Speaker 1: Hello everyone, this is Pastor Damian.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, orlando.
Speaker 1: At New City, we believe all of us need all of Jesus for all of life.
Speaker 1: For more resources, visit our website at newcityorlandocom.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: Please join me in the prayer of illumination.
Speaker 1: Heavenly Father, we bow in your presence.
Speaker 1: Let your word be our rule, your spirit, our teacher, and your greater glory our supreme concern.
Speaker 1: Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen.
Speaker 1: Today's scripture reading is taken from Hebrews 4, beginning in verse 14.
Speaker 1: Since then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens Jesus, the Son of God.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 1: Let us then, with confidence, draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need, for every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.
Speaker 1: He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness Because of this, he is obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins, just as he does for those of the people.
Speaker 1: And no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God.
Speaker 1: Just as Aaron was, so also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him, who said to him you are my son.
Speaker 1: Today I have begotten you.
Speaker 1: As he says also in another place, you are a priest forever.
Speaker 1: After the order of Melchizedek, in the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him, who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.
Speaker 1: Although he was a son, he learned obedience.
Speaker 1: Through what he suffered and being made perfect.
Speaker 1: He became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.
Speaker 1: This is God's word.
Speaker 1: Please be seated.
Speaker 2: This is one of those many passages in scripture where the possibilities, the grandeur, the amazingness of the text far outpaces my own abilities, and I feel that, and so I bought you a book, and by you I mean you, singular, whoever comes and gets this and says that you'll read it.
Speaker 2: This is, gentle and Lowly, by Dane Orland, and he's got two chapters on my text this morning that are better than my sermon.
Speaker 2: I promise you that, and so if you especially wanted a better sermon than this, you've got a book here with your name on it and it's for you.
Speaker 2: Come see me after worship.
Speaker 2: Well, after the last few weeks of walking through Hebrews, as we're preaching through it, february through May one of the things I've said every time I've been up here is that the book of Hebrews was written to a congregation of urban Christians who were feeling cultural pressures because of their faith, and so I want to give a little bit more specificity to that.
Speaker 2: So in Hebrews 10, it says that they were publicly exposed to reproach and affliction.
Speaker 2: In Hebrews 10, it also says that they had to accept the plundering of their property.
Speaker 2: In Hebrews 13, it says that they had to go outside the camp and bear the reproach.
Speaker 2: You see, these Christians.
Speaker 2: They were facing cultural marginalization, they were experiencing economic hardship and public stigma, all because they followed Jesus.
Speaker 2: And, as many of us know, with every trial comes a temptation.
Speaker 2: There's some temptations here, here too.
Speaker 2: In Hebrews 10, it says that it was the habit of some of them to neglect meeting together.
Speaker 2: They stopped doing this and the author of Hebrews thought that that was a devastatingly dangerous place to be, to not gather with Christians regularly.
Speaker 2: In Hebrews 3, it says that some of them had a hardness of heart because of the deceitfulness of sin.
Speaker 2: And then in some of them, in Hebrews 6, it says they had become sluggish in their faith Because with these trials came temptations to isolation, to compromise and to apathy.
Speaker 2: And I wonder if any of those pressures or those temptations are true for anybody in this room this morning.
Speaker 2: What do we do when we feel these pressures to compromise in our faith and the temptations that come with that as well?
Speaker 2: And so, as we look at this text, I want to see what the author of Hebrews told them to do, and really I get my two points from the only two commands.
Speaker 2: There's only two imperatives in this whole passage, and that is hold fast, draw near.
Speaker 2: Hold fast and draw near.
Speaker 2: That's the two imperatives in this whole passage, and that is hold fast, draw near.
Speaker 2: Hold fast and draw near.
Speaker 2: That's the two points.
Speaker 2: And really what I'm getting at is that suffering trial difficulty it's not just an event, it's actually an intersection.
Speaker 2: There's a choice point that happens right there.
Speaker 2: Will you, in that moment, hold fast or let go?
Speaker 2: Will you draw near or drift away?
Speaker 2: And so I want to look at Hebrews, chapter 4 together and see how we can hold fast and draw near.
Speaker 2: If you have a Bible or a device, I'd encourage you to get one out and get it in front of you.
Speaker 2: Open up to Hebrews, chapter 4, verse 14, and we're going to walk through this text together.
Speaker 2: Hebrews 4 14 says this since then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens Jesus, the son of God.
Speaker 2: Here's my first point.
Speaker 2: Let us hold fast our confession.
Speaker 2: What is our confession?
