Hebrews 4:14-5:10- Jesus the great high priest

Hebrews 4:14-5:10

Psalm 110

Jesus: The great high priest

Has anyone ever heard of a bloke called John Button?

John Button was convicted for the murder of his girlfriend, Rosemary Anderson.

At the time of Anderson’s death, back in 1963, Button was only 19 years old and his girlfriend, Anderson was only 17.

On the night Anderson was killed, Button had a fight with his girlfriend, which was not uncommon, Anderson had stormed off, which again was not unusual, Button followed Anderson in his car and tried to persuade her to come back.- back to his house from where she had come from.

Later that same night, Button took the his dying girlfriend Anderson to his local doctor , but the doctor couldn’t save her. That night Anderson had been killed- she was dead.

Button was convicted and put in jail for the murder of his girlfriend.

Button and his girlfriend had a fight, it was also discovered that his car was in some sort of a crash that night, Button had possibly lost control, hit his girlfriend and in his panic took her to the local doctor.

There was only one slight problem with the conviction of Button…….the serial killer Eric Edgar Cooke had already confessed to the murder of Button’s girlfriend, Anderson.

Button had left Anderson that night, after he couldn’t convince her to get back in the car and drove back later to find her lying on the side of the road.

Button was innocent……..but despite his innocence, Button spent 5 years in prison and was never fully acquitted until 37 years later in 2002, when he was 56 years old.

At the age of 56, when he was finally acquitted, he joined, what is called the innocence project in Western Australia which fights for those who have been wrongly convicted.

There are so many questions that spring to mind about John Button aren’t there?

The most obvious one?

Was he really innocent, or did he do it?

I wonder if he had better lawyers to represent him, if the original outcome would have different?

Surely a better lawyer could have used the confession of the serial killer better?

Would it made any difference if Button had more money to pay better lawyers?

I wonder if his track record of fights with his girlfriend went against him?

I wonder if he was happy to take the guilty plea, because he felt responsible for leaving his girlfriend alone on the street, that night?

So many questions……

Well friends, today I want us to picture ourselves in the courtroom of God.

Gathered around the supreme Judge God, gathered around his throne.

Imagine, if you will, there you are in the dock- just you, waiting to hear your verdict.

And you are facing your creator, your sustainer, your judge, and we are facing the charge of SIN.

And before we even say anything to our God, our judge, we must understand this fact, it is crucial, crucial, if we are going to understand the passage we are looking at today, but it is also crucial for us to really understand this wonderful thing we call the gospel- the work and person of Jesus.

We must acknowledge, that as we stand before our creator, our judge, we are guilty.

We are all guilty, we are all sinners….and so we don’t plead guilty because we may feel guilty, but we plead guilty because we are guilty.

One of the tragedies of pastors not letting their people know this fact, is that people wrongly assume they are innocent and so they devote their lives trying to present their innocent case before God. They spend their whole lives trying to do what is simply impossible to do- claim their innocence before God.

Not even Job could do that!

“Look God, I’m a good person, I pay my taxes, I do good work in the community, I love my family, I go to church at least once a month, I pray, I read my bible now and again, I don’t do any body any harm, I serve in the church, I do this, I do that….surely I am good enough for you to declare me innocent”

Friends, we are guilty, we are sinners, for no-one is right with God, not one, all have fallen short, all have sinned, we were born sinners.

If we don’t plead guilty, the rest of this passage makes no sense,

If we don’t plead guilty then you are basically telling God, you don’t need Him, and you don’t need His son Jesus.

I think one of the main reasons, we don’t believe deep down, we are sinners, why we deep down, don’t believe we are guilty, is because we really don’t know who God is.

We perhaps domesticate God and make Him out to be some sort of “buddy” and yet we fail to remember as the writer of Hebrews tells us in chapter 12:29, that our God is a consuming fire- you don’t want to mess or play with fire, you will get burnt.  You don’t want to fall into the hands of the living God, who judges the dead and living.

God is to be feared above all else.

