"Deal Gently" Hebrews 5:1-6 Sunday Evening Worship Service

Alright, so Hebrews 5, verses 1 through 6.

Hebrews 5:1–6

And of course, the key word, it's where I stole the phrase that's there in the ESV.

He can deal gently.

So I'm going to read it.

Now, every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God.

Now he's talking about high priests here, really.

Mostly the whole thing is about high priests.

To offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.

He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, and in case you miss it, that's all of us.

That's who we are in this passage, since he himself is beset with weakness.

Because of this, he's obligated to offer sacrifice first for his own sins, just as he does for those of the people.

And no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God, 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, and this would, of course, be the Father, you are my son, today I have begotten you.

As he says in another place.

That would be Psalm 110, verse 4.

Psalms 110:4

You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.

And I love these verses, but I think I need to help us kind of sense what's going on here.

If you think of, well, I'll just pass along to you a story.

This is a story completely stolen from the late Dr.

Howard Hendrix.

So he tells this story about how once he had he went into the home of a man who imported fine lace, and that was his thing, was importing this beautiful fine lace.

So he goes into his home and he sees like a doily or something like that on a table as he walks in.

And Hendrix remarks how beautiful it was.

And the man who was an importer of fine lace said, Oh, that junk.

I keep telling my wife not to put that down.

It's just junk.

And then Hendrix asks, Well, how can you tell what is good lace versus fine lace from junk lace?

He says, We'll have dinner, we'll enjoy some time with the family, then I'll show you.

So after dinner, they go down to his workshop, and he says, the man says to Hendrix, First you have to understand to appreciate fine lace, you have to put it under really bright lights, and it has to be over top of a black background.

That's how you come to appreciate really fine lace.

And so he takes him over to these tables and he turns on a whole bunch of bright lights shining down, and then he pulls out this big sheet of white lace and he throws it over top of the whole thing and then spreads it out, and he says, okay, now let's look at this carefully.

And that's what we have here.

We have these verses.

It's the gospel.

It's the white, beautiful, fine lace of the gospel, but when we just read it, even as I try to read it with meaning, it can just go right over top of my head.

Because I forget so easily that I am the black backdrop.

And so I can read this and I can think about others and I can think of all kinds of things.

But the first and foremost, before we talk about dealing gently with those whom we choose to shepherd, who are we are called to shepherd, we must first take a kind of difficult introspection into our own souls.

So this last few years I've been involved with the Christian Counseling Education Foundation, taking classes and sometimes grading classes and all that kind of thing.

And so I'm taking a class right now on counseling difficult marriages.

And so we we talked a bit about um entitlement.

And uh I'm waiting for the slide to show up there.

There we go.

We have this thing called entitlement, and so obviously, the as in the class, it's in the context of really difficult marriages.

And so on the on the one side, that would be your side, the 100.

A number 100 dominator, an oppressor, his life would look like this.

He would say things like, my rights matter the most.

You know, what I you know, it's all about me.

And so an oppressor, think Pharaoh, think Herod, think people like that in the Bible, or think of maybe that boss you had, or that that person that you've lived with, or somebody in your life, who you would think everything seems to revolve around them.

Their rights matter more than anybody else's, and what they say goes.

Okay.

Then number two in this whole idea is that they make the rules.

They make the rules, and and and sometimes the rules can be minuscule.

They can be rules that actually can't be kept.

And here you start to think maybe of the scribes and the Pharisees and the people in Jesus' day who made all these rules that nobody could possibly keep.

Way over on the 100 side, okay, they're saying, okay, because I make the rules, logical here, I'm always right.

I'm always right because I mean the rules.

I can't possibly be wrong.

So if you cross me, then you have to be wrong.

Which would follow, then I am justified in being angry at you because you broke my law.

And so punishment is appropriate.

And so when you're talking to a one, a number 100, a number 100 dominator, I mean, they're way over on that side of the scale.

They're very, very difficult to counsel.

