The Book of Hebrews: Week 3

Welcome to the Church of the Crossing. My name is James.

We're so glad that you are here today. Today is

our third week in our hebrew series, and I've heard

from some church members that have been here since the

sixties that we've never went through Hebrews. And there's a

lot of good reasons. This week, when I was studying

it the message, I thought this should really be taught

in the classroom. And you know, about the second or

third time I rewrote my message, I thought this really

should be done in the classroom. But you know, I'm

again reminding us all at the beginning of each week

that it's my job to faithfully share with you God's

word and ask you to adjust your life to it.

And then all that's done for the glory of God.

It's your job to come in here if your heart

open and ready, eager and asking God, God, show me

what to change, show me what you want me to do.

As a result of this together, I think that Hebrews.

I think Hebrews is going to give you a different

appreciation for who Jesus is. I think you're going to

walk away at the end of the summer, just I

think more deeply in love with Jesus, and so I'm

excited about that. So let's pray and ask God to

speak to us today and share with us his word. God,

we come to you today. We thank you for your faithfulness.

We thank you for your goodness. God, as we dive

into your word today, May you be exalted. Also, help

us to take your word and allow it to marinate

deeply in our soul. Holy Spirit, do a work with

us and through us in Jesus' name. Amen. I wonder

how many of us I've had this thought, not just once,

but maybe many times in our lives. Like I know,

God has more for me than this, more for me

than this. And I'm not talking about success our possessions.

I'm talking I have this crazy belief that everybody wants

their life to have great impact for the Kingdom of

God and our families at work, in our home life,

with our friends. We want the Holy Spirit and the

work of God to come through us for there to

be a major impact. But sadly, sadly, much of that

impact is dulled because of a few things, like the

sin in our life, the temptations that we constantly struggle with,

some of the bad habits, some of us. We don't

witness at work because we know that everybody has seen

us blow it, and so we're a shamed. Some of

us don't take the godly authority that God has given

us in our home life because you know, we know

that all eyes are on us, and we've struggled and

we want so much more. We know that God wants

more for us, but we just have this I don't know,

like we just beat up on ourselves a lot. And

I want to encourage you that today's message, if you

feel that way remotely, Today's message is for you. I remember,

and I've shared this story before, but when I first

came to christ Still the next day, and I was

so excited. I was going, like, I'm going to impact

the world for Jesus. And the first person I saw

at in the parking lot my senior year at school

is Dan de Brosie, and I meant to yell, hey Dan,

how are you doing? And I yelled across the parking lot,

Hey Dan, how the are you doing? All the way

across the whole parking lot, And I thought, good, you

lasted five whole seconds, dude, five whole seconds. And let

me tell you something, I really struggled, amongst other things.

But when I first came to and for those first

few months, I really struggled with I would say that

I have very creative language skills, and I'm also a

type of person who loves to make people laugh, and

so I would get around my friends even though I've

been changed by Christ, and I would go into entertainment

mode and often the jokes would land much in my opinion,

better with some of the explicitives that I would use.

And then man, I would go to bed at night

and man, the Holy Spirit would grab a hold of

me and I would just repent. I say I'm so sorry, Lord,

and man, I get around my friends and I would

do the same thing again. It was actually right before

we graduated. A young girl, nice girl, Kylie, said to me,

because I came to christ halfway through my senior year

and we're about really graduate. And Kylie said to me, James,

I don't think you're going to make it as a Christian.

I'm like, and I'm feeling like everything in my life

has changed dramatically. And I said, why, she goes Sometimes

by the way you talk, I just feel like you're

not too far away from slipping back into your old life,

and man, God, use that. God, use that to bring

great conviction and great change in my life. Let me

tell you something. She wasn't trying to be mean. She's

just exposed something that I didn't want to admit. And see,

my struggle with sin wasn't just affecting me and my witness,

you know, it was affecting every relationship I had. And

maybe you've had moments like this too where you realize

your sin struggles are affecting your kingdom impact. The good

news is Hebrews four was written for people like us,

people who are struggling, people who are attempted, people who

need help. And today we're going to discover that our

hope is not found in trying harder, but our hope

is found in this is found in a savior who

understands our weaknesses and invites us to come boldly to

him for mercy, grace, and help. So as we enter

into chapter four today and our study through Hebrews, I

want us to look at this Versus says, Therefore, since

we have a great high priest, pay attention that phrase.