Speaker 2: What is it that we're holding fast to?
Speaker 2: Well, the word confession in Greek is a conjunction of two words that basically just means same word.
Speaker 2: So a confession is saying the same words about something that God says about them.
Speaker 2: This is how we can have both confession of sin, which is saying the same thing about our sin, that God says about it that it's sin, and a confession of faith, which is saying the same things about Jesus, that God says about Jesus that he's Lord, that he's our Savior, that he's the one who's crucified and risen again.
Speaker 2: So that's what confession means it's coming into agreement with whatever God says or whatever God thinks about something.
Speaker 2: So this is important, because confession must flow from conviction, from a heart level, confidence that this is true.
Speaker 2: The way that Romans 10, 9 puts it is that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and then believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Speaker 2: You see, confession is core to what it means to be a Christian, and so we're called to hold fast our confession, all that we say about Jesus.
Speaker 2: We've got to hold fast to those things, but for some of us, going public about Jesus is problematic.
Speaker 2: Coming out as a Christian can create some confusion for you, and some conflict maybe even, and so the problem here, though, is that confession doesn't mean anything unless it's public, like you don't have to hold fast if you hold your tongue, and so the worst thing that could be true about you is that people the only thing worse about that could be true about you than people not knowing you're a Christian is being shocked when they find out that you are.
Speaker 2: You see, holding fast our confession means that we actually speak about the fact that we know Jesus, we follow him, we orient our lives around him, that he actually makes a difference in all of life, that he's not just something you do here in this room on Sundays, but then you show up Monday looking like everybody else.
Speaker 2: You don't have to hold fast anything if that's your lifestyle.
Speaker 2: Day, looking like everybody else.
Speaker 2: You don't have to hold fast anything if that's your lifestyle.
Speaker 2: No, this is for people who have a temptation, because of pressure, to lose their grip on their confession.
Speaker 2: Some of us in this room feel that we feel that pressure.
Speaker 2: So how do we hold fast?
Speaker 2: Well, the good thing is that Jesus is both the content and the process of our holding fast to our confession.
Speaker 2: Let me say it like this the author of Hebrews.
Speaker 2: When the author of Hebrews is trying to get the people the Hebrews people to hold fast, all that the author does is just start unpacking the confession to show you how worthy it is to hold on to, and so I'm going to do the same thing.
Speaker 2: And really, the whole book of Hebrews is a confession of Jesus Christ, but this text in particular kind of narrows it in about how he is.
Speaker 2: Our quote great high priest in verse 14.
Speaker 2: And so priest is an important word in this text.
Speaker 2: It shows up six times in 13 verses and a good definition maybe the best definition of priest in the Bible you could find is in Hebrews, chapter 5, verse 1.
Speaker 2: Look at the text with me.
Speaker 2: It says this Every high priest chosen from among men is appointed.
Speaker 2: Here's the key piece to act on behalf of men in relation to God.
Speaker 2: That's what a priest does.
Speaker 2: Corrie Ten Boom has a really good illustration about this.
Speaker 2: She talks about how both prophets and priests mediate between God and man, but they do it a little bit differently.
Speaker 2: I don't do object lessons very often, but I'm going to do one for you this morning, so I really want you to get this Okay.
Speaker 2: A prophet stands like this, with his back towards God and his face towards the people, speaking to the people on behalf of God.
Speaker 2: That's a prophet's job.
Speaker 2: A priest hold on, does this Back towards the people, face towards God, speaking to God on behalf of the people.
Speaker 2: Object lesson over.
Speaker 2: So do you see the difference?
Speaker 2: Jesus is both our prophet and our priest, but this text really wants to hone in on the fact that he is our priest.
Speaker 2: Not only that, but that he qualifies to be our great high priest.
Speaker 2: And there's really only three qualifications, according to this passage.
Speaker 2: The first one is that the candidates for great high priest must be without sin verse 15.
Speaker 2: All right, so that narrowed the pool of candidates down to maybe three persons.
Speaker 2: But the second thing is that the candidates must be quote chosen from among men.
Speaker 2: They must be human chapter 5, verse 1.
Speaker 2: Okay, so that narrows that pool of three called the Trinity down to one called Jesus.
Speaker 2: But then the third qualification is that the candidates need on-the-job experience.
Speaker 2: And the reason why is because these candidates, these great whoever might be, the great high priest, has to be able to have experienced the things that they are going to be mediating on behalf of the people before God.
Speaker 2: In other words, they have to be able to be mediating on behalf of the people before God.
