A Throne of Mercy and Grace

chapter 4 I'm reading it the last verse verse 16

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

now we know that some of the greatest new testament writings came from defending the faith

against those who were wanting to attack the christian faith and while that was true

certainly of in the new testament it's also true throughout the history of the church that some of

the best writings that we will find have come about from those who are trying to defend or who

are defending the faith against attack from without and within you think of people like augustine and

luther and calvin and right down to the likes of dr martin lloyd jones and to tim killer and there's a

huge list of people who have written great things but some of the best writings have come about

as they are seeking to defend the faith from attack and that's what we have very much in this chapter

because the writer here is writing to christian jews and they are under attack from non-christian jews

who are telling them that they're lacking that the faith they have the beliefs they have that they're

not the real thing because they're missing out on so much these non-believing jews or jews who haven't

embraced the christian faith they're saying listen you don't have sacrifices you don't have altars you

don't have a priesthood and above all you don't have a high priest so they're saying you're you're you're

really missing out so the the apostle here is writing in a way in which he's saying that isn't true

that that we have that's what it says in verse 14 since then we have a great high priest who has

passed through the heavens jesus the son of god let us hold fast our confession and when he writes that

since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens you can almost picture as you

remember back in the in the in the old testament times there was only one day in the year when the

high priest was allowed into the most holy place or the holy of holies that was in the great day of

atonement and just this one time in the year he passed through the curtain in there

now jesus of course is the great high priest and he has passed through and he has passed through

everything and he has arisen from death and he has passed into the heavens and you remember when

jesus cried on the cross it is finished and when he gave up his spirit that there were various

phenomena that occurred and one of the things that happened was at the veil in the temple that veil which

separated to the most holy place where the presence of god was most most found that that veil was torn from top to bottom

and god was showing at that moment that the old was gone and that there was an immediate access through christ

into his presence and that there was now no need for the altar and the sacrifices and the priesthood and the high

priesthood that these were types these were ceremonies these were rituals that were all pointing to jesus christ

and had been fulfilled in jesus christ and just as the high priest passed through the curtain

into the most holy place so jesus passed through into the presence of the father and he had achieved and he had

he had made this this way possible so that's what the the the writer is he here saying not only do we not have we have the greatest of all

and then in verse 15 he tells us that our high priest although he is the god man although he is all majestic and powerful and mighty and wonderful

he is also one with us he knows every single thing about us not only as god but he understands us

because he has actually gone through everything with us as well because our god is not a god who is distant

and remote and far removed he is a god who is with us a god who is in us he is emmanuel god with us

and so this is a wonderful thing that we have that our high priest our lord he knows he knows everything

about us not just as god but also by way of experience because he understands what this world is like

that is a cruel that is a a painful place it's a place of hurt a place of betrayal a place of disappointment

jesus christ was touched that's what we're told in he's with all our our weaknesses and he was he was

touched in every area apart of course from from from in temptation apart from sin and you and i know the one of

the the great things of supposing you go through some very difficult trying experience something that's

heartbreaking and heart-rending and people will come to see you and people will sympathize with you

and it's one of the things and any minister will say the same as you deal with or try to deal with people

in their sorrows and you sympathize with them and while your heart genuinely goes out and you really

feel for them there are often many situations where you are sympathizing with and praying with and

listening to and you have to say well my heart goes out i don't completely understand because i've never

been there and sometimes you say thankfully i haven't been there because as some people go through very

hard and difficult experiences you're you as we say your heart goes out but you can't properly understand

because you haven't you yourself experienced but if somebody who has experienced exactly the same thing

as you comes to see you that makes a difference in the sense that you know that they know exactly

what you're feeling well that's a wonderful thing about the high priest that we have jesus he understands

exactly he's been touched with the feeling of our weaknesses he knows our pains he knows our

sorrows he knows when we what it's like to be let down he knows what it's like to be betrayed he knows

what just in all the difficult different situations he knows what it is to be lied about and where false

accusations are leveled against knows all these things and he knows the force and the power of temptation

although he didn't have sin within him yet he he was battered by satan so this is a

high priest that we have one who sympathizes with us and his sympathizing wasn't just when he was here

in this world because we know that when he was here in this world as for these 33 years it often