I'm gonna get back to that great high priest who

has ascended into having Jesus, the Great High Priest, the

Son of God. Let us hold firmly to the faith

we profess. In other words, let's stick with it, stay

on track. For we do not have a high priest

who is unable to empathize with what our weaknesses. But

we have a great High Priest who's been tempted in

every way just as we are. Yet he did not sin.

So because of the work of Jesus Christ. Then let

us approach God's throne of what grace, with what confidence,

And when we do that, we may receive mercy and

find grace to help us in our time of need. Now,

before we go any further, I want to talk about

that that title Great High Priest, because I don't know

about you, but I just haven't spent much of my

life thinking about priest. I didn't grow up in a

Catholic church. It's kind of a foreign thing to me.

And so it's only when I read the Bible and

when I think about the priests of the Old Testament,

it's just so foreign to me that I just feel

like the religious you know, worship service guys, and that's

really what their function was. They were over the worship

services in Old Testament Israel. But as you dig in

and you really start to look at what the role

of the priest was back in, you start to understand

more deeply what it means for Jesus to be our

Great High Priest. See, back in the day before Christ came,

God was holy, and because God was holy, he his

presence would sometimes show up in the Holy of Holies.

And the people of Israel because they were sinful, they

had broken the law, they had felled, they had been

tempted and to come to it, and over and over

and over again, they just blew it because they were sinful.

People like it, all of us in this room, they

actually did not have access to God. So imagine if

you blew it, you messed up, you sin You actually

could not go into the presence of God to receive comfort,

to receive forgiveness, to talk to your God. No, there

was an absolute separation. And who stood in the middle

the priest. The priest was the one who went to

the people, got the sacrifices, got the offerings, and then

brought them to God. But they never intermingled. And this

priest once a year, once a year, this priest, the

Great High priest.

Of the Old Testament Israelites would actually take your sin

offering of the nation, and he would take this offering

into the Holy of Holies and present it to God.

And at that moment the sins of the nation were

forgiven again. It was a nation again. There was not

this personal relationship, this personal intimacy with God, and so

people felt a great disconnection. But because of that disconnection,

God still wanted to understand that their sin was costly,

that their sin mattered, that their sin had consequences, and

also that God was merciful. And I want you to

imagine it like this guy's, okay, if I want you

to understand what it meant to be a person who

sinned in the Old Testament, when you sinned, when you

messed up, you would actually have to go out into

the yard, your field, or you have to go to

someone else and maybe purchase this animal. And usually it

was a beautiful lamb, and it had to be a

perfect lamb. It had to be a good lamb. It

had to be a just a sweet, wonderful, beautiful lamb.

And you would take this beautiful lamb and you would

make your journey to Jerusalem, and as you made this big, long,

arduous journey. You would watch this lamb. It would maybe

play with your kids at night the fire, run around

and make you laugh. The family would giggle. But here's

what God was trying to teach you. That you went

into the flock and you picked out this perfect, innocent animal,

and now you got to march this animal. Who's cute,

who's sweet, who's innocent? And this animal the only reason

it has to die is because you sinned. Could you

imagine if after church today I walked up to each

of you and said, well, two lambs for you, three

lambs for you, calf for you, And could you imagine

spending time with those animals and knowing that the only

reason that they were going to die is because you

did something evil, because you sin And see was a

teacher that it was teaching us that someday there would

be an ultimate sacrifice. But here's the thing. You would

still bring the animal, and you would bring that animal

to the priest. The priest would pray over it, and

transference of your sins would happen, and then there would

be the execution and then the offering before God, where

they would sprinkle the blood on the mercy, seat and

all these things. And it was a ritual that went

on for generation after generation. But you still had no

access to God. You did not have a relationship with God.

