Lent: Jesus, Our Great High Priest | Student Pastor: Sam Rapp

So we've been going through the book of Revelation, but y'all can all take a breath because we're not doing it today.

So the you know, the junior preacher is here, and so we're gonna go through Luke instead of Revelation.

So you're welcome.

You can lean back, you can take a breath.

So we're gonna go in the gospel today.

Uh but I do want to say just really quick.

I know Revelation has been preached really bad, it's been really scary to a lot of us for a long time.

But Revelation is a good book and it's good for the church.

And so that's just that was free, that's all I got.

But today uh we're entering into a season that the church has historically called Lent.

Uh so for my Baptist in here, that might be the first time you've heard that word, but for the more high church type folk with liturgy, Lent is the season for the 40 days leading up to the crucifixion, leading up to Easter weekend, right?

And these 40 days is a callback to our passage in Luke 4 this morning, as we focus in on the sufferings of Jesus, the temptations of Jesus, and ultimately the wrath of God being poured out upon him as he's nailed to a Roman cross for us.

And so Lent is a time when for many of us we we think back on our childhood and kind of have some guilt around it, right?

Because maybe you grew up in a church where it was practice, and so you remember, man, in third grade, you show up to church, you got your nice white shoes on, show up to church, and then you know Sally Jane comes up to you and says, I'm giving up cookies for Lent, what are you giving up?

And then you panic, right, because you're like, oh gosh, I forgot it was Lent today.

And so then you come up with something that you know you're not giving up, right?

Like, you're not giving up brownies.

You're not giving them up.

But Sally Jane is, and she crushes it.

But so for many of us, man, might be some religious guilt there.

Might think, yeah, like, man, if I don't give something up for these 40 days, God might not be mad at me, but he certainly is a little disappointed, right?

He's certainly a little disappointed in us.

And maybe that's you.

But here's the point for Lent.

Here's just the simple point for us.

Giving up something for Lent is not required by the Bible.

Lent is not a biblical word, it's not even necessarily a completely, uh, entirely biblical idea.

It's not found in the Bible, but the church has historically given it these 40 days for us as the people of God to look to the cross of Christ.

That's what it's for.

So again, giving something up for Lent is not a practice for God to love you more.

It doesn't increase your righteousness or standing before Him.

But it could be a practice that is helpful for you.

So if you do practice Lent, great.

If you don't practice Lent, great.

Um, that is not something that we're gonna hammer down, right?

Um but there is something to be said about the spiritual, biblical act of fasting that we see in the Bible.

And this is not related to the healthy thing that some of you guys do when you don't eat from 12, only from 12 to 8, right?

So for you all that eat from 12 to 8, I know that you know who you are.

This is not, that's not what this is talking about, right?

And you can do that.

I'm gonna eat my all-star special at 9 a.m.

Uh you can you can frown at me, but I'm gonna eat my all-star special at 9 a.m.

And you can't, so I'm sorry.

Um, but what we're talking about is this spiritual act of fasting in the Bible, which is an act that we see throughout the scriptures from Genesis to Revelation, but we especially see it in the life of Jesus and in the life of the apostles.

And this is a place where they, in an act of self-denial, they they put the desires of their stomachs aside and they focus in on worship and on prayer.

And one thing that we see, especially in the book of Acts, is that when the people of God commit themselves to fasting and prayer, that's when some of the mightiest acts of God happen.

So, fasting is a good thing that we are for, but it's not something that makes God smile upon you more.

It doesn't increase his love for you, but it's something that we do out of his love for us to see more of his acts in our life.

But here is the main point, again, of Lent: to focus us in on the sufferings and on the cross of Christ.

That's what it's all about.

And that's the whole purpose.

And that's the season that we're in.

So for the next few weeks leading up to Easter, we're gonna be preaching through passages in the Gospels and in the Bible that show us the humanity of Jesus, that he was fully man, just like us, and that he suffered for us.

So we're gonna be preaching through some of these things.

And what we see in this, in this season, is that Jesus had one goal: to be put on a Roman cross for the sins of the world.

That was his one mission, that was his one goal.

So in Luke 4, we find ourselves in a really interesting passage.

It's an amazing chapter, and in a lot of commentaries I read, a lot of these theologians throughout the history of the church kind of consider Luke 4 to be almost like Jesus' rite of passage in a sense.

Not that Jesus now realizes he is the Son of God, but in the sense that he is showing his followers that he is identifying with us as fully a man and fully God at the same time.

So this is kind of his rite of passage to fulfilling his role as the prophet, priest, king.

That's the language of the scriptures that we see.