We tend to forget that God is so Holy, that it is just impossible for any sin to come into contact with Him. We worship a God who is so Holy, that darkness flees from his presence, we worship a God that is so Holy, that the whole earth trembles at his voice.

So friends, there is the tough news we all need to hear- we stand guilty before our judge who is an all-consuming fire…..but if we own that, if we accept we are guilty, by the grace of God working through us, then the next bit of news is the sweetest news you will ever hear.

God has given us the best lawyer in the world- Jesus.

In fact, that would be unjust to call Jesus just the best lawyer in the world, God has given us an advocate, Jesus, who not only pleads on our behalf, but also takes the punishment we should receive for our guilty verdict.

God has done for us, what we could never ever do for ourselves.

Through his son- His one and only son, he declares us innocent, even though we are guilty, He declares us justified, even though we are sinners….and why?....

Because the perfect one Jesus stands in the dock for us, as our representative before our all-consuming God.

And unlike perhaps many lawyers, who may be in it, just for the money, Jesus doesn’t advocate for you for any personal gain, but he advocates for us, because he loves us, he cares for us. He advocates for us because he knows what your struggles are, he knows your weaknesses, he knows what it is like to be tempted with sin, he knows what it is like to suffer, he knows what it is like to grieve. He truly knows you, every nut and cranny!

And so Jesus is not a cold hardened advocate, he passionately advocates for you-

Perhaps opposite to a lawyer today, who are perhaps told not to get too close with their clients, not to care too much, they don’t want to cross any personal boundaries- and yet for Jesus as our advocate- that is simple impossible.

Jesus has already gone all in for you!

Look at Hebrews 4:14-16 with me:

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.¹⁵ For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. ¹⁶ Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Friends, are you in grief over the death of a loved one?

Jesus knows how you feel, his friend Lazarus died, he wept.

Are you physically suffering?

Jesus knows how you feel, he was tortured and beaten on a cross, died the most cruel death you could imagine.

Have you been betrayed by a close friend?

Jesus knows how you feel, Judas betrayed him for a few silver coins

Are you tempted to sin?

Jesus knows how you feel, he was tempted in every way, but never sinned.

Jesus understands you and he stands alongside you- He is for you!

This is the absolute beauty of the gospel- Jesus knows us inside and out, he knows we are sinful and yet he still advocates for us before God, so that God declares us innocent.

More than innocent, but even one of his own children.

Jesus doesn’t sweep our sins under the carpet, but he brings our repentant sins before our Father and says- “I have paid for those”.

I can almost picture my saviour advocating to his Father on my behalf.

He takes those confessed sins and then almost apologises for me. You know what Paul is like, he struggles with this sin, and yet by your grace he keeps repenting, you know what Paul is like, he has this character flaw and yet by your grace he keeps changing to be more like you.

What a wonderful advocate we have.

An advocate who will never ever let us down.

This is why we can approach the throne of Grace at any time, knowing that his mercy and grace will never run dry.

Of course, the scriptures don’t speak of Jesus like a lawyer, that would be disappointing, but the scriptures speak of Jesus as a high priest, which is much, much more than the job of a lawyer.

And what did the high priest do?

He acted as a mediator between sinful man and a Holy God.

If you remember back to our preaching series from Leviticus, the high priest would go into to the Holy of Holies, which was the inner, inner sanctuary of the tabernacle , just once a year, on what was called the DAY OF ATONEMENT- DAY OF AT-ONE-WITH-GOD, and he would make a sacrifice on behalf of all the people of Israel for their sins, so they could continue in their relationship with God.

Now, only the high priest, who was Aaron at first, could enter the holy of holies and he could only enter after making sacrifices for his own sin. The high priest would enter that place with fear and trepidation, often with a rope around his ankle, in case he dropped dead while in the holy of Holies and had to be dragged out, without anyone else encroaching into the presence of God.

The sinful high priest in a sense met with the very presence of a Holy God. Any unrepentant sin in the priests life simply couldn’t co-exist with a holy God.