You had a throne, a judgment that yet you feared

when Jesus came. And when Jesus came, he took this

life that you know, you and I live every day.

But he lived in a way where he was perfect.

He never sinned, he fulfilled the law, he didn't break it.

And because of that, Jesus Christ went to the cross

on our behalf, and the priest became the lamb. The

lamb became the priests, and Jesus Christ when he died

on the cross and became the ultimate sacrifice. Something happened

when Jesus died on that cross, something that spectacular happened. See,

for generations, thousands of years, people were separated from God

and they would only have contact with the priest. But

when Jesus Christ died on the cross, something spectacular happened.

The Bible says that he tore the curtain in half,

and then those of us who did not have access

to God now had complete access to God because of

the perfect sacrifice of Jesus, the curtain was torn. Here's

what Jesus. Jesus then goes to us when we mess up,

when we sin, and he takes us into the presence

of God. And now things have changed. Because what type

of presence is it. The Bible says, it's a throne

of grace, not a throne of condemnation. It's a throne

of mercy, not a throne of judgment. Oh but Jesus,

who tore the veil, who became the ultimate mediator, the

great high priest, now ushers us into the presence of God.

And it says, we can come with confidence. Here's why

I can come of confidence because Jesus took upon my sin,

and so when God looks at me, he sees Jesus.

That's why Jesus is a great high priest. Okay, And

here's what's fascinating. Let's go to this next part of

the passage. It talks about this great high priest and

all these wonderful things that the high priest has done.

But here's something very fascinating. It says, for we do

not have a high priest who is unable to empathize

with our weaknesses. No, no, no, no, it says that he

came in, he lived as a man, and he experienced

the temptations, yet he did not sin. So we actually

have a high priest that, well, you know what, he

knows what it's like to be tired. He knows what

it's like to be rejected, he knows what it's like

to suffer, he knows what it's like to be tempted.

And so today is what we're gonna do, just for

a few moments, if you will allow me, I'm gonna

jump over to Luke chapter four. And what I'm gonna

do is I'm gonna look at the temptations of Christ.

And I understand that these temptations of Christ were really

unique ones to Christ. But what we're gonna do is

we're going to see how each one of those was

actually universal. And they're the type of temptations that all

of us deal with from time to time. But Jesus

overcame them must look at these together. First of all,

we see that when Jesus full of the Holy Spirit,

left the Jordan, when he was led by the Spirit

into the wilderness. First thing we have to look at

here is we have to understand that God's leadings do

not always lead us to a place of safety and security.

No God will allow us to be tempted. God will

allow you to have seasons of trials and temptations. Goal

is for you to overcome, be victorious, become like his son.

It goes on to say, now, for forty days, Jesus

was tempted by the devil. Okay, he ate nothing during

those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.

So here's what I want to do, real quick. I

want to help you understand Jesus's temptation seen. The best

way to do that is to compare that to Adam,

the first one who is tempted. First of all, Adam

faced temptation in the most wonderful possible surroundings, the garden

of Eden. Jesus faced his temptations in the worst imaginable surrounding,

the wasteland of the Judaean desert. Adam feasted on lush provisions.

Jesus had an eight for forty days. Adam was tempted

once and felt Jesus, the text says, was tempted. In

the Greek, it means continual tempted, over and over and

over and over again. Here's what the writer does. The

writer only gives us three of them, but understanding that

these are not the only things that Jesus was tempted with.

But the riter picks these because these could be extrapulated

out and could be universal to us. So let's look

at these temptations. And the first thing we're gonna do

is we're gonna see what the temptation meant to Jesus,

and then we're gonna look at what it really means

to us, and then what's the antidote? Real quick, we're

gonna go through these street, says the devil, said to him,

if you're the son of God, tell this stone to

become bread. Jesus answered, man shall not live by bread alone. Now,

at first it does not look like an evil temptation.

