Preached Sunday, May 23, 2010
from
Hebrews 4:14-16

Theme: Because of Jesus, we are invited to come boldly to the throne of God’s grace, and receive all that we need.

(Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version; copyright 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.)

Seeing then that 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 cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:14-16).

What great words! Really, they give us the key theme of the New Testament book of Hebrews—that we have a great High Priest in Jesus. But I believe, more than that, they give us a description of what a true Christian does—that he or she, through Jesus, comes faithfully and boldly to the throne of grace for every need in life.

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We don’t know for certain just who it is that wrote this great New Testament letter called Hebrews. There’s good reason, I believe, for thinking that it was Paul; but no one can say for sure. But one thing we can be sure of is why it was written. It was written to encourage Jewish Christians, living in the turbulent times of the first century, to stay true to their faith in Jesus Christ in the face of great persecution; and to not—out of fear or doubt—return to their old ways of seeking to please God through works of religious ritual.

And if you’ll look carefully at our passage this morning, you’ll see this is expressed in two key exhortations—two key instructions that we, as Christians living in times such as ours, also very much need to hear today.

The first exhortation is found at the end of verse 14; where the writer says, “. . . let us hold fast our confession . . .” The ‘confession’ that he speaks of (or the ‘faith’ as it is in some translations) is, first of all, the stand we take upon what the Scriptures tell us about Jesus Christ. If you’ll look at 3:1, you’ll see that the writer says, “Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus . . .” Our “confession” is our full, heart-felt, humble agreement with the testimony of Scripture concerning Jesus. And second, it’s the hope of absolute acceptance in the sight of a holy God on the day of judgment on the basis of our faith in what Jesus has done for us on the cross. As it says in Hebrews 10:22-23, “. . . . let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.”

And note what it is that we’re to do with this confession. We’re to “hold it fast” or “firmly”. We certainly need to hear that exhortation today; don’t we? In fact, we wouldn’t even need to be exhorted to ‘hold it fast’ if it weren’t for the fact that we would—at times—feel the great temptation to cast it aside!

Back in the times when those words were first written, there was a great deal of pressure applied to those early Jewish Christians to abandon their faith in Jesus. They suffered great persecution for their faith in Him. And they were very much tempted to abandon it all and return to the old religious rituals and regulations of Judaism. And likewise, we who follow Jesus today also feel a great deal of pressure to abandon our faith in Him! We’re told—on almost every side—that the testimony of Scripture about Jesus is all a myth; and that the advances of science and the progress of human reason have reduced all that the Bible tells us to utter foolishness. We’re made to feel that trusting in Jesus, and seeking to be right with God through faith in Him, is a crutch for weak people—and that modern psychology and a proper sense of the ‘spiritual self’ is all that we really need to be emotionally and spiritually sound. What’s more, we’re being told increasingly that following Jesus as the Bible teaches us to isn’t just unnecessary—it’s positively harmful to the health and well-being of culture as a whole; that those who follow Jesus end up condemning certain things as ‘sinful’; and that a faith in Him turns such people into intolerant extremists who deny others the right and freedom to live as they wish.

In the light of all the pressures against our faith today, it’s hard to think of a word of exhortation that we need to hear more than this one—to “hold fast our confession”. The world, and the devil, and all the forces of hell itself would seem to throw everything they can at us to discourage us, or oppose us, and even to threaten us, to cast our faith in Him aside. But we must not do so! We must stay true to our faith in Him no matter what! We must hold on to our trust in Him to the very end—until the day we, at last, behold Him in glory and enter into eternal victory with Him!

That’s the first great exhortation we find in this passage. And the second one is—you might say—the practical application of that first one. The second one is the sensible, reasonable response in action to the first one. We’re not only to hold on tightly to our confession of faith in Jesus, but we’re to put it into use in our everyday lives. You find this second exhortation in verse 16; where the writer says, “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” The idea is to come ‘habitually’, to come ‘repeatedly’, to come as a regular pattern and fundamental characteristic of our lives to the throne of grace through Jesus Christ, and receive—in utter dependency upon Him—all that we need. If we truly believe the confession of faith that the Bible calls us to believe, then we’ll respond to it by turning to God through Jesus Christ for everything.

