"Who is Melchizedek?" - Hebrews 7:1-10

All right, if you got a Bible, Hebrews 7, some of you have just been on pins

and needles about Melchizedek, and some of you hear me say Melchizedek and you

go, I don't know who that guy is, which is fine.

I don't know any Melchizedeks in my personal life.

Has anybody ever met anyone named Melchizedek? Just curious.

You know there's got to be one, like one family out there that was reading their

Bible one day and was like, that's the one.

That's the one. Not Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, not Paul. that one.

Well, if you remember where we left off last time in Hebrews,

we're kind of working our way through the book.

That's how we like to preach here through the books of the Bible.

We don't like to skip anything as easy as some things would be to skip.

The writer of Hebrews had given them

a warning. He's already brought up Melchizedek's name in the book, right?

He gets to a point where he brings up Melchizedek and then he does something curious. He stops.

He stops because he knows something, right?

He knows that this is a really difficult thing for them to understand.

It's a hearty thing. You hear people all the time say, you know,

I just want to go deeper into Bible study, which again, my experience,

usually that means is I want to study Revelation every time.

If I meet somebody that's like, I really want to study my Bible more.

The next question is, what do you think about Revelation?

I don't have many people ask me about Melchizedek. And I think the writer knows that.

I think the writer knows that what he's about to dive into, number one, takes some work.

It takes some critical thinking. And number two, it's incredibly important.

It's incredibly important. Just like if you were going to teach your child something

that you knew was going to be hard, but you knew they really needed to understand,

you may stop and you may pull them aside and say, hey, bud, this next thing

that we're going to learn or the next thing that you're going to learn is going

to be really hard for you to understand.

It's going to be really difficult for you to figure out exactly what's going on here.

But it's really important that you figure it out.

It's really important that you take the time to figure it out because it has,

major implications on every level of your life.

That's really what the writer of Hebrews does here.

He, in chapter 5, verse 10, it said, being designated by God,

a high priest after the order of Melchizedek, talking about Jesus.

And the very next sentence is, about this, we have much to say. It is hard to explain.

Again, hard to explain why, because it's a really hard thing to explain.

No, he says, since you have become dull of hearing.

The writer understands that this is a tough subject, but he also knows it's a necessary subject.

One of the last things we talked about before we took a break for Easter was

being a good theologian versus being a bad theologian.

You might remember I read a quote from R.C. Sproul that basically said,

every single one of us is a theologian.

Every single person you meet is a theologian. You may say to yourself,

well, that's not true. I'm a teacher, I'm a mechanic, or I work in sales.

You can do all those things, but you are a theologian. The question is not whether

you are one. The question is whether or not you're going to be a good one or a bad one.

The Hebrews that he's writing to, not all of them are scholars.

Right now, I think they have a lot of really good Bible training.

That's how they were raised. They were raised to know their Torah.

The first five books of the Old Testament, they were raised to know the law. They're not ignorant.

In some ways, like us growing up, so many of us in church, we're not ignorant of the word.

We know the word, right? We know what it says.

But most of these people do not have Bible degrees.

Most of these people are just regular Christians working regular jobs with regular

families and problems and issues that arise and health issues and money issues.

They would get together and talk about whatever the sport of the day was and

their favorite food and what was going on in the world around the water bowl

or whatever. I don't know what they had at work.

But they had someplace they probably gathered and got together and talked about what was going on.

And again, these are not all Bible scholars.

However, he doesn't say to them, well, you don't know Greek and you don't know

Hebrew and you haven't taken systematic theology one, two, and three,

and you haven't really delved in the Old Testament one and two,

and you haven't taken hermeneutics and you haven't taken all these classes and

studied all these things.

So I'd love to talk to you about Melchizedek, but you're just too dumb.

And so I can't. He doesn't say that.

He says, just don't be dull of hearing. That's all I'm asking.

And then he spent some time encouraging them and warning them about what it

means to be dull of hearing.

Remember we read in chapter six, both the, hey, listen, if you become dull of

hearing, you may fall away, right? Not in eternity.

God never loses those he saves, but there's certainly people that seem to look

the part and fall away. And one of the main reasons they do that is they become dull of hearing.

But he also encourages them. It says in verse 9 of chapter 6,

Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better

things, things that belong to salvation.

He does all that, and then he begins in chapter 7.

For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God,

met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him.

So that's a long way to get there. That's a long way to get to Melchizedek.

But I think, again, just like the author of Hebrews, this is an important topic.

