SPEAKER_00: Ministering to the heart of Western Arkansas's River Valley for over 165 years, welcome to Chapter and First, the Bible teaching ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: You'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg, our ministry staff, and guest speakers.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is faithful.
SPEAKER_01: He cares for us.
SPEAKER_01: He loves us.
SPEAKER_01: The promises of God are there for us to stand on them, even in the most difficult of times.
SPEAKER_01: And so I'd like to talk to you about that today.
SPEAKER_01: Just an encouraging message from God's Word.
SPEAKER_01: So if you'll turn with me in your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 4, I want to talk to you about how Jesus comforts us in difficult times.
SPEAKER_01: It just seems like that describes the world in which we live in today.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, every time you read about the culture, people are struggling, the rates of depression.
SPEAKER_01: They're having to do all kinds of audits on medical professionals and on counselors because they're prescribing so many antidepressants and all of that.
SPEAKER_01: Every time you turn on the television and try to watch the news, if you weren't on antidepressants, you're calling your doctor for them ten minutes into the news broadcast.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, everything is brutal.
SPEAKER_01: And then we go through the life things that we go through.
SPEAKER_01: Lost loved ones who are who we lose and they go to heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Of course, they're not lost, they're in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: But people that we know who have illnesses and struggles, we have financial struggles in our economy today as inflation is taking over, and all of those things are difficult.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm not trying to make you more depressed.
SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to relate and connect that we have these times and they are a part of the life that we go through.
SPEAKER_01: But just as we've just sung, the promises of God are there for us to stand on.
SPEAKER_01: And just because the time may be difficult, the promises of God are every bit as strong, and they are never weakened just because we're going through a difficult time.
SPEAKER_01: Now, the book of Hebrews is an incredible book, and it's one that you could spend a ton of time in.
SPEAKER_01: Incredible richness, both in its theology and in its application to normal life and the things that we go through.
SPEAKER_01: And really, that's what theology should do.
SPEAKER_01: The definition of theology is the study of God or spiritual things related to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And so what happens is as we learn who God is, it ought to comfort us greater.
SPEAKER_01: It's not an intellectual exercise that we're a part of when we are studying Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Now it will challenge your intellect.
SPEAKER_01: No matter how intelligent you think you are, it will challenge your intellect going through Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: But primarily, it is not a textbook, it is a love letter written by our Heavenly Father to his children that he loves.
SPEAKER_01: And so as we define and understand things like who Jesus is and why difficult things happen and what he means for us and what Scripture is for us, as we define those things, they should immediately come back and fit right into life on a Tuesday.
SPEAKER_01: And that's exactly what's happening in these couple of verses that we'll look at here.
SPEAKER_01: He has set up the book and he's writing to Christians, believers, in this New Testament time.
SPEAKER_01: Now, as we know, Jesus came from the Jewish people that God established and created the Jewish people to be the people that he uses as the funnel to accomplish the promises that he's given to bring the Redeemer into the world.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why you begin in the book of Matthew, for example, which was written to help Jewish believers Jewish people understand who Jesus is and that he's the Messiah, and it goes through his lineage, and it's that incredible picture that explains who Jesus was and why he came.
SPEAKER_01: It's why we as believers have a special place in our heart for Israel and the people of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: Now that doesn't mean any particular government at a period of time, but it is the land of Israel, the people of Israel, and because we look there and we see prophecy come forward.
SPEAKER_01: We see the bringing of Jesus into the world.
SPEAKER_01: We will see the end times unfold again in Israel.
SPEAKER_01: And so we have a heart for Israel and the people of Israel historically there.
SPEAKER_01: And so what happens in this book is called Hebrews because he is writing to at that time believers who had come out of the Jewish faith.
SPEAKER_01: They had recognized that Jesus was the Messiah, and they had placed their faith in him as a Savior, and then they had faced incredible persecution, not only from Rome, but from Jews who had clung to the Old Testament form of Judaism.
SPEAKER_01: Sadducees and some of the Pharisees.
SPEAKER_01: And there's this battle that unfolds in the book of Acts.
SPEAKER_01: And so he is writing to them to help them understand and to affirm that Jesus is our great high priest.
SPEAKER_01: He is the culmination of what God had promised.
SPEAKER_01: He is the Savior and the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
SPEAKER_01: And just how, in their lives leading up to that point, they had had to sacrifice every year in the temple and all of that, he comes into the book of Hebrews and he explains listen, Jesus accomplished once and for all at the cross the payment for our sins.
SPEAKER_01: And when he rose again, conquering death and sin, he accomplished for us the salvation that God had promised and what we longed for.
SPEAKER_01: And then as he ascended into heaven, he took his place there as our great high priest, seated at the right hand of the Father, to always be praying for us and mediating for us and taking care of us and preparing eternity for us.