Speaker 2: In other words, they have to be able to be sympathetic and gentle.
Speaker 2: They need some OJT.
Speaker 2: They got to learn on the job.
Speaker 2: So let's see if Jesus qualifies.
Speaker 2: Look with me at the text again, chapter 5, verse 7.
Speaker 2: It says this quote in the days of his flesh.
Speaker 2: Let me pause for a moment.
Speaker 2: In Christian theology we call the fact that the second person of the Trinity, god the Son, became human, fully human.
Speaker 2: We call that the incarnation, and all that means is incarnation means in the flesh.
Speaker 2: He became flesh.
Speaker 2: That's what the text says in the days of his flesh.
Speaker 2: If you need to remember that, think carne asada, seasoned flesh.
Speaker 2: That's what that means.
Speaker 2: Okay, so the incarnation, jesus in the days of his flesh becomes fully man.
Speaker 2: It goes on in verse 7.
Speaker 2: Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears.
Speaker 2: This is important.
Speaker 2: This is how fully human Jesus became.
Speaker 2: He had fully human emotions and feelings.
Speaker 2: If your Christology doesn't have a category for that, it's heretical, it's not right.
Speaker 2: Jesus had emotion, he had a soul, he had a life with tears.
Speaker 2: Jim Wilder, who calls himself a neurotheologian, that's the kind of title you just probably have to give to yourself, but I really like this guy.
Speaker 2: He says it like this.
Speaker 2: He says emotional maturity is the ability to direct feelings, desires and emotions into the service of the good Jesus is the most emotionally mature human being who's ever walked this earth.
Speaker 2: But how did he become that way?
Speaker 2: How did he develop that maturity?
Speaker 2: Look at verse eight with me.
Speaker 2: Verse eight says, although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.
Speaker 2: Now this, for some of us, puts the brakes on.
Speaker 2: We go wait.
Speaker 2: What is going on here?
Speaker 2: Let me tell you a story that might make it plain.
Speaker 2: This story's about a man who inherited a business from his father.
Speaker 2: Now, lest you think, he, you know, graduated from college and just gets to step up into the C-suite where he gets a bougie office and luncheons and golf outings and all the things that you'd imagine from somebody who was born with a silver spoon in their mouth, that's not what happened.
Speaker 2: In fact.
Speaker 2: This man inherited the company from his father during an economic downturn, and the father was a good father and a good businessman, and so he actually had his son.
Speaker 2: Start at the bottom, if you will.
Speaker 2: He said if you're going to run this company, you need to learn it through and through from the bottom up, and so he had to start in the warehouse.
Speaker 2: He had to work with some of the mechanics as they fixed some of the things that were often broken.
Speaker 2: And then, after he worked in the warehouse for a little bit, he was invited to go visit the suppliers to see where the raw materials came from.
Speaker 2: And then he had to go out with the sales team and learn what it looks like to actually sell the product.
Speaker 2: And then he had to go sit with the nerds in the finance department and crunch the numbers.
Speaker 2: If you're financing here, praise God for you.
Speaker 2: I don't mean that derogatorily, I'm a nerd in my own type.
Speaker 2: So he goes in with the financial team and he learns that.
Speaker 2: And it wasn't until after he had worked through every department in the business was he finally given an office.
Speaker 2: But he was given that office and now he had to lead a workforce through a difficult season in their company's industry.
Speaker 2: And you see, although he was a son, the father didn't just give him a business and invite him to just kind of do whatever he wanted to with him.
Speaker 2: He trained him.
Speaker 2: He had to learn what it looked like to lead and to work in the father's business.
Speaker 2: Far from Jesus simply ruling from heaven on a throne in glory and bliss, detached, unmoved, no, no, no.
Speaker 2: This God comes down.
Speaker 2: From Genesis to Revelation, this God comes down to be in the mess and in the mix with his people.
Speaker 2: The reality is that this father loves the world that he's made and so, even though it's become wayward and corrupt, god sent his son to learn the family business from the bottom up.
Speaker 2: That's why, in verse 8, it says Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.
Speaker 2: What could it possibly mean that Jesus learned obedience, except that there's a knowledge that can only come through experience.
Speaker 2: You see, jesus was always without sin chapter 4, verse 15, which means Jesus was always obedient, he was never disobedient, but it means but the text here says that he learned obedience, and so there's a sense in which you have to understand.
Speaker 2: He wasn't gaining new information.
Speaker 2: He was learning what it looked like to obey in the midst of trial and temptation, just like the Hebrews, just like you and me.