What good is the Messiah if he's gonna die of hunger?

The temptation is not about bread. The temptation is that

temptation to all of us have almost on a daily basis.

It's a temptation to serve ourselves and our agenda. Am

I gonna trust in myself or trusting God for my needs?

And really it wasn't about what Jesus ate it was.

It was Satan trying to get Jesus to live independently

of the Father and the Father's ways and the Father's plans.

And let me tell you something that's hard. It's hard

to take the tough road. It's hard to trust in God,

especially when we're afraid we might lose this or that.

And for me, especially early on in Christianity, when I

was faced with the easy road or a hard road,

I would often ask myself, do I really believe God exists?

Because why would I suffer? Why would I take this trial?

Why would I go through this season if I don't

believe that He really exists. Gene and I used to

have a rental home. This rental home was great for

us for many years. We did have one lady who

fell behind and this went on for months. And by

the way, we were youth pastors. This was an accidental

rental income. Because during the pan or excuse me, not

the pandemic, but the recession of two thousand and eight,

we moved to Pittsburgh. Our house did and sell, so

we didn't have money, okay, And finally when the lady left,

we went home to get the place ready for someone

else to move in, and we were just shocked. Holes

in the wall, holes in the carpet, the place was nasty,

and it was going to cost us thousands of dollars

to get it ready. We did not have thousands of dollars.

This was a major crisis in our life. Immediately, I

went to pray about it and trying to figure out

what to do and talk to some people, and everybody's like,

just take her to court, take her to court, take

her to court, take her to court. And maybe that's

what God tells you to do. But God, in that moment,

was saying, James, I want to do something different with you.

I want to teach you some things through this moment.

And I felt like God told me to tell her

that we forgive her and just drop it. And I'm like, God,

are you sure you know? I checked the tuning to

make sure I was hearing God right, and so I

called her and I said, you're forgiven, you know owe

it was any money. She was shocked. She says why

and I said, because Jesus loves you and I do.

And that was it. That was hard. A few days later,

out of the blue, Gena gets a call and a

job offer that doubled her income that took care of

way more than those fixes on the home. See, God

was trying to teach me I can trust in him.

I can trust in him. I don't have to just

trust in myself. The second temptation we see that we

all struggle with here is we see this temptation here

to where Satan comes to Jesus and it says that

he led him to a high place and showed him

instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said

to him, now, listen this. It sounds audacious for Satan

to offer this, but I will give you all the

authority and splinter it's been given to me. I can

let you have everything. If you worship me, will all

be years. So here's what Satan says. You will become

instantly the king of the world. Now you might not

think Satan has that power, but three different times in

the Book of John, Jesus says that Satan is the

prince of this world. And so Jesus responds, listen, you're

supposed to ship to God has served him only. I'm

not supposed to worship you or serve you. And here's

what he's doing. He's offering Jesus the kingdom of the

world without any suffering. He's offering Jesus the easy route. Jesus,

you don't have to be homeless in this wilderness. You

don't have to face opposition. You can take the throne.

You can be as powerful as Caesar today. Jesus, there's

no cross in my offer. All you have to do

is put your trust to me and see, Jesus, what

was he tempted to do. It's something that we're tempted

to do all the time. That's take the shortcut in

life instead of waiting and trusting and submitting to God's

plan for his life. Sat wanted Jesus to grab the

glory way ahead of schedule. And see, doing life God's

way can be very difficult at times. Why because the

world offers us shortcuts almost every single day. You know,

every single day a lot of us are offered to

shortcut to pleasure. The shortcut the pleasure is often to

offer through premarital sex, pornography, a relationship outside of our marriage,

instead of trusting God for the pleasure he offers us

through a monogamous marriage. You know, the world offers us

a shortcut to promotion. All we got to do is

kind of make the other people around us not look

so great. We just trash them a little bit here

and there, instead of letting our work show for itself

and letting God exalt us at the right time when

we're ready. The world offers us possessions a shortcut to them.