SPEAKER_01: So it's a powerful and rich book that means so much for our everyday life as followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And here's one of those times where he brings it home, and here he has gone through the introduction, he set up this incredible salvation, and then he says, This is who Jesus is, and he is setting up for us over the rest of the book how he is going to describe in detail who Jesus is for us as our Savior.
SPEAKER_01: So I want you to read this key spot right here that I think helps us understand how we are comforted in these struggling times.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, in verse 14 of chapter 4, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast to the confession.
SPEAKER_01: For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tested in every way as we are.
SPEAKER_01: Yet he did it without sin.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if there's anything that you hear me say today, this is the one thing I want you to get right here.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus loves you so much.
SPEAKER_01: If you know him as your Savior, he wants you to boldly come into his presence when you need him.
SPEAKER_01: Let me say that again.
SPEAKER_01: It is the promise of Scripture that he is telling us that Jesus is there and loves you and is open, and he wants you to feel the freedom, even the ability to come boldly before him when you are in need.
SPEAKER_01: If you have never trusted Christ as your Savior, this verse applies to you in this sense, you have a deep need that has not been resolved.
SPEAKER_01: If you do not know Jesus as your Savior, then your sin has to be paid for.
SPEAKER_01: And you will pay for your sin, not only in your physical death, but in eternal judgment, spending eternity separated from him.
SPEAKER_01: But if you will look to Jesus who died for you on the cross and rose again, if you would come to him as your savior, you are seeking that grace, and it is what you need.
SPEAKER_01: And you don't have to limp into the presence of God.
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to be afraid to come to Jesus to ask him to be your savior.
SPEAKER_01: You can step into his presence and you can plead with him boldly.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, I love you.
SPEAKER_01: I am a sinner.
SPEAKER_01: You died for me.
SPEAKER_01: Will you be my savior?
SPEAKER_01: And he is open for you today.
SPEAKER_01: For you to call out to him to be your savior.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, Jesus is there waiting for us to come to him on the throne.
SPEAKER_01: Now, here's what we struggle with.
SPEAKER_01: Look at what the scripture says.
SPEAKER_01: For we do not, verse 15, have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses.
SPEAKER_01: Here, what he's talking about is our humanness and our struggles that we have.
SPEAKER_01: And it's easy to contextualize when he's talking to these believers who are being pro uh persecuted by their Hebrew uh brothers and sisters and some of their families and people that they've known because they've placed their faith in Jesus and they're calling them heretics and they're putting them in jail and they're trying to prosecute them.
SPEAKER_01: All the things that Saul did before he became Paul.
SPEAKER_01: And all of that, what happens is our human weakness kicks in.
SPEAKER_01: When we're under pressure because of difficulty, we struggle with doubt.
SPEAKER_01: We struggle with, I can't take this.
SPEAKER_01: This is more than I can bear.
SPEAKER_01: And so I'm just going to make decisions to alleviate the struggle.
SPEAKER_01: And we give up, or we give in, or we find something to mask or try to hide from our difficulties.
SPEAKER_01: We doubt the Lord and we will try to reach into circumstances and we will try to manipulate and control those circumstances in a way that we are trying to fix this.
SPEAKER_01: And that is a, in a very real sense, a doubt and a failure in our faith because we're not trusting in the person of Jesus to carry us through, to strengthen us, to guide us, to have a purpose in what we're going through.
SPEAKER_01: And so in our humanness, we just struggle.
SPEAKER_01: There are times that we just don't get it right.
SPEAKER_01: Because we're growing, we're learning, we're trying to understand this.
SPEAKER_01: We're trying to grow closer to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes those circumstances, they just get big enough that we're afraid we're going to be overwhelmed.
SPEAKER_01: And so what he's telling us is listen, he has gone through all those weaknesses and he knows how to help us through them.
SPEAKER_01: And here's how it happens.
SPEAKER_01: Look at what Scripture says.
SPEAKER_01: Since we have a great high priest who has to pass through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast the confession.
SPEAKER_01: So here's the big idea that he's trying to tell us.
SPEAKER_01: When you know Jesus as your Savior, you are his and he is yours.
SPEAKER_01: Look at what he says again.
SPEAKER_01: Ownership.
SPEAKER_01: Since we, these believers who have placed their faith in Christ, since we have a great high priest, Jesus is yours.
SPEAKER_01: If you have trusted him as your savior, you are a blood-bought child or daughter of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
SPEAKER_01: Romans 8 says, You have been adopted into God's family, and you can never be disinherited as his child.
SPEAKER_01: You are his and he is yours.
SPEAKER_01: We have this great high priest.
SPEAKER_01: Let us hold fast to the confession.
SPEAKER_01: What is the confession?
SPEAKER_01: It is our belief in the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: It is our confession that we have trusted Christ as our Savior.
SPEAKER_01: I trusted Christ when I was a nine and a half-year-old boy.
SPEAKER_01: My parents, when I was growing up, they were teaching us.
SPEAKER_01: I was blessed to have parents who were involved in church and taught Sunday school and all of that.