Speaker 2: Do you see how our confession about who Jesus is actually encourages us to hold fast in the midst of trial and temptation?
Speaker 2: It's almost like this your immune system is healthy, and then it encounters a sickness and it fights it off, and then it's stronger on the other side.
Speaker 2: In a similar way, jesus learned obedience through the things that he suffered.
Speaker 2: What does this mean for us?
Speaker 2: Well, if Jesus was a son who suffered, so will you.
Speaker 2: What does this mean for us?
Speaker 2: Well, if Jesus was a son who suffered, so will you.
Speaker 2: That's what that means.
Speaker 2: And the text goes on.
Speaker 2: It says and being made perfect.
Speaker 2: In chapter five, verse nine and being made perfect, jesus became the source of eternal salvation.
Speaker 2: For whom?
Speaker 2: To all who obey him.
Speaker 2: Now, discipleship is learning to obey all that Jesus commanded.
Speaker 2: That's what the Great Commission says, right.
Speaker 2: But this is learning to obey all that Jesus commanded.
Speaker 2: That's what the Great Commission says, right.
Speaker 2: But this is important to notice.
Speaker 2: Usually, misinterpretations of Scripture come from a lack of care in reading Scripture.
Speaker 2: So read this carefully with me.
Speaker 2: It says and being made perfect, jesus became the source of eternal salvation.
Speaker 2: Okay, so this is important.
Speaker 2: The perfect, perpetual, lifelong obedience provides the source for our salvation, not your obedience.
Speaker 2: That's super important to get that.
Speaker 2: So then, what is our obedience If it's not the source?
Speaker 2: Our obedience is a sign of our salvation.
Speaker 2: It evidences the fact that we belong to Jesus.
Speaker 2: Jesus says why do you call me Lord?
Speaker 2: Lord, but do not do what I say.
Speaker 2: In other words, to become a follower of Jesus means that you will try to obey him.
Speaker 2: That's important.
Speaker 2: In fact, it's incredibly important to know that obedience to Jesus it's evidence that you belong to Jesus, but it's not the basis of your belonging to Jesus.
Speaker 2: Track with that.
Speaker 2: That's what the text says here.
Speaker 2: If you look carefully at it Now, this word learned in verse 8 is actually the same root word for disciple.
Speaker 2: This is where I get the idea that discipleship is learning obedience, just like Jesus did.
Speaker 2: If Jesus needed to learn obedience, so do you.
Speaker 2: This is good news, because some of us in here obey as a four-letter word.
Speaker 2: We just we don't like that talk.
Speaker 2: You're getting uncomfortable right now.
Speaker 2: I keep talking about obedience, but here's the thing I actually think it's a really important reframe to recognize that the Christian life is not like an on-off switch, but rather a dimmer switch.
Speaker 2: This is what I mean.
Speaker 2: I had a week this week after kind of two weeks of being sick.
Speaker 2: That's why I got my water here.
Speaker 2: I keep almost coughing.
Speaker 2: I had two weeks of being sick which threw off my sleep schedule, threw off my spiritual disciplines, which threw off my emotional state Like all these things Couldn't exercise and I just had a week of malaise.
Speaker 2: And in weeks like that.
Speaker 2: I don't know what it's like for you, but for me, weeks like that I'm more prone to anxiety, to irritability, to lust, to, you know, eating more sugar than I probably should.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm the only sinner in the room, apparently, nobody else Listen.
Speaker 2: But the beauty of the calling to be a pastor what Ryan just got ordained into is we get to sit with the Bible and just meditate on it.
Speaker 2: And I needed this text this week, for these two weeks.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I joke that God made me a pastor to keep me a Christian Like I needed to live in Hebrews 4 and 5.
Speaker 2: I needed the hopefulness that, hey, I had two weeks that were kind of hard.
Speaker 2: But I'm learning obedience Because my life of obedience is not on off pass fail.
Speaker 2: Nor is yours, nor is Jesus.
Speaker 2: Our life of obedience is a dimmer switch, going from darker to brighter, to brighter to brighter over time.
Speaker 2: That's encouraging.
Speaker 2: Carol Dweck says that you need a growth mindset, not a fixed mindset, when it comes to your discipleship to Jesus.
Speaker 2: That last part I added.
Speaker 2: This is essential to walking with Jesus in this.
Speaker 2: So if we're going to learn obedience from the one who learned obedience, look with me at verse 7 again.
Speaker 2: It says this.
Speaker 2: In the days of his flesh, jesus offered up prayers and supplication with loud cries and tears.