All we got to do is max out our credit

instead of resisting the temptation towards materialism. The world offers

us now pay attention is a shortcut to influence. And

here's one way we can easily have influences by manipulating people,

because it takes a really long time to have influence

just by serving people. The world offers us a shortcut

to reconciliation, you know, because we can just walk away

and forget about it instead of doing the hard work

of forgiveness over and over again. We're tempted with the

short cut, a way to get everything we want instead

of trusting in God and more importantly, God's timing. But

Jesus trusted the Father, So what's the antidote? Wait on God.

It's hard to do, but when we wait on God,

the right things happen at the right moment when we're

ready and everything around us ready and it's so hard

to wait on God. We know that. One of the

biggest stories in the Bible about people waiting on God

is Abraham and Sarah. God came to Abraham and Sarah

in their old age, said I'm gonna give you a

son of promise. This son of promise is going to

bless the whole world and through the whole world, your

family is going to become this influential family, this tribe,

this powerhouse. I'm gonna do something through your son. A

year goes by, no son, two years go by, no son,

five years go alright, no son, ten years go by,

no son. So Abraham and Sarah get together, like you

think God needs some help. And so they made a

disastrous decision. They once and got the surrogate mother, and

they forced in what there his They forced a promise

to happen. Nothing but disaster came out of that, nothing

but disaster. Many years later, guess what God did fulfill

his promise in his timing. Again, we're so tempted to

take the short cut instead of trusting that God has

our lives in his hands. The third temptation, the last

one we're gonna look at today. It says the devil

led him to Jerusalem and had him staying at the

highest point of the temple, and he said, if you're

the son of God, throw yourself down from here. Now.

I want you to pay attention to this, because this

is a weird temptation. I doubt and of us will

ever be tempted with this. But here's why. He was

basically saying, all right, go to the Edjudus Temple, which

looked over the Kidron Valley about four hundred and fifty

feet And basically, if you jump off of this, God

will have to rescue you. And if God rescues you,

everyone's gonna hear about it, and all of a sudden,

everybody's gonna know that you're the son of God, You're

the Messiah, and now you're gonna become a celebrity. And

guess what, everybody's gonna follow you. You're gonna become instant celebrity.

It's gonna be awesome. Now, pay attention to this. It

says in the midst of all this, Satan says this,

he will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully.

Pay attentions. He's gonna guard you carefully. Guess what the

scripture does not say that Satan will twist scripture all

the time to allow people to justify their sinning. What

does the text actually say. Let's look at it. It

says that he will guard you in all all your ways.

In other words, when you follow the ways of the Lord,

God will bless you and guard you, not in your ways,

but in God's ways. And see, here's what Satan did.

Understand that Jesus came to confront the Pharisees, not impress them.

And also Jesus did a ton of miracles in front

of people, they still didn't follow him. And so again

Jesus was offered this opportunity to do what to chase applause?

And I think that's something that we are bombarded with

in our life all the time, the temptation to chase

a pause in our life applause, you know. And the

question we have to ask is whose voice matters in

our life? God's are people's. And we're constantly chasing people

to be impressed with us by our skills, our style,

or social media or possessions or close our house. We

have this innate desire to impress the world. John actually

talks about this. He says, for the world offers only

a craving for physical pleasure, and here's what we have.

We have a craving for everything we see, okay, and

and pra in our achievements and possessions. He says. This

is not from the Father, but from this world, chasing

all these things just to impress other people. John says,

it's garbage. Let's the antidote. Find your identity in Christ.

And who are you in Christ? You are His beloved child.

He loves you, You are immensely loved. He cares for you.

So guess what. When you know who you are in Christ,

you don't need to impress other people. Here's what I

have found. When I am walking close to Christ in

my devotionals and in my prayer life, I have found this.