They're very difficult because they're right.

And they know they're right.

And this is the heart of anger.

This is the heart of anger, is that I am right, you have violated my rights, and I am justified in being angry at you.

And I can say, without equivocation, I can say without a doubt, every single one of us has been there at one point in our life or another.

We have been so angry, enraged that someone violated what we thought was right.

And it comes out in nasty and ugly ways.

Because there are so many people here, and because we're on the internet, I'm not going to confess some of mine.

But there have been some.

I mean, I remember one time, I won't tell you the story, but it after I was so angry, I could see my boys, Luke and Michael, they were just sitting down there playing video games when I got mad.

And you could see their eyes, huge eyes.

Who is this man?

Who's acting so out of control?

Okay, so my anger, number four, my anger is justified.

Because I'm always right, and here's another one thing, because I'm always right, I deserve appreciation because it's all about me.

And so you must worship me.

Now they're not gonna, if you're especially if they're a Christian or claim to be a Christian, they're not gonna say you must worship me.

But that's the attitude that's coming out.

That it's all about me, and you better appreciate me, but on the other hand, because you don't really matter much, I don't have to appreciate you.

Because after all, you're the person who's just wrong all the time, and you deserve whatever you I think of Dobby, you know, in the in the um uh Harry Potter series, all he gets is a pillowcase to wear, okay?

I mean, he's just he's nothing.

And a what number 100 dominator over on that side, people are just they're just um chattel, you know.

They're they're things to be used or property to be managed or whatever.

Can you see how this is the complete antithesis of dealing gently with people?

And then finally, and this is the beauty, and if you've ever actually dealt with someone who's oppressive like this, if you try and confront them about any of these things, if you come to them as a counselor or an elder or something like that, and you're coming to a person like this, then they turn into the victim.

You know, why are you why are you persecuting me?

And they actually are able to make themselves out to be the victim in all this.

And these folks, if they're on the number 100 side or over there on that high end, man, they're hard to get to.

They're very hard to get to.

Right.

Now you notice on the slide, I I really worked hard to make sure that you saw that Jesus is totally outside of that scale.

Now, here's the irony.

Think about that.

Jesus is the Lord of the universe.

If anyone who is entitled in this universe, it would be Jesus Christ.

But he chooses not to exercise that right.

He chooses not to do that.

Jesus is off the chart, he's not even on the scale.

But you also think about this.

Okay, so I hope I'm not anywhere near to being a number 100 dominator.

But I know that I move over towards the halfway mark, you know.

Or maybe I'll give myself a little room, a little less than halfway, or maybe a little bit more like this.

I'm just a manipulator.

Okay?

So if I if I feel like you're against me or my rights have been violated, or something like that, what do I do?

I I go passive aggressive on you, or I sulk, or something like that.

In other words, I'm still punishing you, but I'm not actually trying to physically harm you or emotionally harm.

But I'm sulking now.

I'm manipulating, and people manipulate all the time.

You manipulate all the time.

You're trying to get your way, and you're gonna try and do it in a nice Christian way, but there's a tendency to manipulate other people.

Or maybe you're not like that at all, and you're way over here on this side.

I'll probably be out of the camera shot now.

Um, but you know what I mean?

You're not a manipulator, but you're a ruminator.

You just think about it.

And everybody does that.

Everybody does that.

Over the silliest things.

But they don't become silly to you.

For example, I ruminate about everything all the time.

In our house, because we have two bathrooms and we live in a tiny house, I always use the downstairs bathroom, which is next to the laundry.

So one of the jobs that I do is I rotate the laundry around on on um uh, you know, when I uh as I do the shower thing, right?

So after I take a shower, I go down and I do the, you know, take out the dryer and hang up the clothes and all that kind of stuff.

See, I have a rule because everybody has rules, and all this comes down to I have rules and you're not following them, and so I persecute you because you don't follow my rules.

Okay, now this is the rule.