Speaker 2: If you know the story of the gospels, you know that this time of tears was in the garden of Gethsemane, and you may know the prayer Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane.
Speaker 2: My favorite version of it is in Mark's gospel and it it says this Jesus goes before the Father three times and he is crying and sweating blood and in agony because he's about to go to the cross.
Speaker 2: And he says this Abba Father, all things are possible for you.
Speaker 2: Remove this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will.
Speaker 2: This is where Jesus learned obedience, right here.
Speaker 2: Now notice the three movements of that.
Speaker 2: The first movement is trust.
Speaker 2: So if you're learning obedience, if you're in trial or temptation, here's the first thing you can do State your trust.
Speaker 2: Declare back to God who he is.
Speaker 2: Confess your faith, come into agreement about who God is.
Speaker 2: Abba Father, first of all, you're the intimate, near close God that you've promised yourself to be, abba Father, and yet you're the one for whom all things are possible.
Speaker 2: You're transcendent and on high and sovereign, enthroned over the whole universe.
Speaker 2: You declare your trust in those moments.
Speaker 2: This actually buoys your soul and then you declare your desire.
Speaker 2: This is what makes Christianity not stoic and not Buddhist and not Eastern Christianity takes your desires very seriously.
Speaker 2: God cares that you don't want to suffer.
Speaker 2: He actually wants to hear it from you.
Speaker 2: Jesus, in the face of the cross, said to the Father I don't want to do this.
Speaker 2: Maybe you can do that too then, when you're learning obedience, maybe you can tell him what you really think, what you really feel, how you really want this to turn out for you.
Speaker 2: Remove this cup from me.
Speaker 2: But not only was it trust, not only was it him acknowledging who God is and acknowledging what he wants, but it ended with surrender.
Speaker 2: This is where Jesus learned obedience and this is where we can learn obedience from him.
Speaker 2: He says remove this cup from me, yet not what I will, but your will be done.
Speaker 2: That's the key.
Speaker 2: You see, people can cloak Christian garb over a will that's never been supple and surrendered to God, and it creates some really bad things.
Speaker 2: So I don't really care what you know about the Bible and theology and how moral you are.
Speaker 2: If you don't have a supple, surrendered will before God, you're a dangerous person.
Speaker 2: Jesus knew what it was like to surrender his will to the Father.
Speaker 2: This is how he learned obedience.
Speaker 2: And so it goes on.
Speaker 2: And in the actual text of Hebrews 5-7, it says this that Jesus prayed to him who was able to save him from death?
Speaker 2: And he was heard.
Speaker 2: What, really?
Speaker 2: He was heard.
Speaker 2: If you know the story of Jesus, he wasn't saved from death.
Speaker 2: So what is Hebrews talking about here?
Speaker 2: Jesus died, he was crucified, so was he heard?
Speaker 2: You see, god gave Jesus what he asked for, but not the way that Jesus asked for it, but not the way that Jesus asked for it.
Speaker 2: He was saved from death, but he was saved through death.
Speaker 2: You see, the thing that God gave to Jesus was resurrection, not sparing the cross.
Speaker 2: This matters because there's only two ways that God answers our requests for deliverance.
Speaker 2: There's only two ways.
Speaker 2: The first way is that he delivers us from affliction.
Speaker 2: He actually removes the affliction.
Speaker 2: Or he gets you out of it, or he gives you the thing you're asking for.
Speaker 2: He does do that.
Speaker 2: But the second way is that God delivers us through the affliction.
Speaker 2: Some people go all in on the miracle.
Speaker 2: They just want the miracle, and I'm telling you there is almost no greater miracle than the grace to endure hardship and to keep your heart tender before the Lord.
Speaker 2: And so there's only two requests God will either deliver you from the affliction or through the affliction.
Speaker 2: And what did Jesus get?
Speaker 2: He had to be delivered through the affliction of crucifixion.
Speaker 2: And so if this happens to the son, this is the story God, the Father, chose to tell in his one and only son's life.
Speaker 2: You can assure that life, death and resurrection is the story he's gonna retell in your life.
Speaker 2: And so Jesus says here was heard by him, who was able to save him from death.
Speaker 2: Later, in Hebrews, chapter 13, verse 20, it says the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2: Resurrection is the outcome, it is the thing that ends.
Speaker 2: And yet not only resurrection but ascension.
Speaker 2: Look at verse 14 again, where we started back at the top.
Speaker 2: This is to see whether Jesus qualifies as the great high priest, you know, if he ascends and gets to be seated at the right hand of God.