And what I hope to show you over the next at least two weeks,

maybe three, depending on how much we get through,

is that understanding Melchizedek and understanding how Christ is a reflection

of that will change every single day of your life from here on out if you get it.

The more you understand it, the more you get it, the more it will change your

life. And I think that's why the writer of Hebrews does what he does.

Mentioned Melchizedek, spends

a whole chapter going. It's so important not to become dull of hearing.

It's so important for you to listen. It's so important for you to understand

this and then goes back into it as if to say, all right, now that we understand

how important it is, let's get started.

So the first thing I want to do with you is actually take you back to Genesis

14. If you have a Bible, feel free to flip there. I'll read some of this.

Genesis 14 is the first place we see Melchizedek mentioned. And he kind of comes out of nowhere.

He comes out of nowhere and he just disappears for a while.

You see him in the Psalm and one of the most famous Psalms where he says essentially what Hebrew says.

But for the most part, this is what we know of Melchizedek.

So we've got Abraham here. And what happens with Abraham? Abraham,

a coalition of four Canaanite kings headed by king, and I'm going to try to

get this right, Kedorlaomer.

See, I've taken all those classes and I still get names wrong.

Don't feel bad. I spent thousands of dollars and I still can't pronounce these

names, who attack the Transjordan.

So this king and this coalition go and attack the Transjordan area where Abraham and his family is.

They defeat the city-states of Sodom and her neighbors, and they carry off a

large number of hostages.

One of those hostages is Abraham's nephew, Lot.

We're going to start in verse 14 of chapter 14, but I want to ask you a question

before you read that. When you think of Abraham, what do you think of?

What do you think of? I remember reading this story. I don't know what it was,

probably in college, maybe after that, and reading this story and thinking,

that is not the mental picture of Abraham that I have.

I have the mental picture of Abraham that's blue felt board and they would,

you know, you'd have the cutout felt boards.

What do they call those kind of boards? You stick things to them.

Hey, Garrett would know. All right. So anyway, you stick things to him in Sunday

school and it's always this old guy and he's always wearing robes and he always

has like a real soft face.

You know, he looks like the kind of guy that would be a, they don't really have

these anymore, but a greeter at Walmart. When you walk in, you're like,

man, I'm so glad this guy's here.

Yes. I will take a sticker on my hand with a smiley face. That's awesome. I loved Abraham.

Now read what Abraham does. We're gonna read what Abraham does when they take

his nephew. Verse 14, I love this.

When Abram heard that his kinsmen, right? His family had been taken captive.

He led forth his trained men born in his house, 318 of them and went in pursuit as far as Dan.

He divided his forces against them by night and his servants and defeated them

and pursued them to Hobah, north of Damascus.

Then he brought back all the possessions and also brought back his kinsman lot

with his possessions and the women and the people.

This is Abraham as a warrior, like literally a black ops, still team six,

whatever your favorite analogy for that would be.

This is a warrior. They take his family. So what does Abraham do?

He doesn't just sit down and pray about it. Although I'm sure he prayed about

it. He gathers his troops.

These people born in his house. And he's like, hey, wake up.

We got to go take care of some business.

I don't remember that Abraham much at Sunday school, like sword in hand,

riding a camel down the way. I don't remember that.

It's always a reminder to me that when I read the Bible, it's important to understand

that these are humans that lived at a certain time in a certain place,

and they had certain realities about their life.

And one of the realities of Abraham's life was People could come and steal your

family from you And if you wanted to get them back The option was,

Go and as Hebrews is going to tell us Slaughter the enemy And get your family back.

This is a total aside to Melchizedek. I just love this story about Abraham.

I love this story. I especially like it when I'm talking like young men,

because a lot of young men have grown up reading the Bible in a very soft way.

It's like, read them that story. Read them that story. Finish reading them David

and Goliath, where he cuts his head off and takes them out there.

And young men need to hear those stories because they need to know,

man, these were real men that did real things that were real hard.

They faced real enemies and the Lord was with them.

C.S. Lewis famously says, it's good for kids to know that there's a dragon slayer,

because there's plenty of dragons that need slaying.

That's a good thing. All right. Because of that, we're back.

So what happens? Verse 17, this is again, still in Genesis 14.

After his return from the defeat of Chedorlamer and the kings who were with

him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the valley of Sheva,

that is the king's valley.

And Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine.

He was priest of God most high. And he blessed Abraham and said,

blessed be Abram by God most high, possessor of heaven and earth.