When I hang up a shirt, I hang it up so that when it goes in the closet, it faces that way.

And so all the open parts of the shirt go that way.

Well, you know, sometimes Lisa, God bless her, she helps out.

You know?

You know, and and so when uh when I haven't haven't done the laundry, which is probably quite often, she'll go downstairs and she will hang up the clothes.

I don't know why, but she does it wrong.

You know, she hangs them up this way.

Now, yeah, that sounds like a silly thing, and and I just I just cover that sin with love.

The last time I talked about this, it was all about chocolate-flavored yogurt, but we're not gonna go into those kinds of heinous sins.

Okay.

The point is this we all have little rules about things, and sometimes they become more and more serious.

And we don't manipulate, we don't dominate, we don't punish, but we definitely think about that.

And we're not thinking positively about the other person, are we?

We're thinking about how this is my rights and how, you know, they ought to be different.

I don't have the courage to confront them, but I just chew on that and ruminate on it.

Now, the point is this this is the sin nature at work.

This is sin.

Right?

And all of us deal with it at some level.

I pray to God that nobody's over there on the far end of the dominating side, you know, of how they live with other people.

But there are people like that, and they are in the church.

What do we do?

I'm gonna go back and read these verses again.

By the way, how does somebody get all the way over there on the um dominating side of life?

It's called opportunity.

Because given an opportunity, we will, by unless God is at work in our heart to help us suppress sin, to be at war with sin, we will become dominators.

That's just the way it goes.

And so as a person gets opportunity, maybe they start off in, uh, I've never been in the military, so guys, just forgive me here, but I'm imagining I've seen enough war movies of guys who start off in the military and they're in a say an academy and they're used to getting beat up on by the upperclassmen, and then they finally graduate and now they have some authority, and so they just do as they have been trained, and then they become that dominating person, so now they're a colonel or major or a general.

You know?

And and and they're that person that everybody is terrified of.

They're not a gentle leader, they don't know how to use their authority well, and it's opportunity that that uh that uh puts us in that position.

And really the answer there is we need a redeemer.

So let's go back and listen, look again at Hebrews 5, 1 through 6.

And with that in mind, this black background against the white lace of the gospel.

He's talking about every high priest is chosen from among men.

He's appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins, because we are all sinners.

He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is ignorant and wayward.

Now I just stuck that in there, but he's beset with weakness.

And because of this, he's obliged to offer sacrifice for his own sins just as he does for those of the people.

And no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God as Aaron was.

So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest.

He was appointed by the Father who said to him, You're my son.

Today I've begotten you.

As he also says in another place, you're a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.

Now, you know, Hebrews is a complex book.

There's a whole lot of stuff, who's Melchizedek?

We're going to skip over all that because I want to focus here on this idea of a gentle leader.

Um, and as we do that, what the author there in Hebrews is doing is he's creating this compare and contrast between the high priest and Jesus.

Now, first of all, because we're talking about elders and deacons tonight, I want to make it very clear that in the New Testament, elders, deacons, those in leadership, pastors, we're not the New Testament, New Covenant version of high priests.

We're not like that at all.

There are some similarities, and I'm going to focus on those, but we just need to make it clear that I'm not drawing an analogy between Old Testament high priests, and now we are the new version of that, not at all.

Um, but you see here that elders are chosen from among men.

It's actually kind of interesting, uh, um the priests, high priests were chosen from among men.

Aaron was, but after that, if you wanted to be a high priest, well, you couldn't just run for that office.

You had to be born into the tribe of Levi, and you actually your father was probably the high priest before you.

And so, but still in all, the idea is that these high priests are sinful men and they come from among sinful men.

And as we talk about our leaders in the church, the deacons, the elders, the pastors, what all of the leaders in the church, they come from the body of Christ.

And so the thing to remember here as we go through that is that, you know, the Bible does give qualifications, let's say, for an elder.