Speaker 2: Verse 14 says this since then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens Jesus, the son of God.
Speaker 2: Let us hold fast our confession, this language of passing through the heavens.
Speaker 2: In biblical cosmology, there's three heavens.
Speaker 2: There's the first heaven, which is where the birds fly.
Speaker 2: There's the second heaven, which is where the stars are we call that space.
Speaker 2: And then there's the third heaven, which is where the angels are around God's throne.
Speaker 2: That's God's holy dwelling.
Speaker 2: His holy habitat is that third heaven.
Speaker 2: Jesus passed through all three heavens and is seated at the right hand of God, the Father enthroned on high, our great high priest.
Speaker 2: Why does that matter?
Speaker 2: Let me tell you a story.
Speaker 2: I had a friend named Rusty and Rusty and I would go sharing the gospel with people on campus at UCF when I was a student there and we were wonderfully sketchy.
Speaker 2: We'd walk up and ask people if they'd want to do a spiritual survey with us, which was basically a way to get to talk to them about Jesus.
Speaker 2: And it was great.
Speaker 2: I still do it, I won't stop.
Speaker 2: And Rusty was a great evangelist.
Speaker 2: He was really gifted at telling engaging stories.
Speaker 2: He had this one that I loved.
Speaker 2: What he would say is Rusty would tell the story like this.
Speaker 2: He would say hey, so my name's Rusty, my dad lives in Stone Mountain Georgia.
Speaker 2: This is Ben.
Speaker 2: Ben and my dad have never met before.
Speaker 2: So if Ben went up to Stone Mountain Georgia and knocked on my dad's front door and said, hey, my name's Ben, can I stay the night, my dad would probably go no, and close the door in Ben's face.
Speaker 2: But if I knocked Ben, if I knocked on the door and I said, hey, my name's Ben, I'm friends with your son, rusty, can I stay the night?
Speaker 2: There's like a 50-50 chance.
Speaker 2: But what difference does it make?
Speaker 2: If Rusty shows up and Rusty knocks on the door and he says hey, dad, good to see you.
Speaker 2: This is my friend Ben, we're staying the night, dad swings wide the door and invites us both in, as if we belong because I come in the status of a son.
Speaker 2: This is what it means that Jesus, our great high priest, passed through the heavens.
Speaker 2: Jesus came down from the heavens to give you his access, and now he goes back up and enthroned in the heavens to give you his access to the Father.
Speaker 2: What do we do with all that access?
Speaker 2: Point two we draw near.
Speaker 2: Look at the text with me.
Speaker 2: Hebrews 4.16 says this Let us, then, with confidence, draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Speaker 2: Draw near is a phrase that shows up seven times in the book of Hebrews.
Speaker 2: That's a perfect number in biblical numerology.
Speaker 2: This is the first of seven times it shows up.
Speaker 2: This is significant.
Speaker 2: I like to think about drawing near.
Speaker 2: It's what attachment theory calls proximity-seeking behavior.
Speaker 2: Think about it like this You're on a playground.
Speaker 2: Calls proximity-seeking behavior.
Speaker 2: Think about it like this You're on a playground and a kid falls, excuse me, skins their knee.
Speaker 2: And what do they do when they fall and skin their knee?
Speaker 2: They run to their primary caregiver, they run to their mother or father.
Speaker 2: Why?
Speaker 2: Because closeness equals comfort.
Speaker 2: That's proximity-seeking behavior.
Speaker 2: That's what drawing near means.
Speaker 2: We seek closeness with the one with whom we have a securely attached relationship.
Speaker 2: Well, people have taken John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth's psychology of attachment theory and they've applied it to our relationship with God, very helpfully actually.
Speaker 2: And they say that when attachment to God, when our willingness to draw near to God, when it kind of gets dysfunctional, that dysfunction shows up in one of two ways.
Speaker 2: Maybe one of you is prone towards one of these two ways.
Speaker 2: The first one is that we avoid nearness with God.
Speaker 2: We avoid nearness with God through, typically, a need for self-reliance difficulty, depending on God, trusting for him to come through, an unwillingness to be emotionally intimate with God.
Speaker 2: What Jesus called or remember said about Jesus loud cries and tears, can you bring those to God?
Speaker 2: Those are people who avoid nearness to God.
Speaker 2: But then there's those of us who are ambivalent about our nearness to God and really it comes from a fear of abandonment.
Speaker 2: This is what that looks like.
Speaker 2: We have a fear that God's going to give up on us, that this was the last time, the last straw.