And so this priest, who was appointed by God from amongst the people of Israel was able to represent the people before God, as well as representing God before the people. He was a mediator.

The high priests were a gift given by God to his people, and this passage mentions three things about these high priests.

1.        God appointed them.

2.        The high priests were able to sympathise with the people’s sins, because they too were sinners, they too had to make sacrifices for their sins, they too had weaknesses like all the people and so as it says in verse 2, they were able to deal gently with the wayward and ignorant.

Just a quick note, dealing gently with sinners, is not the same as “not dealing with sinners”

3.        They made sacrifices on behalf of the people.

Now as good as a gift those priests and high priests were to God’s people at that time, they still lacked. They were insufficient.

For example, the priests lacked being a consistent advocate for God’s people.

They were not on call 24 hours a day. In fact the Day of Atonement was once a year, people had to live with the guilt for a long time before having their sins atoned for.

The high priests, were just human and so eventually they died.

They obviously couldn’t advocate for God’s people when they were dead.

And perhaps one of the greatest things the priests and high priests lacked was that the sacrifices they made weren’t actually able take away the sins of the people and deal with them, for good.

The sacrifices themselves were insufficient.

Look at what Hebrews 10:4 says

It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

With all this insufficiency, the high priests did ultimately what Moses did, they did ultimately what the sacrificial system did, they did ultimately what the tabernacle and temple did, they ultimately pointed us to something or should I say some one better- they pointed us to the perfect high priest- Jesus.

The insufficient pointed towards the sufficient.

As it tells us in chapter 4 verse 14, Jesus as our high priest didn’t pass into the earthly tabernacle, he didn’t enter the inner sanctuary of the earthly temple, once a year, NO, He entered the better temple, the heavenly tabernacle.

Jesus entered the very presence of God in heaven.

Jesus got closer to God than any of the earthly priests in the earthly temple and so he is able to advocate for us much more effectively than any earthly high priest.

He has top level access.

And unlike earthly priest who eventually died, Jesus never dies, he is like a priest in the order of Melchizedek-who was a priest and a king.

Who is Melchizedek? Well we are going to get to him more in chapter 7

And Jesus not only got closer to His father, but He is constantly in his presence and so unlike the earthly high priest who drifted in and out of his presence, Jesus is constantly advocating for us, at his father’s side. – 24/7.

And because Jesus is sinless, there is no delay in him advocating for our sins. Unlike the priests of old who had to be cleansed of their own sin, by performing a sacrifice and washing and washing,  Jesus doesn’t have to go through that ritual, he just is constantly speaking to his father on our behalf.

And unlike the sacrifices of goats and bulls, which can’t take away sins, the sacrifice of Jesus did take away our sins. Take away any punishment we should receive for our sins, take away sin being our master…….yes…….we still sin, but because of the sacrifice of Jesus it no longer condemns us, masters us eternally.

Praise God.

And so friends, I hope today, you may know again, or perhaps for the first time that you need your high priest- Jesus.

You need to trust that Jesus cares for you and that he wants the best for you and He will defend you, literally to the death.

Trust that Jesus will speak on your behalf to our God.

It can be the hardest thing in the world to choose to trust someone.

But I hope you can let go and trust Jesus to be your advocate.

As we are looking to subdivide some of the land here at Wingham, I have to choose to trust people. I have to choose to trust my surveyor.

I choose to trust my surveyor to act on our best interests as he deals with council.

As some of you may know, Mid coast council speak and act in ways which are foreign to me. I cannot speak or act in council language, it just makes no sense to me- and yet my surveyor can, he can speak council lingo and he speaks my lingo-he acts as a mediator between me and council- and yet I have chosen to trust this surveyor who is just as sinful as me, to mediate.

Friends, we have a mediator between us and God, who we can fully trust.

He is sinless, he is perfect- He is God’s own son.

He not only advocates for us, but he was willing to die for us.

Perhaps today friends, is the day you approach the throne of grace.

The day you trust Jesus as your mediator.

Let us pray