Dear brothers and sisters; these two exhortations—to “hold fast our confession” concerning Jesus Christ; and to come to the throne of grace faithfully and habitually, through a dependent faith in Jesus, to receive everything we need—constitute the sum and substance of the Christian life! To first faithfully believe everything that the Bible tells us about Jesus without abandoning that faith in times of pressure; and to then put that faith into action by coming regularly to God’s throne, through Jesus, to receive all that we need in glad-hearted reliance upon Him—well; that’s basically what it looks like to live as a Christian!

And the burden I feel from our passage this morning is to remind you of that; and to urge that we all embrace the invitation that this passage offers to us! Because of who Jesus is—because of what He has done for us, and because of what He continues to do for us—because of the unconditional welcome we will receive in Him if we do so—let’s come boldly . . . and receive!

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Now; everything about this invitation points to Jesus. So; I ask that you give your fullest possible attention to God’s word this morning and listen carefully to what it tells us about Him. And as we do, be encouraged—through an unshakable faith in Jesus—to truly make it your habit of life to turn to the throne of grace for everything you need.

And the first thing that this passage teaches us about coming to the throne of grace for everything is . . .

1. OUR BASIS FOR DOING SO (v. 14).

And the basis of it is Jesus’ ministry to us as High Priest. Look at how the writer begins by saying, “Seeing then that we have a great High Priest . . .”

When you read through the book of Hebrews, you see very clearly that that’s one of the great themes of this book—Jesus as our High Priest. It’s stressed throughout this New Testament letter that, just as the Jewish people of old were under the ministry of a high priest, we today are also under the ministry of a high priest. You may be from a Protestant background, or you may have come from a Catholic upbringing, or you may have come from no church background whatsoever; but no matter what, you need a priest in order to have a relationship with a holy God! In fact, you don’t just need a priest—you need a high priest! And the wonderful thing is, you have the perfect High Priest in Jesus Christ.

What’s more, we’re told that Jesus isn’t simply our High Priest. He’s moved a notch above even that, in that He’s called our “great High Priest”! In the Old Testament law, all the priests of the sons of Aaron served under a “high” or “chief” priest. But as the book of Hebrews teaches us, Jesus is a greater High Priests than any that could ever come before or after Him.

Just think of it. When anyone came to the priest at that time, it was because they were sinners. They need to satisfy—to propitiate—the righteous wrath of God for their sins. The very fact of coming to the priest was, itself, an expression of a state of condemnation before a holy God. What’s more, the fact that it was necessary to come again and again was proof that sin was not fully propitiated. Yet, we’re told that Jesus “had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priests in things of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people” (2:17). In coming to Him, we don’t find ourselves in a state of condemnation any longer. He is a “merciful and faithful” High Priest who became like us in order to completely take the guilt of our sin away. “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). He truly is a great High Priest.

What’s more, under the old covenant, all the sons of Aaron who were priests were in the place of priesthood because of the appointment by Moses. They served at the command given by God through Moses—all in accordance with the instructions that were given to him through God’s law regarding the tabernacle. And yet, in 3:3, we’re told this about Jesus: that “this One has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as He who built the house has more honor than the house.” He is greater than Moses. He is greater than the tabernacle that Moses built. And so, He is an even greater High Priest than any that Moses could have appointed.

Jesus’ High Priestly role is also greater because He’s of a different and ‘higher’ priestly order than that of Aaron. We’re told in 5:10 that He was “called by God as High Priest ‘according to the order of Melchizedek’”. Melchizedek was that mysterious priest of God from of old—long before Moses’ day—who once blessed Abraham, and to whom Abraham, as the father of all the Jewish people, honored by giving a tenth of all (Genesis 14:18-20). Melchizedek was a priest of a different priesthood than the one appointed by Moses—one that blessed Abraham, and thus blessed the priests of Aaron that were still “in” Abraham’s body as his as-of-yet-unborn offspring.