says that he was moved with compassion his sympathy didn't stop when he left this world he's the

unchanging jesus and he is as sympathetic tonight as he has ever been at any stage so that's a wonderful

thing that we have is that we have this wonderful sympathetic high priest and that's why we're then

told let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace and how thankful tonight that it is

a throne of grace that it's speaking about imagine if it was a throne of judgment because one day it's

going to be one day jesus christ won't be on the throne of grace as we have here he'll be on the throne

of judgment the judgment seat of christ where everyone will have to appear and i know that on that day

there'll be many people and they'll wish that they had gone to the throne of grace many people who

didn't believe many people who didn't want to go many people who couldn't be bothered going but on that

day that that throne this throne the throne of grace won't be available in the way that it is now

although grace doesn't end there will always be grace and grace will be complete in glory but the thing is

that tonight it's a throne of grace that we that we have here before us and there was grace of course in

the establishing of it this grace was this throne was established by god's grace as we know grace

is a is an undeserved favor and so god established this throne and it was purely of grace that he did so

because we didn't deserve it god would have been completely right to have said i will do no such thing as

establish a throne of grace this people deserves nothing because of what they have done

but he has made he has set out this throne of grace for us and it's something we should always remember

that it is it was established by grace and this grace that is given this throne of grace we must always

remember has come at a great cost you know sometimes we just take it for granted and we think oh well

we have this throne of grace we have this throne of grace and we can go anytime let's always remember

what it cost cost the death of the lord jesus christ without the death of jesus christ there would be no

throne of grace we wouldn't be meeting in this kind of way we wouldn't be enjoying the benefits that we do

were it not for the death of the lord jesus christ so we must always remember that

that tonight this privilege that we have cost heaven's greatest treasure where god gave his son

where jesus christ gave himself so we must always remember that so we have this great invitation to

come and this invitation let's say is to everyone some people think that this invitation is purely

for the christian it's not it's for everyone how did we come to faith was it not by coming as sinners

to the throne of grace this is where it began and the invitation we've always got to remember although

it's a christian that uses the throne of grace most of the time that throne of grace is available

to everyone and that's where we begin that's where our journey began by calling out to the lord

calling out to him to to hear us to pardon us to forgive us our sin that's where a sinner first finds

pardon from all their sins is at the throne of grace so it is as we say it's a throne that is there

for everyone so how do we come we're told we come with confidence or boldness it's the idea of somebody

coming to a higher rank and that doesn't mean that we come brazenly or come with a super confidence

but it means that we come with an assurance that god is not going to deal with us according to our

everybody serving because we could easily be inhibited and think you know i i can't come

but the lord is saying no you can't come you have a sympathetic high priest who wants you to come who's

available all the time and i often think that we should in fact it was just mentioned in the prayer

and it's very very difficult to prepare properly midweek when people have been have a busy a busy schedule

and to come and was just highlighted there of how and quite often when we come to a prayer meeting

we become very conscious of maybe how we didn't prepare before we came now i know that it is often

in the hurried rushed pressurized life that we live today very difficult or impossible to prepare as we would

want to but i believe that when we have our set times of private prayer we should seek to prepare for it

because if you and i were going to meet king charles are going to meet some dignitary we would prepare

and so we should prepare as we come to meet with the lord at his throne and always as we said remember

the privilege what a what a wonderful thing it is that the creator of heaven and earth the god who

holds this world in the hollow of his hand the god who counts the number of the stars and he names them

one by one has said you come tonight you come today you come anytime to me tell me what you need tell me

what you want i'm listening i'm sympathetic it's the most amazing privilege that we have

which far too often we take for granted now as i said often we don't have the time to prepare because

often when we come to the throne of grace it's spontaneous we all of a sudden we cry to the lord

we're in a time of need and we cry for help we ask lord lord help me here i don't know what to do

i don't know what to say lord put a guard over my mouth in case i say the wrong thing we're so often

asking the lord like that or it's a a sigh of confession lord forgive me forgive me my sin

so that a lot of our coming to the throne of grace is like that it's it's spontaneous

but also there are times that we should come and we should be more prepared in our coming

and so we we need to we need to come and be persuaded that the lord will hear us satan will

whisper into your ear and say lord's not going to listen to you you look at your life you look at

