness. And God says to you who are weak,
who are overwhelmed and helpless, And He says that to all of us.
Look around. We are all in that position. He says, come to the
powerful and sympathetic High Priest. This passage is an interesting
one. It’s one that speaks to the church.
And so when He says, let us, that’s a common phrase. It’s
a common phrase in the book of Hebrews. Let us. He is speaking
to His church. And He’s saying to us together
as a church, He’s saying to us, let us, let us draw near together. Let us draw near to the throne
of grace and find our help in a time of need. And here we come
to the table. Here we come to the Lord’s supper
where we draw near the throne of grace and say, I need food.
I need sustenance. I need help. I need grace and
mercy. And God promises to give that
to us. So let’s pause now and ask for
his help as we approach his table. Pray with me. Our God, we thank
You that You do not leave us alone in the world to live by
our own strength, according to our own devices, and really in
a way that would leave us for failure, but You know us and
You serve us and You provide us every blessing we need in
order that we can live out of Your grace and triumphantly so.
Help us now as we have heard Your Word and as we approach
Your holy table to believe and to live out of this grace. And we thank you for Jesus, our
Savior. In his name we pray, amen.