I tend not to care about what anybody thinks.

And I have great seasons of that, grow my hair long,

get a shaggy beard.

I just don't care. I just care about Jesus. I

want to please him. When I am not walking close

to Christ, I find myself wanting to impress people with

either my possessions, my skills, my stories about my life

or whatever. And here's what I want to tell you

it's a futile thing. Find your identity in Christ. You

are dearly loved. You know. The thing I love about

this passage here is we look at the temptations of Christ,

and those temptations that I just mentioned, we fellows all

the time. But Christ did not sin. And here's the

interesting thing that Christ did not sin. But he doesn't

look at us like, oh, Carl, what's your problem. You

didn't go to the cross. I did. No. It says

that we have this great high priest who has deep compassion,

deep compassion all us. And so what he wants to

do is because he understands, he knows what it's like

to be weak, he knows what it's like to be tired,

he knows what it's like to be tempted. And he

said he what he wants to do is when we blow,

when we mess up, what he wants to do is

he wants to take us into the Father's presence. And

he says he wants to take us to this throne

of grace, this throne of mercy. And we go with

confidence because we're going with Jesus. We're not going alone.

We're going with our High Priest who mediates on our behalf.

This past week, I was writing my sermon in my

office and been down there for hours, just plugging away.

And all of a sudden, I hear don't, don't, don't, don't,

don't don't, And I'm like, is that my dog's ball

going down my steps? And it went down my steps

and then it went behind these boxes behind the speaker.

I saw where it went. My dog did not. So

my little dog rose this girl lab who, oh, sweetest

devil you ever met in your life, and she comes down.

It's her favorite ball. You gotta understand saying about this ball.

It's disgusting. It has maybe one billion bacteria per square inch. Oh,

it's so gross. Who want? I do everything? I cannot

to touch this ball. And I'm watching her ball, and

I'm watching her pant, I'm watching her wine and start

to cry because she can't find her ball. She's lost

her ball, and she's she's desperate for her ball. And

so what do I do. I know where the ball is.

I have a different perspective, I have a different angle.

And here's the thing. I get up. Why I love

that dog. I love that dog. So I get up

and I know where the ball is she doesn't. I

reach down and I grab and I hand her the ball.

Oh she's I'm so happy. I thought she was going

to run back upstairs. Instead, she ran over, licked my

hand a couple times, and lay down next to me.

Why did I go get that ball one? It was

not because she's a good dog. We just finished up

redoing one of our rooms that she had ate several

holes through the wall. You would not believe how hard

I had to work to get Gina to fix that

wall and paint that room. And then last week what

does she do? She broke back into that room and

ate a hole in that wall. I wanted to give

that dog away, but I love her. I just love

her so much. She's so sweet, this this lover. So

I gave her her ball back. Not because she's good.

I gave her her ball back because I love her,

my little girl. And you know, I'm sitting here working

on my servant and I don't have the conclusion, and

I'm like, this is it, Because here's the thing. I

am so sinful and so messed up, and this dog

is such a bad doggie that if a sinful, messed

up human being can show that level of compassion and love.

And if such a selfish little dog can show that

level of loyalty and compassion, like, think about how much

more grace there is with a perfect father. Think about

how much more love there is with Jesus who was

willing to have his bat beaten for you and hung

upon a cross. How much more love? And and so

how can we trust his words when he says you

have a high priest who has compas upon you. You

can trust in it. You know it's true because he's

a perfect God, holy God, and he loves you. And

so today here's what we're going to do. We're a

not ready to take communion, and so where you are

all going to approach this throne with confidence, but this

throne of what grace and mercy. So here's what we're

going to do for the next couple of minutes. We're

going to take some time to pray. And maybe you

need to pray about that thing in your life that

overwhelms you of temptation that you just are struggling with.

Bring it to your High Priest and say, help me,

help me, help me. Maybe there's some sins you need

to ask for forgiveness of today receive that forgiveness. As

we prepare for communion, let us pray