Blessed be God most high, who has delivered your enemies into your hand.

And Abram gave him a tenth of everything. And the king of Sodom said to Abram,

give me the persons, but take the goods for yourself.

But Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lifted my hand.

Between me and you. Oh, sorry. I have lifted my hand to the Lord God most high,

possessor of heaven and earth, that I would not take a thread or a sandal strap

or anything that is yours, lest you should say I have made Abram rich.

I will take nothing but what the young men have eaten and the share of the men who went with me.

Let Anir, Eschol, and Mamre take their share.

So really, what do we know about Melchizedek? Well, it says he's king of Sodom.

That's about it. Hebrews gives us some more insight.

If you go back to Hebrews chapter 7, he gives us a little more on what to go

Hebrews 7 · chapter mention

with. It says he was king of Salem, priest of the Most High God.

He met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him.

He is first by translation of his name, king of righteousness.

That's what the name Melchizedek means.

He is also king of Salem, that is king of peace, right? So his name means king of righteousness.

His kingdom, Salem, means king of peace.

Traditionally, and I believe this as well, Salem is really Jerusalem.

And we see in Psalm 72 that Salem and Zion are the exact same place.

Zion was a very common way to say Jerusalem.

Just like in the New Testament, you read Babylon many times, that's Rome.

Zion is Salem So who is he? He's the king of Salem, Adrusha But he's the king of peace,

We know he's a priest And this is before the priesthood that's introduced later

on in the Old Testament We know that God has marked him out specifically for this job,

We don't know at all exactly how that happened We don't know exactly how it

took place We don't know exactly what he did as a priest But we know he was a priest I don't know.

The verse that everyone loves here, verse three, it says, he is without father or mother or genealogy,

having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the son of

God, he continues a priest forever.

The big debate over Melchizedek, in case you didn't know, but if you go Google

it, you'll find 9 million posts about it and a bunch of online forums you can

get on and argue for days in there.

If that's really what you like to do is argue with people, great topic to argue about.

It's whether or not Melchizedek is what we would call a theophany,

an Old Testament appearance of Christ, where Christ shows up in the Old Testament.

We read a story about a theophany not too long ago when we studied Jacob.

Jacob wrestles with God. I believe that is a theophany, but I do not believe

Melchizedek is one for a couple of reasons.

Number one, it clearly says that he's resembling the son of God.

He's not the son of God. Hebrews makes clear he resembles him.

I think number two, and maybe more importantly, the reason that the writer of

Hebrews mentions Melchizedek and his priesthood is not to tell them that there's

this theophany in the Old Testament,

a guy named Melchizedek, and he's just like Jesus.

It's like, well, yeah, they would be the same person. Of course,

they're like each other.

If he's just Jesus in the Old Testament, then he's just Jesus in the New Testament.

But that's not the point of Melchizedek.

The point of Melchizedek, as we're going to see, is his priesthood is the same

priesthood that Jesus comes into.

So what do you do? What do you do if you read that someone has neither father

nor mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life?

Well, if that's not Jesus, who is this guy?

I think it's important to realize again what the author of Hebrews is trying

to do. What is his intent?

His intent is to show how Jesus is a greater high priest than the high priest

the Hebrews are so used to.

What makes a high priest a high priest in the Old Testament?

His lineage, where he's from, his family.

We actually have episodes in the Old Testament where the people come back from

exile and all these guys are claiming to be high priests.

They wanna be the high priest, namely because you don't have to work.

Now, of course, you may go into the Holy of Holies and God may kill you,

but if he doesn't, it's a solid year.

You get honor and you get prestige. And so all these men are trying to say,

well, I can be the high priest and I can be the high priest.

And essentially what they do is,

excuse me, they say, well, show us your genealogy. Show us your papers.

Who is your father? Who is your mother? Who's your grandpa? Who's your grandma?

This is how they weeded men out.

You had to be from a certain line, which we'll get to, to be a high priest.

And the point of what Hebrews is doing here is saying Jesus is like Melchizedek

and that his priesthood does not come from his father or mother.

It comes directly from God.

It's given to him by God. Jesus is not a priest because he's born into a royal

family, because he has a lot of money, because he looks better than everyone

else, because he's smarter than everyone else.

All those things may be true. I don't think he looked better than everyone else,

but he's certainly smarter than everyone else.

He's certainly more deserving than everyone else.

But that's not what the writer of Hebrews is trying to do.