SPEAKER_01: Everyone has a different testimony.
SPEAKER_01: And if you know Christ as your Savior, praise the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Your testimony is incredible.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever it is, and however you met Jesus, it cost his blood on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: So it is priceless your salvation.
SPEAKER_01: It changed your eternity forever.
SPEAKER_01: So it is eternally powerful your testimony.
SPEAKER_01: My testimony of how I met Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: I grew up in this home, and my parents were teaching us all the time about salvation and about sin and all of that.
SPEAKER_01: And they really had to spend a lot of time teaching me about sin.
SPEAKER_01: So every time I would get in trouble, like eight or nine times a day, they would tell me, Listen, son, you've got to be punished, and we're going to punish you, and this is why we're doing this.
SPEAKER_01: We love you, and this is going to hurt us more than you.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I don't believe that.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't lying a sin, Dad?
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that a sin?
SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't suggest that, kids.
SPEAKER_01: That didn't go over well when I asked that.
SPEAKER_01: But they would teach us and they would say, Listen, you got to understand sin is punished, but one day you're going to be old enough to understand that Jesus loved you so much he stepped out of heaven.
SPEAKER_01: He went to the cross and he took your sin there and he paid the full price for your sin on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: He died for you in your place.
SPEAKER_01: And then he rose again, conquering death and sin.
SPEAKER_01: So you could come and you could ask him to forgive you and you could give him your life because he gave his life for you.
SPEAKER_01: And one Sunday morning in church, all of that nine and a half years of teaching, I was sitting there in the balcony.
SPEAKER_01: There's my people right there in the balcony.
SPEAKER_01: I was sitting on the front row of the balcony, and I can't tell you what the sermon was about, but my pastor, Dr.
SPEAKER_01: Rogers, got to the invitation and he said, Listen, no one will ever love you as much as Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He paid the price for your sin.
SPEAKER_01: No one will ever love you as much as Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Come and give your life to him.
SPEAKER_01: And I came down out of the balcony.
SPEAKER_01: I came down the aisle.
SPEAKER_01: There was a deacon named Dewey Burton, one of my dad's friends.
SPEAKER_01: I said, Mr.
SPEAKER_01: Dewey, nobody ever loved me as much as Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to give my life to him because he gave his life for me.
SPEAKER_01: And I trusted Christ as my Savior in that moment.
SPEAKER_01: That is the confession of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: When I share my testimony with you and others and my kids and family and other people, it is holding fast that confession.
SPEAKER_01: It is making public that confession that I have trusted Jesus Christ as my Savior.
SPEAKER_01: And if you have trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior, you have that confession of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: If you do not, if you have not accepted Christ as your Savior, in a few moments at the end of the service, we're going to give you an opportunity to make that confession today and trust Christ as your Savior.
SPEAKER_01: And I pray what you see in this scripture, Jesus will speak to your heart and draw you to Him the way He did me through my parents' teaching and my pastor and my Sunday school teachers and all of those.
SPEAKER_01: So here he says, Because of your confession of salvation, you have trusted Christ as your Savior.
SPEAKER_01: You're a blood-bought son, blood-bought daughter, the King of Kings and the Lord of the Lords.
SPEAKER_01: And because of that, you have a great high priest.
SPEAKER_01: He is yours and you are his.
SPEAKER_01: And what he says is if you will hold fast to that confession of having trusted Jesus Christ, he will take you through anything that you go through.
SPEAKER_01: Our problem is in our weakness, we tend to take our eyes off of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And it's normal, it's hard.
SPEAKER_01: When you get in some of these circumstances and they're overwhelming, and you feel that sense of that, all of a sudden you feel that weakness.
SPEAKER_01: And here's what he says.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the big idea of the whole passage of scripture right here.
SPEAKER_01: That the way Jesus comforts us is we place our faith and focus on him and we cling to him in those moments.
SPEAKER_01: And through our faith, he steps into our lives and he brings his grace and his help and his strength and his presence and his power.
SPEAKER_01: Now listen, Jesus is always there.
SPEAKER_01: But sometimes we don't, we lose sight of that because we take our faith and our focus off of him.
SPEAKER_01: And look at what it says: He is ours.
SPEAKER_01: And you place your faith and focus on Jesus and you grab a hold of him, and that's how you experience his presence, his comfort, and what he does in your life.
SPEAKER_01: Now here's how you do that.
SPEAKER_01: He says, let's hold fast to the confession of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: You understand that this is all about Jesus, and it's all about what he's done in our lives, and it's all about who he is.
SPEAKER_01: And when you get in that moment where you're overwhelmed, you place your focus on Jesus and you rivet your attention on him.
SPEAKER_01: There are a couple of ways that you do that.
SPEAKER_01: First, you do that through Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: You do that through Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Just back up two verses and see what the Bible says in verse 12.
SPEAKER_01: For the word of God is living and effective and sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit, joints and the marrow.