Speaker 2: We have a resentment because of God's perceived lack of affection towards us.
Speaker 2: We've got anxiety over our lovability in God's eyes.
Speaker 2: We actually get jealous, maybe, if other people seem to have a closer relationship with God than we do.
Speaker 2: We have a preoccupation with obeying God in order to keep him close.
Speaker 2: So Hebrews 4.16 would say let us then, with secure attachment, draw near, with confidence, draw near.
Speaker 2: Where do we get this confidence to draw near to God from?
Speaker 2: Well, there's two phrases that, in Greek, sound way more similar than the English translation here.
Speaker 2: Here's the two phrases he's able to sympathize, 415.
Speaker 2: He is able to deal gently, 5-2.
Speaker 2: This is where we boost ourselves and buoy ourselves in confidence that we should and can draw near.
Speaker 2: Look with me at 415.
Speaker 2: It says this 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.
Speaker 2: Jesus is both holy and lowly.
Speaker 2: This means he is unapathetic and sympathetic.
Speaker 2: You see, I'm trying to make this plain, but it's going to go fast.
Speaker 2: If Jesus was tempted and sinned, he could not offer service to God.
Speaker 2: But if Jesus was without sin but was never tempted, he could not offer sympathy to you and me.
Speaker 2: Only Jesus, because he was both tempted and yet without sin, can offer service to God and sympathy to us as our great high priest.
Speaker 2: That's what this text wants you to see.
Speaker 2: Now, ever since Brene Brown, sympathy gets a bad rap.
Speaker 2: I'll leave that as a pregnant pause.
Speaker 2: And this is why she had this little cartoon YouTube video that went viral and it was about a fox that fell in a hole in like a deer or something like that, and one of the animals goes down in the hole with the fox and the other animal stays up maybe it's a hippo and talks to the fox from outside of the hole and her whole point is empathy gets down in the hole with people.
Speaker 2: Sympathy, basically, is detached.
Speaker 2: Now listen, I understand what she's getting at.
Speaker 2: She just chose the wrong word.
Speaker 2: She chose the wrong word.
Speaker 2: Sympathy was not the word to dunk on in that video.
Speaker 2: She should not have done that, but she did.
Speaker 2: And so this is why sympathy sympathos means fellow feeling or to suffer with.
Speaker 2: Etymologically, she's wrong to use that term.
Speaker 2: And I'm trying to reclaim sympathy because it's in the Bible and it says Jesus is term.
Speaker 2: And I'm trying to reclaim sympathy because it's in the Bible and it says Jesus is sympathetic.
Speaker 2: And I want you to think that that's a good thing, not wishing he was empathetic instead.
Speaker 2: You see, what this means is that Jesus is able to co-suffer with us.
Speaker 2: You want somebody who, because Jesus is sinless, he's not trapped in the same hole as you are.
Speaker 2: That's the only reason he can give you help in your time of need, because he's not in the hole with you.
Speaker 2: And yet Jesus climbs down into our humanity and feels our weaknesses, yet without sin, and so he actually comes in and he bears those burdens with us and bears us up out of that hole.
Speaker 2: You see, jesus can move towards you sympathetically because he knows the temptation to fall in that hole himself.
Speaker 2: Jesus knows our temptations.
Speaker 2: In fact he knows them better than we do.
Speaker 2: Cs Lewis kind of puts it like this.
Speaker 2: He says only a person who swims upstream knows the power of the current.
Speaker 2: Only a person who walks against the wind knows how strong the force of it is.
Speaker 2: He says only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is.
Speaker 2: We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it.
Speaker 2: And Christ, because he was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means and he's able to sympathize with you in your temptations.
Speaker 2: Now, underline this verse.
Speaker 2: I'd encourage you to do that because you're going to be in a circle in the not too distant future and hopefully somebody will confess sin, not because they sinned, but because they're confessing in your circle.
Speaker 2: They will confess sin and you're going to need to encourage them with words that are more important than what you think or what they feel.
Speaker 2: And that's when you want to be able to open up to Hebrews 4.15, and you want to underline, you want to look at them in the eyes and you want to say we do not have a high priest who's unable to sympathize with us and our weaknesses.
Speaker 2: And then you can go on and tell them and he's able to deal gently.
Speaker 2: Look with me at verse 5-2.
Speaker 2: It says this he can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness.
Speaker 2: This word deal gently could be translated ability to moderate one's feelings.
Speaker 2: I'm really glad they didn't translate it that way, but they could have.