Now, I want to pause real quick, just take a minute to try to help you understand,

why the author of Hebrews is going to go through so much work.

He's going to spend this whole chapter trying to explain Melchizedek and Jesus

and how Jesus is a better priest, but why he would spend so much time on this.

He's essentially going to spend three chapters on this one subject.

So I want you to think of it this way. This may not be a perfect analogy, but none of them are.

Imagine for a moment that someone told you that all forms of transportation

were taken away from you, every single one of them, except for Razor scooters.

Some of us can't even fit on a Razor scooter. I've never felt larger in my life

than when I tried to get on a Boeing scooter one time.

But that's the only way you can travel. You can walk, you can scooter. That's it.

It would change every single aspect of your life.

Pretty much all of our lives are built around our transportation at this point,

right? If I tell someone, hey, I'm going to meet you tomorrow at 10 a.m.,

I need to figure out how long it takes me to get in my car and go to that place to be there by 10.

If tomorrow the only option I have was either to scooter or walk somewhere,

that changes everything. That changes everything.

Not only does the distance change and the time change, but what about if it's

raining? What if there's.

Weather that comes along, right? You got to leave for work earlier.

A trip to the grocery store would be an all day affair.

If there's an emergency situation at your house and your kids fall and need

stitches, get the super glue out and just hope it holds while you're going to the doctor.

Listen, super glue actually works really well. I'm just letting you know,

if you haven't figured that out, it's a great trick.

As someone who's had a lot of stitches in his life, big super glue guy.

Man if you are sitting there at night it's 11 30 you

decide I am really hungry are you

just going to go walk to Taco Bell that's a commitment that you do not have

to make because you have a car right now but I imagine a lot of us would eat

in a lot more if we couldn't have that kind of transportation again our lives

revolve around the transportation we use and in many ways our cars mediate for us, right?

They're our go-between. We get from one place to the next in our cars.

Wherever I want to go, I get in my car and I go.

Getting from where we are to where we want to be, again, this is how the Jews

viewed their high priest in relationship to God.

Every single thing they did went through the high priest.

Every single thing their grandparents did

and great-grandparents did and great-great-great-great-great-grandparents

did revolved around this high priest,

this mediator who was the vehicle, who was the road between them and between God.

The only way for them to have any communion with God was to do it through the

high priest, to bring sacrifices to him and to take them.

He would take them in, sacrifice for them. He would be their representative in front of God.

For them to say, well, the high priest doesn't matter anymore would again be

like us losing every single form of transportation. It would change their lives that much.

Of Hebrews is essentially going to say, yeah, that high priestly position that

you hold so dear that generation after generation is held so dear is null and void.

Doesn't matter anymore. You don't need it.

They're going to say, well, my dad told me my whole life that if I didn't do

what the high priest required of me, that I didn't take sacrifices,

that I didn't let him sacrifice and I'm saying that I was going to go to hell.

Well, now you're telling me it doesn't matter at all?

You're saying my dad was stupid? You're saying my grandparents were stupid?

You're saying our ancestors were stupid? Furthermore, are you saying Abraham

was wrong? Are you saying Moses was wrong? Are you saying David was wrong?

Are you saying Isaiah was wrong? Are you saying Ezekiel was wrong?

Pick your Old Testament saint, and they're going to say all of our forefathers did this.

Every single person we revere did this, and yet you're going to tell us that

it doesn't matter anymore?

This is what I said at the beginning, where if we understand what the author's

trying to do here, it will change every single thing about our lives.

Because it was about to change every single thing about their life.

The way that they interacted with God would never be the same if they believed

what the author of Hebrews is trying to get them to believe.

Author of Hebrews, is using Melchizedek as a type or a shadow or a picture of

what Jesus Christ is, the final and greater high priest.

How do you know he's greater? How do you know he's greater? Look at the blessing. Look at the blessing.

It says that Abraham gives him a tithe, gives him a tenth of the spoils.

Now, Abraham, of course, is the patriarch of the faith.

He's called the friend of God. He's the father of the nation of Israel.

He's fresh off defeating his enemies in battle.

And yet when he meets Melchizedek, what happens? He ties to him.

Abraham recognizes immediately that he is in the presence of someone greater than himself.

What I love about this is the author anticipates the Hebrew rebuttals.

Now, Paul's a master at this. not saying Paul wrote this, but Paul's a master at this in Romans.

You read Romans and Paul will make a statement.