In a sense, the priestly ministry of each priest of the priesthood that Moses established—that is, the priesthood of Aaron—came to an end ‘one priest at a time’; because each priest was an imperfect man who eventually died. But Jesus is High Priest of the priesthood of Melchizedek—a priesthood that was long before that of Aaron, and that the Scriptures testify will not end. As Hebrews 7:23-28 says,

Also there were many priests, because they were prevented by death from continuing. But He, because He continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood. Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens; who does not need daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the people’s, for this He did once for all when He offered up Himself. For the law appoints as high priests men who have weakness, but the word of the oath, which came after the law, appoints the Son who has been perfected forever (Hebrews 7:23-28).

Jesus is also of a greater High Priesthood because of where He fulfills His ministry. Human priests from the family of Aaron served in an earth-bound tabernacle. But as the writer of Hebrews says in 8:1, “We have such a High Priest, who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a Minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord erected, and not man.”

And finally, Jesus is a greater High Priest because of what He offers on our behalf. As it says in 9:11-14;

But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? (Hebrews 9:11-14).

When the high priest of old offered an offering for sin, he had to do so repeatedly. When he reappeared to the people back then, it was to once again offer atonement for their sin. His constant repetition of the offering was proof that it didn’t fully remove sin. But because our Lord offered Himself, He needed to make an offering for our sins only once—and one offering of Himself is forever sufficient for our needs;

not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another—He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation (Hebrews 9:25-28).

Now all of this is important for us to see. It all shows us that ours is a truly “great” High Priest! As the writer of Hebrews says, He is One who has “passed through the heavens”—that is, who has come down to the earth, has completely finished His atoning work on our behalf, and has now ascended back to the Father. He has “not entered into the holy place made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us . . .” (Hebrews 9:24). And He does this for us, not only as one of us—that is, as fully human; but also as one who is the God/Man—both fully God and fully man. He is, as the writer of Hebrews says, “Jesus”—which speaks of His humanity; “the Son of God”—which speaks of His deity!

Does the truth of all this grip your soul? Do you believe what the Bible tells us about Him, and trust Him in the way that the Bible calls us to trust Him? Having professed to trust Him once in the past, do you trust Him even still today? You must! It’s this very same Jesus—the Son of God, our “great” High Priest who has passed through the heavens—who is the basis of our being able to confidently approach the throne of grace every moment of every day to receive whatever we need. And we must hold on tightly to Him, and never let go of our faith in Him; because His great High Priesthood is the basis of it all!

“Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.”

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Now; not only is He the basis of our freedom to ‘come boldly to receive’; but He’s also . . .

2. OUR COMFORT IN DOING SO (v. 15).

Because of Jesus, we need never fear coming to God for everything we need. Through Him, we can have the full assurance that we can approach God for mercy and grace—weak and frail and fallible as we are—and be fully and lovingly accepted in doing so. The writer of Hebrews goes on to say, “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses . . .”

Now; when I think of this, I always think of the story from the Old Testament of the priest Eli. He was high priest before the time of the birth of the Old Testament prophet Samuel. Samuel’s mother and father—two very godly people—were not able to have children; and Samuel’s mother-to-be, Hannah, went to the temple to fall before God and plead for a child. She would go to the temple and pray—moving her lips silently. Old Eli—a very unsympathetic and ungracious high priest—saw her moving her lips and completely misinterpreted her actions. He came and rebuked her, saying, “How long will you be drunk? Put your wine away from you!” (1 Samuel 1:14). Can you imagine how much that must have hurt poor Hannah? She humbly explained that she was praying; and Eli then blessed her request. She left joyfully, because the high priest—in spite of himself—had blessed her request; and she had the baby boy Samuel not long afterwards. But I share that story just to stress that our High Priest is not like old Eli. He doesn’t look down upon us harshly—from His position of holiness high above us. He doesn’t misunderstand and misinterpret our situation, and condemn us for our weaknesses.