An elder has to be above reproach, he's not addicted to alcohol, um, which I would say that means he's learned to find his refuge in the Lord and not some kind of substance.

He's not argumentative, he's not greedy, he's not hospit, or he's hospitable, he's a lover of good, sensible.

And there's several lists in the Bible that talk about what the character qualifications are for an elder.

But you need to know this if you haven't figured it out.

It's not like everybody else can have two wives, right?

All of these qualifications apply to everybody in the church.

What you're looking for are men, and in the case of deacons, men and women who actually show that they put these things into practice in their life.

In other words, we are looking for people who give evidence of being filled with the Holy Spirit on a regular basis.

That they know how to walk by means of the Holy Spirit.

That's what we're looking for.

And how do you know that?

Well, how do they live their life?

Are they taking the moral qualities that we would look for in any Christian, and they're actually putting it into practice?

Those are the people from among us who we put into leadership.

Because we all are sinners and we all need the Lord.

He also says high priests are appointed by God.

Uh elders are called to this leadership.

Uh the scripture says that elders uh have to desire the office.

Um high priests are serve to mediate.

No.

Elders, Christians do not mediate between us and God.

That's where the that's where the wheels fall off of this comparison, is that I don't come between you and the Lord.

I encourage you to come to the Lord, but I am not your priest.

And I definitely don't offer sacrifices for you.

Jesus is the one sacrifice, and that's all we ever need.

But high priests, and so should we as leaders be sympathetic to weaknesses, dealing gently with the wayward and ignorant.

And I'll say yes and amen for those who are in leadership.

Dealing gently with others.

And of course, this applies to fathers, as Jesse shared this morning, to parents, mothers and mothers, grandparents, anyone who's in authority, dealing gently with others.

Our model is Jesus Christ, who deals gently with us.

Um, just think about um, I'm gonna go back to the verse I skipped over.

You know, when Jesus says, Come to me, all of you who are laboring and heavy laden, I'll give you rest.

Take my yoke upon me, upon you, and learn from me.

I'm gentle and lowly in heart.

You'll find rest for your soul.

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

That's what we're trying to bring people into, that restful relationship where they are resting in Jesus Christ.

That's what we're after.

Now, of course, there's ways that Jesus is unlike the high priests.

Um, you know, um they are beset with sin, we are beset with sin, but Jesus, he's over there on that side of that scale where he's not even on the scale.

There is no sin in Christ.

He needs not, he did not need to offer a sacrifice for himself.

He only had to sacrifice for us.

So here we have it.

We see the standard being Jesus Christ, and we know that we are beset with sin.

What do we do?

And the answer is always the same.

We need a redeemer.

Because as we look at ourselves as elders, as deacons, as Christians, as parents, we know we are beset with sin.

And I I just know sometimes the depth of that sin can be great.

It can be great.

What do I do?

What do I do with that?

So flip over to Hebrews chapter 7, verses 23 through 28.

Hebrews 7:23–28

We need a redeemer, and that's what this passage talks about.

And again, he's comparing and contrasting high priests with Jesus.

But he says that the former, this is in verse 23, the former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office.

But Jesus holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever.

Consequently, he's able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, now he's talking about Jesus, of course, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.

He has no need like those high priests to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people.

Since he did this, Jesus offered himself once for all when he offered of himself.

For the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests.

Word of the oath, which came later after the law, and he's referring here to Psalm 110, verse 4, which says, You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek, appoints a son that's made perfect forever.

Psalms 110:4

And this is where we say, Praise God for the Son.

So in this little passage here, we discover some things that Jesus is not.

Jesus is not, of course, himself a sinner, so he's not beset with sinful problems or weaknesses.

Jesus was not.

Jesus is not ignorant and wayward.

And of course, Jesus did not die.

Well, he did die, but it didn't stick.

He didn't deserve to die.

He was wholly innocent, and so he raised three days later.

And so he lives eternally to make intercession for us.

What Jesus is, he's eternal.

He continues forever, it says in verse 24.