SPEAKER_01: He is trying to get the picture here that the word of God is so alive, it is so breathed with his presence and his power and who he is that it can penetrate to the very questions in our soul.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever our struggle, our doubt, our weakness is, God's word penetrates and sticks right in that point to call us to him, to bring us to that place of faith, to return our attention to him.
SPEAKER_01: No creature is hidden from him, but all things are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, whatever it is you're struggling with, Jesus sees it directly and clearly.
SPEAKER_01: There is nothing in our lives that is hidden from him.
SPEAKER_01: He knows exactly what that question and doubt is.
SPEAKER_01: And the word of God has a living and powerful ability to stick right into that exact place and return our attention to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: I think the next thing that you can do is you find worship songs that you appreciate and that you love.
SPEAKER_01: And you grab a hold of those and you play those.
SPEAKER_01: There are certain songs that I love that are mine, and I just like them.
SPEAKER_01: And they're all over the board and what they sound like and everything else.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't really matter, but for some reason there are certain songs that grab my heart and they grab my soul.
SPEAKER_01: They point me to Jesus in a particular way.
SPEAKER_01: Most of them really are focused on the person of Jesus in unique ways as I sing them and as I sing them in the car.
SPEAKER_01: Don't ask me to sing them now.
SPEAKER_01: There's a reason I'm not the worship pastor.
SPEAKER_01: But I sing them in the car, I sing them in the shower, I sing them in my quiet time.
SPEAKER_01: And they help me rivet my attention and my focus on the person of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: We have a great high priest.
SPEAKER_01: Hold fast to that confession that Jesus is my high priest.
SPEAKER_01: Now here's another way that you do that.
SPEAKER_01: You memorize Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: And so over the course of each week on our website, on our social media, I'm going to put out a scripture verse about Jesus for you to memorize that week.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to challenge you to memorize that scripture verse.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, Pastor, I don't memorize.
SPEAKER_01: Well, then you're disobedient to scripture because it says we're supposed to memorize.
SPEAKER_01: And so most of us don't have that habit, and we get in these times.
SPEAKER_01: That's one reason our weakness pulls us away from the person of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: But if we own those scripture verses, it helps us and it keeps and rivets our attention on Him.
SPEAKER_01: So once a week, this week, I'll put out a scripture verse.
SPEAKER_01: You'll get it tomorrow, right?
SPEAKER_01: And so it'll be a chance for you to memorize a scripture that has meant a lot to me that points me to the person of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And so you're grabbing a hold of the person of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Now, here's what the Bible, let me give you three character traits of Jesus that I want you to grab a hold of from this passage of Scripture that help you understand how much Jesus loves you and wants to comfort you.
SPEAKER_01: First, here's what I want you to see.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast the confession.
SPEAKER_01: The first thing I want you, character trait, I want you to see about Jesus in this is his authority.
SPEAKER_01: His authority.
SPEAKER_01: The authority of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this picture of the high priest is very common to someone with a Jewish heritage.
SPEAKER_01: They understand who the high priest is, and they know the stories of Moses and Aaron and God establishing that, and the high priest taking the sacrifice and the Holy of Holies and all of that.
SPEAKER_01: But here's what he says we have a great high priest.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is above all that.
SPEAKER_01: And as he begins to unpack this letter, he is setting up the picture of how incredible Jesus is as the one who has saved us.
SPEAKER_01: He says, We have a high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: And what we know at that point is in the book of Acts, in the very beginning, the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Tells us that Jesus was ascended to heaven and the Holy Spirit came to live inside of us.
SPEAKER_01: So where is Jesus now?
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says that he is seated at the right hand of the Father and He is there, ever living to make intercession for us.
SPEAKER_01: He is there as the mediator for us.
SPEAKER_01: God has given him the authority as the great high priest, the one and only person who could pay the price for our sins, who could conquer death and sin, who could love us in the way he does, who could bridge the gap of sin between God and man and bring us into the family of God and return us to fellowship with him.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible says that Jesus is there as our great high priest and mediator, and because of that, nothing can ever separate us from the love of God, which is found in our great high priest, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Turn with me over just real quickly to Hebrews chapter 7.
SPEAKER_01: I want to show you just one of those verses.
SPEAKER_01: Just one.
SPEAKER_01: Look at what it says in chapter 7, verse 22.
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus has also become the guarantee of a better covenant.
SPEAKER_01: He's talking about the New Testament life that we have where we can trust Jesus as our Savior, and the Holy Spirit lives inside, and we have that knowledge of being saved.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus is the one who has created that in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: Now many have become Levitical priests, like in the Old Testament, since they are prevented by death from remaining in office.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, Aaron died, and then there was another one and he died, and there was another one and he died, and another one and he died, and you had to keep doing that because they were just men.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus is the guaranteer of a better covenant.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 24, because he remains forever.
SPEAKER_01: He holds his priesthood permanently.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, he is always able to save those who come to God through him, since he always lives to intercede with them.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus ascended into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God, and there he is in God's ear for us.