In fact, even when we fail—even when we blow it terribly, and must humbly fall before Him repeatedly and confess our sins and our faults in shame and sorrow—our High Priest looks down upon us with nothing but love and compassion. The writer of Hebrews reminds us that He “was in all points tempted as we are . . .” He knows, from personal experience, what it’s like to be tempted. He knows what it’s like to feel the weaknesses we feel. He set His heavenly glory aside for a time, took full humanity to Himself, and felt every form of struggle that we feel. Yet, as the writer of Hebrews tells us, He did so “without sin”. He was tempted in every way that we could be tempted; but He never once gave in to that temptation and sinned. So; He can not only sympathize fully with our struggles and comfort us, but He is also our inspiration and example and Helper in times of weakness.

When you and I sin, dear brothers and sisters, we can come to Jesus. We can be completely honest with Him, and fully admit the truth of our failure. And when we do, we find that He doesn’t stop loving us. Instead, He lovingly welcomes us, assures us that He knows—from personal experience—what it’s like to be tempted, lets us know that He has fully paid the penalty for our sin as our High Priest with the offering of His own blood, and calls us to now rise up and walk with Him in holiness.

As the apostle Paul writes elsewhere, God “made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

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So; the basis of our coming boldly to the throne of grace for our every need is Jesus Himself; who is our all-sufficient High Priest. And our comfort in doing so is also Jesus Himself; who was tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin.

And finally, notice . . .

3. OUR PROVISION THROUGH DOING SO (v. 16).

As the writer of Hebrews says, “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

Consider what it is to which we come—”the throne of grace”. Ordinarily, when you and I think of thrones, we think of two things—authority and judgment. If we’re on favorable terms with that “authority” when we approach a throne, we’re going to be fine. But if we’re on the wrong side of that “authority”—if we have disobeyed it, or rebelled against it, or fallen short of it’s standards in some way—then we approach with fear and trembling, because our approach to the throne means “judgment”.

But look at what the throne of God is called here—”the throne of grace”. It still means “authority”, because a holy God is seated upon it. And it still means “judgment” because we’re sinners before that holy God. But because of Jesus, our sympathetic great High Priest; and because of His all-sufficient sacrifice for us; it is now a throne of “grace”.

And because that’s true, consider next how it is that we may approach it—”boldly” or “confidently”. You and I don’t need to approach the heavenly Father’s throne timidly and with uncertainty—as if we’re not really sure whether we ought to come and ask anything of Him. Instead—though we certainly come reverently—we may come boldly and confidently. Through Jesus, we may ask from our heavenly Father whatever it is that we may need.

And finally, notice what it is that we’re invited to come and confidently receive. First, we’re invited to come boldly and receive mercy. Now; that’s exactly where you and I need to start, because we’re sinners. And we can freely come as needy sinners and receive mercy; because, as Hebrews 7:25 says, “Therefore He [that is, Jesus] is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.” The Lord Jesus sits at the right hand of the throne of God and pleads His own blood as the payment for our sins—thus turning for us the throne of the living God into “a throne of grace”!

And second, we’re invited to come confidently and “find grace to help in time of need”. Do you ever need wisdom in times of trial? You may come and ask for all the wisdom you need from your wise High Priest. Do you ever need strength in times of temptation? You may come and ask for strength from Him who was tempted in every way you could be tempted—yet without sin. Do you ever need courage in the face of fear? You may come and ask for it from Him who has overcome all things, and who possesses all authority, and who is seated at the right hand of the heavenly Father

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To put it plainly, there isn’t a single problem you or I can face that Jesus Christ is not sufficient to solve for us—if we will but come to Him and ask, trust in His power, and do as He commands! He is our all-sufficient “great High Priest”; and has paid the debt of our sin fully. He has opened the door for us to come and enter into full, happy, dependent fellowship with His Father. And just to make it clear to us—as if giving this invitation just once isn’t enough—the writer of Hebrews gives us almost the same exact invitation in 10:19-23 that he gives us in this morning’s passage; when he says;

Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful (Hebrews 10:19-23).

That’s truly what the Christian life looks like—to hold fast our confession in faith; and then, on the basis of that faith, come boldly to the throne of grace and receive! By God’s grace, may it be the consistent, daily, moment-by-moment habit of our lives to do so!