And he's perfect.

He's holy and innocent and unstained.

And then he lives, serves, he saves to the uttermost.

So you see there that Jesus is lasting.

He's acceptable to God because he's a perfect sacrifice before God.

And that he's merciful.

And the key verse for me and all of that there is that verse 25.

Consequently, he's able to save to the uttermost.

I remember when I worked at, I've got to go how many jobs back.

I've been here for a long time, so this goes back, I don't know, thousands of years.

But I think it was my first job when I worked for Computer Sciences Corporation at Goddard Space Flight Center.

And there was a guy there who had a Christian, he was a Christian, and he had a sign on his desk.

It said, Jesus saves from the guttermost to the uttermost.

I thought that was so cool.

And I was always looking for the guttermost in the verse, but it's not really there.

But I supplied that part.

I'm the guttermost.

He saves to the uttermost.

Think about that.

Put yourself, mentally put yourself on that dominating scale.

Where you feel entitled in your life.

And the sin that results from that.

And how Jesus saves from the guttermost to the uttermost.

And you know, trying better just does not cut it.

It's just not good enough.

Because I'll always be somewhere on that scale of entitlement.

And that's the result of sin that's just embedded in my soul.

That like the weeds in my yard, I have to constantly pull out.

Or squirt it with Roundup or something.

The whole point here of Hebrews is that we have a perfect high priest now seated at the right hand of God who ministers not in an earthly tabernacle, but in the heavenly of heavenlies.

He stands in between us and God, and his sacrifice on the cross always, always, always mediates for my sin and your sin.

It always is effective.

It's always sufficient to the Father.

You know, as I as I think about deacons and elders, our shepherding can never be about us as shepherds.

Because I just don't have the stuff to do that.

I can try as hard as I can, but I'm just not good enough.

But Jesus is.

So our shepherding must always be about the true shepherd.

So what do we do with this?

I want you to turn now to Hebrews chapter 10.

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

Hebrews chapter 10, 19 through 25.

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

Because there's, first of all, now I would say this is the application part of what I'm saying.

But trust me, understanding and seeing your sin and turning your heart towards the Lord is application.

A change of mind, a change of heart, a recognition, a reminder of that which we ought to remember about ourselves and about the Lord is application.

But this is this is what uh this is now active verbs coming in here.

Hebrews chapter 10, 19 through 25.

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened us for for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, what do we do?

Let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

Let us hold fast.

Second thing, let us hold fast our confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

And the third thing, let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as the habit of some, but encouraging one another all the more as we see the day drawing near.

Now, you know, the hard thing with preaching through Hebrews is you could take any one phrase here and you can make a whole sermon out of it.

Someday Jesse will.

Three things.

We draw near, we hold on to our hope in Christ, and we encourage one another to do the exact same thing.

As shepherds, as elders, as deacons, as men and women in the church, as parents, as those in authority of others, that's our job.

It's first of all, we draw near, and then secondly, we encourage others to draw near.

You know, just think about it.

If you're thinking about that chart that I had up earlier, and the devil's accusing you, the last thing you want to do is draw near.

So the devil is always telling us shrink back, pull away, don't go near.

You're talking about holy God, He'll crisp you.

Don't do that.

That's what the devil would say is run away from the Lord.

And we've all experienced that when we feel guilty with sin, when we feel overwhelmed with uh with uh with the weight of who we are before God.

And it can just overcome us.

I'm tempted to give really graphic illustrations, but I'm just gonna avoid all that.

But I know if you're if if if you're living on this earth, you have succumbed to temptation.

And you know God is not pleased with that.

And you know you're not pleased with it.

And so you try and cover your own sin with guilt, as though that's going to do it.

And you know, the author of Hebrews even says, you know, um, having our conscience cleansed, our guilty conscience cleansed by his blood.

Holding on to that is so important.

The devil is telling us, draw back, do not draw near.

But the Lord, the Spirit of God is telling us, no, no.