And then it's like, he knows, I know how you're going to doubt what I just said.

And so I'm going to go ahead and ask that rhetorical question for you and answer that question for you.

That's exactly what the writer of Hebrews does here.

He knows when he says, well, Abraham tithed to Melchizedek and therefore Melchizedek

is greater than Abraham.

Listen to what they say, chapter seven, verse five, and those descendants of

Levi, that's the priestlyhood, who received the priestly office,

have a commandment in the law to take tithes from the people.

That is from their brothers.

So these are also descended from Abraham.

So here's what they're going to say. Here's what a Hebrew would be thinking.

Well, he gives them a tithe, so what?

We've been giving tithes to the Levites forever, right? We don't think they're

greater than us. That's just the position that they hold.

Verse six, but this man who does not have descent from them received tithes

from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises.

Is that the Levite's ability to collect tithes came from the provision made by the law.

The law hadn't come yet, but the law is what forced the people to give these

tithes to the Levitical priest.

And the one that Melchizedek has doesn't come from this. Melchizedek was different.

He didn't trace his descent from Levi.

And yet as a figure of immense superiority, he collected tithes not from people, but from Abraham.

The writer of Hebrews make the argument that that means every single Israelite

that's ever come after has essentially tithed to Melchizedek.

The way that the Hebrews thought about this was Abraham's the father of the nation.

Everyone's downstream of him. So even the Levitical priests that end up coming

down from Abraham are tithing to Melchizedek. Like that's the superiority that he's painting.

Again, if you're a Hebrew right now, you're thinking, okay, so now you're not

only telling us they don't matter, you're telling us that Melchizedek was more important all along?

Of course, he's like, yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying.

He even blesses him. Now, God had told Abraham in Genesis 12,

all the peoples of the earth will be blessed through you.

And yet when Abraham's face to face with Melchizedek, what happens?

He doesn't bless Melchizedek. Melchizedek blesses him.

Abraham was a great man. His neighbors called him a prince of God.

God himself called him his friend. But in the account of his interaction with

Melchizedek, it is Melchizedek who appears as the greater of the two.

Now, why does that all matter? What's so important about that?

Number one, just a quick recap here. I don't think Melchizedek is Theophany.

I don't think, number one, the text really lays that out for us.

I think that's completely drawn out of this idea of him having neither father

or mother, nor beginning, nor end.

And I think the point of the author of Hebrews writing that is not to give you

this clue that he's some eternal being.

The point of the author writing that is for him to simply say, he's not a Levite.

He's not the kind of high priest that you're used to. right

number number two he has no beginning and

no end his priesthood we have no record of him starting

his priesthood or ending his priesthood right his priesthood was

wholly dependent upon god calling him to be a priest and in those two ways he

foreshadows christ christ as a priest again is in the priesthood of melchizedek

that's what it says in verse 10 even verse 11 we'll start this This is next week, but it says,

now if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood,

what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek?

What's the point of Jesus coming as a priest if the Levitical priesthood could do it?

If you could go down to the synagogue today and you could go to the high priest

and you could offer your sacrifice, he could bring it before God and it would

take away your sins, what would be the point?

The point is it doesn't work. It doesn't work.

And there are people every single day, maybe even in this room today,

who are still trying to bring their own sacrifices to God,

to do something in his name to give some money, to attend enough, to be nice enough,

to bring that to whoever they view as their priest, to lay it before God and hope that it's enough.

The whole point that he's going to make in chapter seven as we go through it

is there is no sacrifice. There is no priest.

There is no confession that you can make that would ever be enough.

If there was, then there was no need for Jesus.

You could just still have the Levitical priesthood. We can still just walk some

goats in here and do exactly what the Old Testament tells us to do with them.

Melchizedek is a pointer to Christ. As we close, let me give you just three

things about righteousness and peace, three ways that Melchizedek points to Christ.

Number one, we know he's the king of righteousness and the king of peace.

As to righteousness, Christ is righteousness incarnate. He is called Jesus Christ, the righteous one.

1 John 2, 1. My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.

But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father,

Jesus Christ, the righteous.

Melchizedek was the king of righteousness, a precursor to the righteous one,

intrinsically righteous.

Second, as it pertains to righteousness, Jesus is the bestower of righteousness,

Romans 3, 21 through 22 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested

apart from the law Although the law of the prophets bear witness to it The righteousness

of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe For there is no distinction,

the righteousness of God,

Jesus makes you righteous,

Melchizedek was the king of righteousness Jesus is the giver of your righteousness.