SPEAKER_01: He is speaking to the Lord about us.
SPEAKER_01: He is translating what God's heart and desire is for us down to us.
SPEAKER_01: He is giving our hopes, fears, doubts, struggles, weaknesses to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: He is reminding God the Father that He paid the price for our sins.
SPEAKER_01: And when God looks down at Greg, he doesn't see me with all the stuff I messed up yesterday and all of my weaknesses.
SPEAKER_01: He sees me through the blood of Jesus and the righteousness of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And he sees me in as an adopted child.
SPEAKER_01: And only Jesus has the authority to do that.
SPEAKER_01: Don't ever forget that your Savior is the one who conquered death and sin.
SPEAKER_01: Your Savior is the one who went to the cross to save you.
SPEAKER_01: Your Savior is the one who rose again.
SPEAKER_01: Your Savior is the one who ascended to heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Your Savior is the one who right now is praying for you.
SPEAKER_01: And so whatever you're going through, whatever struggle it is, the authority of Christ as your great high priest means he has complete and total access to God the Father, the creator God of the universe, and he is there in his ear praying for you.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing else can bring that strength into your life.
SPEAKER_01: There's no other form of religion.
SPEAKER_01: There's no other structure of faith.
SPEAKER_01: There's no other belief system.
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing else that has a God who stepped out of heaven, died for you on the cross, rose again, became your great high priest, conquered death and sin, and is now there advocating and mediating for you for all of eternity.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing can separate you from the hand of God because Jesus is our great high priest.
SPEAKER_01: When Paul says in Romans, I'm convinced neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things that are present, nor things that might come, nor height, nor death, nor any other created thing that has ever happened in the world can ever separate us from the love of God which is found in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because his authority as your high priest.
SPEAKER_01: The fear of death can never separate us from the love of God.
SPEAKER_01: I got a chance to spend a couple of days with my mom this week.
SPEAKER_01: My dad is in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: You know why I know that?
SPEAKER_01: Because he held fast to his confession that Jesus is a high priest.
SPEAKER_01: I know that my dad believed in Jesus and he trusted him and he is in heaven, and I know that because Jesus is my high priest, and I know what he does, and I know what he means, and I know my dad believed in him, and I know my dad is in heaven because of the authority of Jesus as his great high priest.
SPEAKER_01: There's an incredible comfort that I never have to worry where my dad is.
SPEAKER_01: My hero.
SPEAKER_01: He's with Jesus because Jesus holds him in his hand.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is ever-living to make intercession for him.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is the guarantee of the covenant of God sealed in the blood of Jesus that when you know him as your Savior, you will be in heaven and nothing can ever stop it.
SPEAKER_01: When you face those questions and those fears, how am I going to get through this?
SPEAKER_01: How is this going to work?
SPEAKER_01: You know how it's going to work?
SPEAKER_01: The great high priest sitting at the right hand of God with all of the authority and power of God will carry you through it.
SPEAKER_01: There is nothing greater than him.
SPEAKER_01: How do I know that's still the case?
SPEAKER_01: Because that verse says, as the high priest, he remains forever.
SPEAKER_01: He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
SPEAKER_01: He is the same Jesus with the same mission and the same authority and power in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: When you start to think about Jesus and you start to focus and hold fast to your great high priest by understanding his authority and his power, the circumstances that you are in begin to pale.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't mean they're not real, and it doesn't mean they're not difficult, but it means you now understand that you are held in the hand of your great high priest.
SPEAKER_01: Second thing I want you to see about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: When you're holding fast your confession to Him, when you are reminding yourself of, listen, this is when I was saved, and I know I'm saved, and I've been having this quiet time, and God's been speaking into my life, and I know I'm a believer, and I know what that means, and I know because of the authority of Jesus, I can never be separated from him.
SPEAKER_01: The next thing he wants you to hold fast to is this the experience of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Experience of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Look what he says.
SPEAKER_01: We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tested in every way as we are, yet without sin.
SPEAKER_01: He's already told us this once.
SPEAKER_01: This is such an important fact.
SPEAKER_01: He is reiterating what he's already told us.
SPEAKER_01: Flip back to Hebrews chapter 2.
SPEAKER_01: At the end of that chapter, in verse 17, here's what he says.
SPEAKER_01: He's been explaining to us that people live and people die, and Levitical priests, they had a great ministry, but they died because they're human, just like he was talking about before.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says, Jesus stepped out of heaven, but he became a man like us.
SPEAKER_01: So that, because you see, in order for the price to be paid for a man's sin, a man must die for that.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus stepped out of heaven as our great high priest and became a person.
SPEAKER_01: So that his life that had no sin, when he gave his life on the cross, it was free of judgment.
SPEAKER_01: So that his death could actually serve as a substitute for ours.
SPEAKER_01: And when you place your faith in Christ, what you're doing is you're trusting his death and his resurrection, and you're giving him your life of sin, and he's giving you his righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: You are surrendering your life to him because he gave his life for you.