I made a way, you come in, you come in.

You know, um, some years ago I was introduced to the poetry of George Herbert.

The poetry of George Herbert is an old Anglican priest from the 1600s, and so he wrote some wonderful, wonderful poems.

And I'm going to share one right now.

It's called Love.

Now, in this poem, if you if you ever took English literature, it probably was in the textbook.

Um it's called Love.

And he has three of them.

For some reason, he gives this one number three, so it's called Love Three.

Love here is the per Jesus personified, and so he refers to Jesus as love.

And I want you to get it, so I'm going to explain a few things as we go along, but I think you're smart enough to kind of track with me on this poem, okay?

So it's this idea here.

Love bade me welcome.

Come to me, all you who weary and are heavy laden.

Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back, guilty of dust and sin.

Does it sound familiar?

Does that resonate?

Does that sound true to life to you?

Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back, guilty of dust and sin.

But quick-eyed love, observing me grow slack from my first entrance in, drew nearer to me.

Does that sound familiar?

Your soul is drawing back, and Jesus just moves in.

He doesn't, he said, no, no, no, no, no.

You don't shrink back.

You come to me.

And as a matter of fact, I'm going to come to you because that's what God does.

He comes to the earth as a baby.

He's born in a major, he lives a sinuous life.

He always moves toward us.

God always takes the initiative.

Quick-eyed love, observing me grow slack from my first entrance in, drew near to me, sweetly questioning if I lacked anything.

Here's my response.

A guest, I answered, worthy to be here.

Love said, You shall be he.

I, the unkind, the ungrateful?

Ha ha, my dear, I cannot even look on me.

So love took my hand and smiling, did reply.

Who made the eyes but I?

You see, God always gives us the eyes to see him.

We think our eyes can't even look on Jesus, but God gives us the ability to do so.

Who made the eyes but I?

Truth Lord, okay, I'll agree with that.

But I admired them.

Let my shame go where it doth deserve.

And know you not, says love.

Who bore the blame?

Then I might say, My dear, then I will serve.

And that's the response we have to be so careful of.

We can't bear the idea that God completely paid the price, and so we have to, if I can't cover it with guilt, I'm gonna cover it with works.

And I'm gonna work to earn my way before God.

And what and what uh Jesus says is you must sit down, says love, and taste my meat.

So I did sit and eat.

And that's the response.

God says, draw near, come near.

And we're the devil's saying, don't do that.

My sinful soul is saying, don't do that.

And I look at that dominator chart and I say, I'm way over there.

I'm not a hundred, but I'm a ninety-nine sometime.

No, I hope nobody in here is even a 99.

But maybe I'm a manipulator or a ruminator, and I don't deserve Jesus at all.

And Jesus says, You come near, you come near.

Draw near, come to me, all you who weary and are heavy laden.

I'll give you rest.

Rest for your souls.

That's what Jesus is offering.

What do I do with the fact that Jesus is my perfect high priest?

I draw near.

I draw near.

That's why it says in there, do not neglect to meet together.

Because left to our own, we are easy prey for the lies of the devil.

We are easy prey for the sinfulness of our own heart.

And we need to encourage one another every single day to come and hear the good word of God that reminds us to draw near.

To draw near.

So, what does Jesus teach us about shepherding in the church?

Elders are called out to lead, but that leadership just means reminding others of who the true shepherd is.

And it's not just elders, it's not just deacons, it's parents, it's it's everyone who has authority over someone else.

Where we deal gently with others because God has dealt gently with us.

That's what we do.

Let's pray.

It is a privilege to lead in the church, Lord.

But we know that we only do that because you have led us to the cross, where we find our refuge.

And we thank you, God, for that.

Oh, give us grace to do that which you have called us to do, to lead others also to the same throne of grace, where we find mercy and help in a time of need.

Hear our prayer, O Lord, in Jesus' name.

Amen.

And now for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.

For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to tms.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.