So in the Old Testament, there were these three kind of offices that people of God held, that the main kind of leaders in the people of God held, it was the prophet.

And the prophets had this really difficult task of delivering the word of God to the people.

It wasn't always this future dream-like thing.

A lot of times it was just thus saith the Lord.

And because of that, most of the Israelites hated the prophets, right?

They didn't like hearing the hard words of God, right?

People like Ezekiel, Isaiah, Moses, people like that.

Then we have the kings.

The kings, at least on paper, were supposed to rule the people of Israel with righteousness, with justice, with the love of God, right?

Didn't do all that great in the Old Testament, but we do have guys like David, right?

Guys that killed it.

And then lastly, we had the priests.

And the priests were the people who were the religious leaders, specifically the religious leaders over the people of Israel.

And they were the, again, the people that brought the message of God to the people.

And there was one specific priest, the high priest.

And the high priest, every single year, on the day of atonement, on Yom Kippur, I don't think you've heard that phrase before, but Yom Kippur means Day of Atonement.

The priest would enter into the Holy of Holies, the most holy place, where the presence of God was believed to be most present in that.

And he would go through the veil, he'd move the curtain aside, and he would give a sacrifice for the sins of the people for the year.

It was the Day of Atonement.

He would sprinkle the blood of a lamb on the mercy seat.

And on the mercy seat was where God was believed to be sitting.

There was a cloud there.

And he would sprinkle the blood there, and the forgiveness of sins thus would be so.

And in this the people of God were atoned for.

Now, in our text this morning, I think this is the passage where Jesus is identified most clearly as our high priest, as our great high priest.

This is when his rite of passage into that happens.

And this is the one who stands in our place, who has made the sacrifice, not many has made one final complete sacrifice, and who now has torn the veil, giving us access to the fullness of God unhindered because of his blood.

And you know, again, we don't have this dearly or yearly day of atonement, right?

We had this one Yom Kippur that happened 2,000 years ago that now forever marks us righteous for those who believe.

Now, something that's frustrating about me is that most of the time I have a super one-track mind.

I know y'all know people like this, it's their way or the highway.

They're frustrating.

I know it.

I'm one of them.

Okay, so uh one thing that Grace and I, my wife, we love to do uh is we like to go on dates on the square.

We live close enough, by God's grace we can walk, praise the Lord, we can walk to the square.

Uh so we walk, you know, we go to places like ice cream.

More than likely we go to two birds at 5 30 on Thursdays.

Uh, and that's where we're at.

And I love it.

I love this date.

I'm like, yes, let's go to Two Birds.

One thing I've learned in a year and a half of marriage, I'm a pro, a year and a half of marriage.

Uh, we walk the back way, okay?

We go the back way by the railroad tracks on the brick road, right?

We walk the red brick road all the way down to two birds, right?

And the reason for this, there's no stores along the brick path.

You gotta you gotta go around to get to a store.

There's no stores facing you, right?

So, what I've learned is that my wife, she loves the journey.

She's all about the journey.

If the end goal comes, if two birds happens, great.

She's not in it for two birds.

She's in it for the walk, she's in it for the store fronts, right?

So, her ex her her kind of mindset is, yeah, we we might get to two birds, but I really want just I just want to go in these stores.

And if we get to our date, great, and I'm like, I just want the destination.

I don't care about the stores.

I want my happy hour at two birds with my wife, right?

That's what I'm in it for.

Uh so there's there's certain stores, y'all know the square, there's certain stores that have a higher percent chance for a 23-year-old girl to walk into.

All right.

We got Sarah Liz, decent, decent chance, but a Deaf Leopard shirt is$98 in there.

All right, so we we like to not go into Sarah Liz.

Um we have we have Tuesdays in Marietta, we have Tuesday coffee, right?

Shout out the Beatons.

We have Tuesdays, we love it, great coffee.

Um sometimes we go there, but then I remind her that we're about to go to Happy Hour, and so coffee plus that uh might not be a good recipe for her stomach, right?

So we don't normally end up there.

Uh then you know, bubble tea, same argument, right?

Same argument.

82 ounces of sugar coffee and bubbles in it is not great for the stomach, right?

But let's pull up this picture uh of this store, right?

Okay.

Ladies, just ladies, can we talk?

I don't know what this store does to you.

It's like they cast a spell.

Like it's it's like witchcraft has come upon women in Marietta, and I mean, like, when we're walking and we're within 50 yards of Market with a B, my wife is like shaking out of excitement.

Because she can't freaking wait to get inside Market with a B, right?

I don't know what it does, I don't know what it is.

But I mean, I get it, right?

I get it.

You can get little hipster journals, right?