SPEAKER_01: And so here's what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, in verse 17, he had to be like his brothers in every way, so that he could become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God.
SPEAKER_01: So not only is it his authority as our high priest, but it is his experience as our high priest to make payment for the sins of the people.
SPEAKER_01: For since he himself was tested and has suffered, he is able to help those who are tested.
SPEAKER_01: What that means is Jesus just didn't come riding down out of heaven in flaming chariots and all of that and pronounce to the world, I am the King of kings and the Lord of lords, and step out of that chariot and walk in boldness to the cross and go, do your worst and there die for us.
SPEAKER_01: That's not what Scripture teaches.
SPEAKER_01: And it's important to understand.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus loves us so much, the Bible says that he stepped out of heaven and he squeezed himself into the same body that we live in and he tracked through the same life that we track through.
SPEAKER_01: So that he could go through every struggle.
SPEAKER_01: He could feel every pain.
SPEAKER_01: He could see and feel what fear was.
SPEAKER_01: He could go through temptation and understand the struggle that we go through.
SPEAKER_01: But yet he conquered it all.
SPEAKER_01: He did it without sin.
SPEAKER_01: He did it all correctly.
SPEAKER_01: He showed us the model that God's power in us through Jesus is greater than all those things that we face.
SPEAKER_01: But listen, if we just had some white robed, flaming haired chariot throne and all that, and he had never been through what we've been through and our selfishness, we would immediately say, You just don't know what I'm feeling.
SPEAKER_01: You know how I know that?
SPEAKER_01: Because I've said that plenty of times, and I'm sure you probably have too.
SPEAKER_01: You just don't know what I'm going through.
SPEAKER_01: You just don't know how hard this is.
SPEAKER_01: You don't know.
SPEAKER_01: How do you know what it feels like?
SPEAKER_01: Let me tell you what.
SPEAKER_01: Twice in two chapters, the Bible makes it clear to us that Jesus knows exactly what it feels like.
SPEAKER_01: Look at what it says in chapter four.
SPEAKER_01: He has been tested in every way as we are.
SPEAKER_01: Pastor, I lost my loved one.
SPEAKER_01: This person was my whole life.
SPEAKER_01: They were my heroes, my life.
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's clear from Scripture that at some point Jesus lost Joseph, his earthly father.
SPEAKER_01: You see, he just disappears, and Mary is there all the time.
SPEAKER_01: And Joseph would have been there all the time if he was there, but he had passed away.
SPEAKER_01: He lost his loved one.
SPEAKER_01: We know that he lost friends along the way.
SPEAKER_01: We have one story about a guy named Lazarus.
SPEAKER_01: We know that he had friends who let him down.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, we know that the men who were closest to him let him down.
SPEAKER_01: He had to sit in the Garden of Gethsemane facing all of that spiritual warfare and all of that temptation and all of that sin and all of that struggle.
SPEAKER_01: And his three best friends in the world couldn't stay awake long enough to pray for him for just a couple of hours.
SPEAKER_01: They didn't even understand what was happening.
SPEAKER_01: He had explained it over and over and over.
SPEAKER_01: Peter, one of his closest friends, he's explaining to him, I'm going to go to the cross and I'm going to do this for you because I love you.
SPEAKER_01: And Peter has the audacity to say, Jesus, you're just wrong.
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
SPEAKER_01: That's pretty incredible.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's pretty bold, just to tell Jesus he's wrong.
SPEAKER_01: Let me ask you a question.
SPEAKER_01: How many times do we in essence tell Jesus he's wrong?
SPEAKER_01: Because in our weakness, we let our doubts cripple us.
SPEAKER_01: Or we manipulate our circumstances to try to be in control of them because it feels more comfortable for us rather than placing our faith in him.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus knows what our struggles are.
SPEAKER_01: Scripture is clear about that.
SPEAKER_01: At the beginning of his ministry, you know the story of his temptation when he's led up into the mountains and he's fasting and he's praying, and then he's tired, he's exhausted, he's hungry, he's been doing spiritual battle to begin his ministry, and Satan shows up and he begins to push and prod and lie and call and all of that.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus turns to Scripture and he wins the battle.
SPEAKER_01: Yet without sin.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, Jesus' experience for you is that he knows exactly what it feels like.
SPEAKER_01: When you come to him, you see this picture of his authority as our great high priest.
SPEAKER_01: But you need to know the scriptures and see those pictures of when Jesus cries over a lost friend.
SPEAKER_01: He faces temptation.
SPEAKER_01: He has a friend let him down.
SPEAKER_01: He sees the world around him struggling.
SPEAKER_01: He goes riding into Jerusalem to die for their sins.
SPEAKER_01: And he sees all of these people in the Jewish faith who don't understand the moment.
SPEAKER_01: And it breaks his heart.
SPEAKER_01: He knows what we feel.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible makes it clear when you look at his experience, it calls you to him, and you can trust him because he knows.