you look at the many ways you've let the lord down you look at all the things you've done and all the

things you've said lord's not going to listen to you we're told here that we are to come with this

confidence with this assurance and what are we to seek for very briefly that we may receive mercy

and you know that's where it where it all began so we sang this poor man cried god heard and saved him

from all his distresses and all your days you will be crying the first cry that you ever had

god be merciful to me a sinner that's how it began and you will never the christian will never ever stop

asking the lord lord be merciful to me and you know that that mercy that we have it we've said it

before that mercy is often we is that where there is a need on the part of the one requiring mercy

and there are resources sufficient on the part of the one bestowing mercy you've heard the story of

you know it well of the the man who was to be shot in the time of napoleon and the man's

mother came to napoleon and he said she pleaded for her son to be spared and napoleon said justice

demands he dies and the mother said it's not justice that i'm looking for it's mercy please be

merciful to him napoleon said woman he doesn't deserve mercy he deserves to die the mother said it wouldn't

be mercy if he deserved it and that's the wonder of it that's what mercy and she said just be

merciful and napoleon was struck by that and he said i will grant mercy you see it wouldn't be

mercy if we deserved it but it's this undeserving and as god is merciful to us and he is let us pray

constantly that we in turn will be merciful to others as we receive mercy and you know we can be harsh

with other people when god is so gracious and so merciful to us so we must seek always to be

merciful as we have received mercy and then again we see we ask for grace that's what it says let us

that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need when through mercy we've come

to know god's peace and we're through this journey through this wilderness through this world

every day we're looking for that grace and we're told in the bible that that grace is sufficient for us

now you and i know that there are times that we will very readily make our way to the lord and we'll

say to the lord oh lord help me i need your grace i'm struggling sometimes it might be physical sometimes

it might be mental it might be emotional might be spiritual might be a combination of all these things

because sometimes we can't separate all these things are so often intertwined

and we go to the lord and say lord i need your grace but you know there are there are times that

will rebellious and there are times we're in the huff dare i say it in the huff with god

and we won't go to him for grace and we'll say i'll see this myself i'll see i'll sort this myself

i'll put on as it were like the stiff upper lip i'll deal with this i'm not going to take the

christian attitude here you know that's so wrong and god will sometimes allow us to just like little

toddlers our little children to have their wee sort of moments of being sort of like this a wee strop

sadly we have our strops before god but you know the lord is gracious and he teaches us that it is by

grace that we have to go through this world leaning on him and relying on him irrespective of what the

situation may be whether it is whether their family difficulties whether their physical difficulties

whether their financial difficulties whether their relationship difficulties whether their sorrows

bereavements losses crosses doesn't matter what the grace is sufficient and it's through god's grace

through these trials that come into our lives that we learn so many things and i'm sure every one of

you tonight can echo in a different way to the way that paul did but remember how paul prayed to the

lord that he would remove this thorn in the flesh and he prayed and he prayed and he prayed about it

god said no i'm not going to remove it but i'm instead i'm going to give you my grace

and you know i'm sure the lord is doing that for every single one of us here in a different way

there's always going to be something you don't want in your life

and you wish that you were saying if only this could be removed i would be a better person

i would be a better christian my life would be so much better why is this here and the lord is

saying in order that you will discover my grace because it is by grace that we walk every step of

the way and the lord is saying there is a sufficiency at this throne please make it the habit of your life

to come to that throne so that we might all indeed every single one of us may receive

this mercy and this grace to help in time of need let us pray lord our god we give thanks for our time

together we give thanks for this word so often we're we're so familiar with this version indeed we so

often quote it but help us to remember more and more the the depth of truth that's in it of the amazing

mercy and grace that is to be found at your throne and we pray that you'll equip us as we

go through life at every turn and at every corner we pray that you'll help us and we pray that you'll

be with everybody here tonight according to their needs that they will discover your help your strength

your grace we pray lord that you'll do for us far and beyond what we may ask or think we pray that

you'll bless us in our homes and our families be with all whom we love with all who can't be here

tonight who would want to be be with those online lord we pray your blessing upon us do us good

cleanse us we pray and take us to our homes safely forgiving us all our sin in jesus name amen

we're going to

we're going to