Speaker 2: Why would Jesus or a high priest, why would they need to moderate one's feelings?
Speaker 2: I'm really glad they didn't translate it that way, but they could have.
Speaker 2: Why would Jesus or a high priest, why would they need to moderate one's feelings?
Speaker 2: Well, because, according to this text, we are quote weak, verse 15 and verse 2, tempted, verse 15, sinners, verse 15 and verse 3, needy, verse 16, ignorant, verse 2, and wayward, verse 2.
Speaker 2: And none of that is a surprise to Jesus.
Speaker 2: Which verse 2 and wayward verse 2.
Speaker 2: And none of that is a surprise to Jesus, which is good news, because for many of us, there's a gap between what we expect and what we get when we sin.
Speaker 2: We expect distance, but Jesus came from heaven to earth in order to bridge that gap.
Speaker 2: You see, there's really only two types of people in the world, two types of people in this room.
Speaker 2: There are those for whom sin is between you and God, and there are those for whom Jesus is between you and God, no middle ground.
Speaker 2: So, whichever one you're in hopefully you're in the Jesus is between you and God.
Speaker 2: Fully embrace that.
Speaker 2: Don't let your sin get between you and God anymore.
Speaker 2: Don't let it cause a sense of distance, because when we look inside of ourselves, we anticipate only harshness from heaven, but when we look up to Jesus seated on the throne of grace, we actually receive only gentleness from him.
Speaker 2: This is the good news of this text we expect harshness.
Speaker 2: Honestly, I think the reason why we expect harshness when we sin is because we all know people who are unable to sympathize and unable to deal gently.
Speaker 2: Some of you are those people.
Speaker 2: Right, you have a hard time with other people's weaknesses.
Speaker 2: You're actually triggered by people who are easily triggered, but you would never call it that people who are easily triggered, but you would never call it that.
Speaker 2: Some people get angry and irritated and frustrated with their spouse or their kids or their co-workers or their friends.
Speaker 2: Why?
Speaker 2: Because they're ignorant and weak and wayward and needy.
Speaker 2: And you're right and you know what's true and you're so self-controlled and disciplined.
Speaker 2: And yet all of that self-control and discipline has made you unsympathetic and lacking gentleness.
Speaker 2: Listen, usually people who are not acquainted with their own weakness and need are some of the harshest people.
Speaker 2: They're harsh with themselves, they're harsh with others.
Speaker 2: This is why CS Lewis said of all the bad men, religious bad men are the worst.
Speaker 2: But I have good news for you this morning.
Speaker 2: Jesus is nothing like you.
Speaker 2: He is nothing like you.
Speaker 2: He is far surpassing all of your wildest dreams and expectations.
Speaker 2: Instead of feeling like we're gonna get harshness if we come to Jesus with our weakness or ignorance or whatever it might be, instead we can, with confidence, draw near to the throne of grace.
Speaker 2: And what will we find?
Speaker 2: According to the text, mercy and grace to help in time of need.
Speaker 2: My hope is that the Spirit draws this to mind this week.
Speaker 2: When you're at work or at home, or with friends or dealing with relational strife, or overwhelmed or anxious or whatever it is, and you go.
Speaker 2: This is a time of need.
Speaker 2: I can draw near.
Speaker 2: That's how I find mercy and grace.
Speaker 2: Jesus promised it.
Speaker 2: I believe it.
Speaker 2: Let's go.
Speaker 2: That's what I hope happens this week.
Speaker 2: And I want to underline something else for you.
Speaker 2: It's a throne of grace.
Speaker 2: Of all the places, all the things that this throne could be called A throne of royalty, a throne of gold, a throne of awe-striking transcendence.
Speaker 2: It could have been all those things.
Speaker 2: It's called a throne of grace.
Speaker 2: It's a throne of grace that you draw near to because it's a throne that freely dispenses help from heaven to the weak, to the tempted, to sinners, to the needy, to ignorant, to the wayward.
Speaker 2: And so we can draw near, because we hold fast to our confession, because our confession tells us who it is that's seated on that throne.
Speaker 2: Let's pray Jesus, we draw near to you now.
Speaker 2: We draw near to you now, seated at that throne, the throne of grace.
Speaker 2: We come to you with our weaknesses and our neediness, even some of us with our unwillingness to acknowledge our weakness and our neediness.
Speaker 2: Deal gently with us this morning, be sympathetic towards us in our weakness this morning.
Speaker 2: That's who you say you are and we believe it.
Speaker 2: We pray this in your name, lord Jesus, amen.