Little hipster journals with good Tolkien quotes, right?

Or you know, you could you could get a single Rox glass for 24 bucks, right?

One Rox glass for 24 bucks.

But my favorite is the three ounces of Diva fabric softener for 40, right?

That's my favorite.

Y'all, you know, my diva people, you you in here, you know, 40 bucks for three ounces.

But what really hurts is the eight-ounce candle 48, right?

That's the one that really stings me the most because I'm a candle guy.

And the four 48 dollar candle that's this big really hurts my heart, right?

So suddenly we're an hour late to happy hour, right?

Which could have been 20 bucks, right?

We could be in and out, 20 bucks with tip, done, right?

Still sunny out.

Now we show up, it's 6.30.

I just dropped$127, and I have a candle and a rock's glass, right?

So all of a sudden, we've quadrupled the happy hour date.

So, lesson learned is we go the back way.

We go the back way.

Now, this morning we have, in my opinion, one of the most important passages in the whole Bible.

And it's the temptation of Jesus.

And again, here's my claim for us that Jesus had a singular mission on earth.

The feeding of the 5,000, the quieting of the sea, those were secondary.

His main thing was the main thing.

Georgia fans, amen.

Keep the main thing, the main thing, right?

He kept the main thing, the main thing.

And he, the eternal word of God, became man again with one goal: to put your sin upon the cross to be fully, freely, and forever forgiven.

That was his one goal.

That was just one mission.

He wouldn't get let anything get in the way of that.

He would not let anything get in the way of that.

He will go upon that cross.

Why?

Because the sins of broken humanity depend on it.

Because it depends on it.

And here's the thing: the devil's primary goal here is to get Jesus off the cross.

That's his whole goal is to get Jesus off the cross.

If he can do that, friends, we're still on our sin.

We're still without hope in the world.

So that's his goal.

But here's our main point.

So my type heirs, main point.

Alright, y'all can breathe now.

Type heirs.

We're good.

Main point, here we go.

Satan's primary temptation for Jesus was to get him off the cross.

And his primary temptation for us is to get our eyes off the cross.

See again, if Satan can get Jesus off the cross, then the rest of humanity is doomed and we're still stuck in our sin.

And if Satan can get our eyes off of Jesus and off the cross, then we're left with a weak substitute.

We're left with a life of religious striving, life chasing for the next thing, more money, more whatever.

We're left with a life that's just really no life at all.

If our eyes are not fixed on the cross.

And so again, the primary temptation, get Jesus off his mission.

That's what's happening in Luke 4.

So Jesus was a man, fully 100% a man, not 98% a man, not 99%, 100% a human being.

Therefore, God himself put on flesh, just like you and I, to be fully 100% a man so that he could identify with us fully, so that he could get it.

Jesus had just been baptized in Luke 3 by a sinful man named John the Baptist, was baptized by him so that he could identify with us.

And then in his final act before moving into his public ministry, he identifies with us completely.

We're now nothing is off limits.

And there's a phrase that I'm gonna repeat a few times for us this morning, and it's by this ancient church father named Gregory of Nizansius.

I think that's how you say it.

And side note, this is free.

Find an ancient friend that has been following Jesus and that wrote things like a thousand years ago.

We as American Christians can just get really stuck in the way we read the Bible, in the way we do church.

So find an ancient friend.

They're really helpful.

Um but my ancient friend is one of them is Gregory.

So this is what he says.

It's five words.

The unassumed is the unhealed.

The unassumed is is the unhealed.

And if you take notes, that's a good five words to write down.

And here's what he means: if there is a corner of our humanity that Jesus did not become, that's outside of the blood.

That's outside of forgiveness, that's outside of redemption.

If Jesus was not 100% a man, then there would be corners of our life that the blood of Jesus does not touch.

But that's the good news for us.

That Jesus was 100% a man, and so that now for us, there is no corner that's untouched by the blood.

There is no corner that's untouched by his love.

There's no corner that's not felt by him.

And that's good news.

And he especially assumed all of our temptations.

Not just our humanity, not just that he might have gotten sick, probably had stinky feet, right?

But that he could become our perfect high priest.

The writer of Hebrews says this for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin.

So remember, the main temptation, get Jesus off the cross.

So let's look at these three.

Temptation one says, Hey Jesus, you're hungry.

Turn this rock into bread.

Right?

I love how deep the Bible is.

We talked about this at our Bible study this morning with the high schoolers, but the Bible says he didn't eat for 40 days and he was hungry.

We love the word, we love the Bible.

It's deep.

Uh so yeah, first temptation, Jesus, turn this rock to bread, right?

Temptation one.