SPEAKER_01: And finally, his provision.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us at the proper time.
SPEAKER_01: Another one says, in our time of need.
SPEAKER_01: It means this idea that I need this right now, and I need Jesus right now in this moment.
SPEAKER_01: And He is there.
SPEAKER_01: He provides the mercy and the grace that we need.
SPEAKER_01: He provides the strength that we need.
SPEAKER_01: He provides a sense of his presence when we feel alone.
SPEAKER_01: He provides the promises of God's word, and they're alive, and they speak directly into our hearts, and they grab that moment.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says it's like a two-edged, double-edged sword, and it goes right between our soul and the spirit.
SPEAKER_01: That very question, that doubt that you are tempted to have, that fear that you are beginning to let control you, the word of God speaks in there.
SPEAKER_01: He speaks to you through that.
SPEAKER_01: He says, I am here.
SPEAKER_01: I love you.
SPEAKER_01: I am still on the throne in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: I am right here in God's ear for you because I love you.
SPEAKER_01: And you are mine.
SPEAKER_01: How many times in our lives do we take our eyes off of Jesus and we begin to look at the circumstances?
SPEAKER_01: And he's calling, Greg! Greg, come up here.
SPEAKER_01: Come on.
SPEAKER_01: I'm right here.
SPEAKER_01: I remember our son Grant.
SPEAKER_01: He was so much fun as a kid.
SPEAKER_01: He's still fun as an adult, but he was really fun as a kid.
SPEAKER_01: And it was great.
SPEAKER_01: When Grant got old enough to start playing with Nerf guns and swords and all kinds of stuff, it was fun because now I didn't have to go to the grocery section in Walmart.
SPEAKER_01: I could take Grant to the toy department.
SPEAKER_01: Come on, son, let's go to the toy department.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, it just got to be where Janet would go, yeah, I know you and Grant are going to be in the toy department.
SPEAKER_01: And so he was so much fun and he was having fun everywhere he was.
SPEAKER_01: We have so many great stories about how much fun he was.
SPEAKER_01: He was always excited.
SPEAKER_01: He was always engaged.
SPEAKER_01: He was always running.
SPEAKER_01: He's all boy.
SPEAKER_01: He's got all of that going on.
SPEAKER_01: And here we are in this time when he's four and five and six, and we're going to tell him something, Grant, put that down, son, or Grant, it's time to come in to eat.
SPEAKER_01: And he's running around and he's doing all this and he's seeing all this and he's having fun.
SPEAKER_01: And I just like dads do kind of bowed up and I said, You're going to respect me when I tell you stuff, and you're going to learn to respect me.
SPEAKER_01: And so I'd grab him and I'd swat him on the bottom or put him in timeout or throw him in his chair at the dinner table or whatever it was.
SPEAKER_01: All you dads have been there.
SPEAKER_01: You know exactly what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_01: Son, you're going to.
SPEAKER_01: And one time it dawned on me, I was talking to Grant.
SPEAKER_01: I was trying to get his attention, and he was running around.
SPEAKER_01: He was playing with his buddies.
SPEAKER_01: His buddies were over there doing all that.
SPEAKER_01: And so I went and I grabbed him and I said, Grant.
SPEAKER_01: And he was like this.
SPEAKER_01: He was looking at his friends and he couldn't even look at me.
SPEAKER_01: He was so excited.
SPEAKER_01: Dad, Dad, they're playing.
SPEAKER_01: And then I got his face in my hands and I turned it to him, and his eyes were shooting over there where his friends were.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, son.
SPEAKER_01: And then I finally got him, and we made eye contact, and it was like the light bulb went on.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, Dad's talking to me.
SPEAKER_01: And then he wasn't rebellion at all, wasn't rebellious at all.
SPEAKER_01: He was he was growing, oh yeah, sure, okay, Dad, let's go.
SPEAKER_01: And I had to learn, he just didn't hear me.
SPEAKER_01: He was so focused on what was going on.
SPEAKER_01: He missed that I was talking to him.
SPEAKER_01: He missed that I was calling him.
SPEAKER_01: And when I grabbed him, his face and his eyes would finally zero in, we connected.
SPEAKER_01: And he was great.
SPEAKER_01: I think that's what we do in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: We're looking at the circumstances.
SPEAKER_01: We're afraid of this.
SPEAKER_01: We're trying to figure out that.
SPEAKER_01: We get on medical doctor RX on the website or you know, whatever, all those medical websites are.
SPEAKER_01: I know that our doctors and nurses and people, you hate that, don't you?
SPEAKER_01: Because everybody comes in there an expert.
SPEAKER_01: I got this rabid disease that's only happened four times in human history, but I have all these things and I've diagnosed it, right?
SPEAKER_01: We get on TikTok and we figure out all this, and we look at 47 people tell us how to do something on TikTok.