Third, he is the mediator of righteousness. First Timothy 2,

5, for there is one God and there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.

Again, Melchizedek was a king of righteousness, but he was not a mediator of righteousness.

He does not stand at the right hand of God and mediate on behalf of you and

me like Jesus Christ does.

Is apparently a great man and a great king. But for you and me and for every

single person that you meet, he's a poor mediator between you and God.

That's the first thing, king of righteousness. Second, he's the king of peace, the king of Salem.

Again, he is the bestower, the giver of peace.

When he came to earth, the angel sang, peace be to men on whom his favor rests.

In Luke chapter 2, In John 14, on the eve of his death, he says to his disciples,

Luke 2 · chapter mention

peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.

In John chapter 20, after his resurrection, he came to his disciples again with

John 20 · chapter mention

the words, peace be with you.

So Melchizedek was the king of peace, but Jesus was the bringer of peace.

Melchizedek didn't keep Abraham from having to take up his sword and go slaughter

an enemy to bring back his kinsmen.

But Jesus himself took up the sword to slaughter your enemy and to bring you back into his fold.

Again, if we take this to heart, it changes our lives in much the same way that

the author of Hebrews hopes and believes that it would change the hearers of his day as well.

That no longer will we seek alternate roads to God.

That we wouldn't try and do enough good works We wouldn't try and be a good

enough person We wouldn't hope that our pastor Or a priest at the church Or

a confession Or a Lord's Supper we take Or a baptism we receive That it would

not become How we enter into God's presence.

Rests our entire existence on the greater Melchizedek, Jesus Christ,

our King and High Priest.

I think so much of this is what's missing when you meet people that like Jesus,

but just don't seem to love him.

I say that meaning no offense, as I was that person for a long time,

as I was Christian, I liked Jesus a lot. I thought Jesus was great.

I thought he was really cool. I was going to school to be a pastor.

I was doing all of these things. And I just, I really thought Jesus was neat.

But then when it came to my own life, Monday through Friday,

hanging out with my friends, trying to figure out how life worked,

it became evident that I really liked Jesus, but I just loved a lot of other things.

I really loved how the world could offer me things that it didn't seem like

Jesus was ever going to offer me.

And it wasn't until I realized through one of my professors,

but ultimately because God opened my eyes to it, that the reason that I didn't

love Jesus is I was still trying to interact with him the same way I would interact with anybody else.

But me and Jesus had good days and bad days based on my attitude and how I was

feeling and how well I had been doing and how much sin I had committed and how

much sin had been have that day.

Because everybody knows you can't have fun with Jesus.

But that changes when you realize that Jesus, as our King and High Priest,

does not interact with you any differently at any moment of the day,

at any moment of your life.

When you are the greatest sinner, when you do the worst thing,

if you are found in Him, if you know Him, Jesus just as much loves you,

desires to commune with you,

mediates for you, and advocates for you before God just as much as when you

think you're doing your best.

And so as you live your life, and maybe you haven't read your Bible in a week

or two weeks, in six months, I don't know.

Maybe you haven't prayed, you haven't studied, you haven't done anything that

you know you're supposed to be doing, and going to church is your one way of

saying, at least I'm doing something.

And I get that. I understand that.

My encouragement to you is that's not how Jesus looks at you.

That's not how he treats you.

He advocates for you as a great high priest. You can know him.

You can love him. You can commune with him. You can pray with him on your very

worst spiritual day as you can on your very best.

Because you do not come to him based on who you are, what you've done.

Based on the fact that he is an eternal priest who lives to make intercession

for you before the Father. Let's pray.

Father, again, thank you for it today. Thank you for your word.

Thank you for what you've allowed us to see this morning.

God, I pray that you would use my words as only you can.

God, to help someone see you more clearly, to glorify you more abundantly.

God, these are tough subjects and honestly tough to teach and preach and tough

to get into, but God, they're worth it. They're in your word for a reason.

You don't waste your words on things that don't matter.

So I pray that as we continue to study Hebrews chapter 7 over the next couple

Hebrews 7 · chapter mention

weeks, that you would keep us focused, that you would keep our ears open.

God, that you would continue to show us how good and gracious and kind you've

been to us in giving us your son, Christ Jesus, who is a priest in the order

of Melchizedek, who has no beginning or end,

who has no father or mother, and whose priesthood will be eternal. We'll never pray. Amen.