Temptation two, hey Jesus, bow down to me, Satan, and all the kingdoms of the world are yours.

And then temptation three, hey Jesus, jump off this building and God will protect you.

And all three of these temptations are ultimately doing the same thing.

Hey Jesus, you're you're the son of God, man.

You don't deserve to be hungry.

You have reigned on the throne forever.

You don't deserve to be hungry, Jesus.

Hey Jesus, you just just bow down to me.

Then you can get all the power in the world back, right?

I know it's really yours, but just bow down to me.

You don't have to go to the cross for that.

You don't have to suffer to reclaim your kingship.

And the last one, he says, hey Jesus, just jump off this building.

Obviously, you've read the Bible.

The Bible says God will protect you, right?

The Bible says you're not gonna really suffer.

But Jesus is faithful.

And again, he's so set on his goal.

He's so set on the end goal that he responds out of what he knows to be most true.

Not that he had these verses to like Harry Potter just zapped the devil earth, right?

It's no Harry Potter work here.

But what the scriptures have done in his heart and his life is that they permeate him.

So that he knows what is most true about him based on what he sees in the word and based on what he knows about himself.

And so he knows his mission is to suffer.

He knows that the rescue of sinful humanity doesn't come from him being a political powerhouse.

It comes from him going on a Roman cross for us.

One very important note here.

We read this and we we only see three temptations, but remember if you read the scripture, we see that Jesus actually was tempted for all 40 days.

All 40 days, and he wasn't tempted by some junior varsity demon, he was tempted by El Diablo himself, right?

I know y'all got some temptations, alright?

Let's talk.

Yeah, you've been tempted by El Diablo.

So Jesus goes out with the devil to be tempted for 40 days.

But we just see three.

So, what does this all mean for us?

What does this all mean for us?

The first thing is that we have a high priest who gets it.

We have a high priest, a savior who's been there.

See, in your temptation, in your greatest moments of depress of distress, depression, addiction, temptation, you don't just have a king who's looking down on you, kind of scoffing, kind of disappointed.

You have a savior who's been there.

You have a savior who's actually been through the weeds with you, not some ethereal feathered hair, you know, cloud-like Jesus up in the clouds looking down, and you have one who's been in the dirt with you, who's been on the ground, who fights with you, and who's felt it.

That's the savior that we have.

There's a really sweet comfort when you go somewhere new and the person you you're going with has been there, right?

Like when you're traveling, when you go somewhere new, you go to a new school, when you have a friend who's been there who can lead you, right?

And it really stinks when you have to go somewhere new all alone.

So a couple weeks ago, uh, my wife and I, we we were invited to this couple shower uh as um you know all 24-year-olds get married at the same time.

So we have 47 of them uh a semester.

But we had a couple shower and we got invited to it and we went, and uh, well, the thing is, my wife was out of town, and so I had a dilemma for like six days in a row.

I was wrestling with it.

I was, do I go alone or do I bail?

Right?

And at that point we had already said yes, and so like if I bail, it's on me.

It's on me.

So I'm wrestling, but here's it got me hooked because the theme of it was bubbles and bourbon, right?

And I'm like, genius, I'm in, you got me.

Let's go.

So, okay, so I go, but I fought all week.

I did not want to go, but I showed up.

So I got dressed, and let me tell you, I felt like I looked pretty darn good.

Had on my navy pants, good golf belt, got my East Lake shirt on, quarter zip, right?

I'm feeling good.

Feeling good.

I show up face to face with a 47,000 square foot house.

I promise you, 47,000 square feet.

I look, there's a bridge like over the driveway.

A bridge over the driveway.

And come to the door, I go inside, there's like seven dudes, look like they're CEOs, look at me, they got on sport coats way better than this one.

All right, like I'm talking sport coat sport coats, right?

Like custom fit, their last name is on the tag kind of sport coat, right?

And they're looking at me, they got the rollies on, and I'm there in my core zip, like first of all, underdressed as a mug, right?

I mean, just so underdressed.

So I make the awkward small talk, right?

I find the friend that got engaged, I give her a little, give a little hug, a little high five, you know, happy engagement, whatever.

I look at the 250-pound bullet ice statue that was there.

250 pounds ice statue.

The best part is the people that work for the ice company.

My friend was like, hey, look, when are you gonna come pick this up?

And they're like, it's ice.

We're not getting it.

Like, you just let it go.

It'll it's not gonna be here in about a day, right?

I love that.

But so I'm in and out in 12 minutes, all right?

12 minutes.

I timed it.

I called Grace on the way out, 12 minutes.