SPEAKER_01: We get on YouTube and we're looking at all the how-to videos, and we're pursuing all that, and we're figuring all that out, and we're just like that, looking and looking, and this is going on, and that's happened, and we can do that.
SPEAKER_01: And God is trying to get your face.
SPEAKER_01: And he's trying to get you to look at your Savior.
SPEAKER_01: We have a great high priest.
SPEAKER_01: He has passed through the heavens, he is Jesus, the Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: He is seated at the right hand of God.
SPEAKER_01: He is the only mediator between God and man.
SPEAKER_01: He is the one who paid the price for our sins.
SPEAKER_01: He is the one who conquered death and sin.
SPEAKER_01: He is praying for you.
SPEAKER_01: He is holding you in his hand.
SPEAKER_01: He is there in that moment.
SPEAKER_01: And he is saying, hey.
SPEAKER_01: Just look at me.
SPEAKER_01: I got you.
SPEAKER_01: I've got all you need.
SPEAKER_01: Hold fast.
SPEAKER_01: Hold fast your confession to me.
SPEAKER_01: Because I love you.
SPEAKER_01: I died for you.
SPEAKER_01: I rose again for you.
SPEAKER_01: I'm seated right here.
SPEAKER_01: Next to your heavenly Father to take care of you.
SPEAKER_01: Come to his throne boldly.
SPEAKER_01: Because he is there to provide everything you need.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to bow your heads.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to encourage you this week as we begin to give you those scriptures.
SPEAKER_01: I only want to give you one a week.
SPEAKER_01: Because I want you to spend time with it.
SPEAKER_01: And I want you to see your high priest.
SPEAKER_01: And I want you to be reminded that if you know him as your Savior, he is yours and you are his.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to encourage you to hold fast.
SPEAKER_01: If you've never accepted Christ as your Savior, right now I want to invite you to come and make him your Savior.
SPEAKER_01: When you've seen this scripture and all who Jesus is, and he did that for you, and he calls you to boldly come to the throne of grace and to trust him as your Savior, to give him your sin, repent of that sin, and you trying to take care of it yourself and you give it to him so that he can love you.
SPEAKER_01: If you've never accepted Christ as your Savior, I just don't know anything that would not call you to what it means to be a follower of Christ in this passage of Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: If you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, I want to invite you in just a moment to come.
SPEAKER_01: If you're watching online this morning or by television, I want to invite you, just right there where you are, just talk to Jesus and call out to him.
SPEAKER_01: He said, boldly come to the throne of grace.
SPEAKER_01: You just walk in and say, Jesus, I need you.
SPEAKER_01: Please forgive me.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for saving me.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, there's no magic words, it's not an incantation.
SPEAKER_01: You come to Jesus and you tell him your heart, listen, you looked at that verse that says, Everything is naked and open to the eyes of him who must give account.
SPEAKER_01: You might as well tell him he already knows it's there anyway.
SPEAKER_01: You just give it to Jesus and you give your life to him and trust him to save you.
SPEAKER_01: There's information at the bottom of the screen.
SPEAKER_01: Call us, reach out.
SPEAKER_01: We're here to walk with you.
SPEAKER_01: If you have questions about that, we'll help you and walk through that with you.
SPEAKER_01: If you're here in the room this morning and you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, in just a moment, I'm gonna pray, and God's people are gonna stand and they're gonna sing a testimony of how much they love their high priest and how much he loves them, and I'm gonna ask you to come and give your life to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Our pastors will be here at the front.
SPEAKER_01: There's somebody in the balcony.
SPEAKER_01: You just come.
SPEAKER_01: Just come boldly to the throne of grace and give your life to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: If you're already saved, my prayer for you this morning is that this is encouraging to you.
SPEAKER_01: But you have to make the decision to not fret, to not doubt, to not take control.
SPEAKER_01: You've got to make the decision to hold fast to Jesus and your confession as Him as your Savior.
SPEAKER_01: And you do that through Scripture and through spending time with Him in prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Make that commitment this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we love you so much.
SPEAKER_01: No man is ever educated, eloquent, any way to describe what it means that you comfort us with grace and mercy in exactly the time we need it.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for the Holy Spirit directing this passage of Scripture and giving it to us so that we can see and understand who you are.
SPEAKER_01: And I pray for my brothers and sisters in Christ that know you as their Savior, that this is an encouragement to them.
SPEAKER_01: And I pray that you will draw them to hold fast to you, the person of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And if there are folks here today watching or in the room and they need to be saved, call them to yourself.
SPEAKER_01: Show them who you are.
SPEAKER_01: Give them some freedom to respond to you today and to make you their Savior.
SPEAKER_01: We pray these things in the saving name of Jesus and all God's people said.
SPEAKER_00: We pray this message has been a blessing to you and helped to strengthen your walk with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Please know we want to minister to you and pray for you.
SPEAKER_00: Send an email to contact us at fsfbc.org and let us pray for you and help you in any way we can.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith First Baptist Church.