And I felt like it was record timing, but what was what was fascinating is that I managed to sweat through two layers of clothing in those 12 minutes because I was by myself nervous, right?

Like that's that's what happened.

It was great.

Going somewhere new all alone is really hard, isn't it?

It's really hard.

But the good news for us this morning is that we don't have anywhere to go alone anymore.

We have a high priest who's been there, who stands in our place, who's given us full access to God the Father on high, the creator of the universe by his blood, so that securely now, with no questions, with full confidence, we can go before Him.

And as we walk through different challenges, different trials, our Christ has been there.

Our Christ has been there.

He assumed all things so that all things might be healed.

Here's what that means for us.

In each corner of our lives, whatever that is, job, money, sex, whatever it is, temptations, trials, addictions, in all of those places the blood of Christ can touch.

In all of those places the blood of Christ can touch.

See, when when our perfect Lamb, when our perfect high priest went upon that cross, it wasn't just this vague idea of sin that went on the cross with him.

It was like your specific sin.

Like the places that you think about right now that you don't want anybody to find out about.

Like that's what's on the cross.

That's what's on the cross.

And as he wept and moaned and sweat blood, as he faced an eternity of hell in a moment, as the full wrath of God was poured out upon his shoulders, so your pain, so your grief, your struggles, your temptations, your addictions have been placed there too to be healed.

Why?

Because he's been there.

I find myself tempted to believe that his temptations, his trials weren't as hard for him because he was God, right?

It's kind of like he was Tony Stark and could just press the button, and then he's like this magical superhero, right?

But Jesus was not Tony Stark.

He was fully a man, fully feeling human things.

Fully faced every temptation to the fullest extent, beyond anything we can fathom.

And that is the good news.

So again, main point get Jesus off the cross.

And if Satan did that, then we got nothing to hope for.

But Jesus stayed on his mission.

And with that, the mission of Satan has officially been defeated.

Officially been defeated.

So there's two just closing main things for us, right?

If our eyes are taken off the cross, here's what the ways I think it shows up in my life.

I think one, uh, some sort of religious striving.

If my eyes are taken off the cross.

And by that I mean, uh, man, the cross really isn't quite enough.

It's almost enough, but I have to, I have to make sure I add a little bit so that God's really satisfied with me and actually forgives my sin.

That's where my mind goes.

That's one.

So maybe I need to fast for Lent.

I need to stop eating cookies for 40 days, right?

Then God will be happy.

Or I need to go to church a little bit more or read my Bible a little bit more, then God will be happy with me.

So maybe that's that's one thing that you feel.

Religious striving on that.

And then the second one hurts a little bit more for me is minimizing sin in our lives.

See, if the cross of Christ makes mostly good people a little better, then it's not good news, is it?

If it's like a TED talk with Jesus' name attached to it, it's not good news.

But the good news is that enemies of the gospel like you and me are now brought near and made to be brought to life by his blood.

And that's the good news.

But I notice in my own life is that as my eyes are peeled away from the cross, peeled away from his sacrifice for my sins, what I notice is that, right, like the little things start to become okay.

The little things are okay.

The big things, still the big things, but the little things start to become okay, right?

Like when I speak unkindly to my wife.

When, right, like the second or third glass of bourbon starts to sound really, really good.

To numb to numb the pain, right?

Like that, that's when things like that start to slide.

See, the godliest people in my life that I know of and throughout church history are the ones that were the most aware of their sin and where the gospel was the most sweet to them.

I want to close with this quote that I love from a guy named Charles Spurgeon.

Probably use them every sermon.

Sorry.

But here we go.

Remember this, Christian, and let it comfort you.

However difficult and painful the road, it is marked by the footsteps of your Savior.

And even when you reach the dark valley of the shadow of death and the deep waters of the swelling Jordan, you will find his footprints there.

Let's pray together.

Father, we bless you in the name of Jesus.

God, thank you for each of these people in this room.

Father, there are men and women in this room that know you, that are following you.

Pray that you strengthen their faith.

Father, there are people in this room that are not walking with you, that might think that they're Christians, but Lord, they don't know you.

And I pray, Father, that this morning, even so, you would have opened eyes to the truth of the gospel.

You would have opened eyes to the beauty of Jesus crucified on our behalf.

Father, pray just blessings through your word.

Pray that you would let all of mine fall flat and that the words of your gospel would be most true, would ring in our ears all week.

It would change us from the inside.

Father, we bless you for Jesus.

Thank you that our sins, past, present, and future, are fully, freely, and forever forgiven by the blood of Jesus.

Thank you for the hope.

Thank you for our high priest.

We love you.

Pray all this in Jesus' name.

Amen.