Hebrews: Christ Prays for You

God, thank you for your grace to us.

Open our hearts in these moments to what you have for us from this great book of Hebrews.

And would your Holy Spirit speak to us?

Help us to be open to the Spirit that is already in us.

To convict where conviction is needed to comfort, to heal, to bring us into a greater awareness of how good you are.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Well, last year I told you, and it's not impressive, mind you, that I am, in fact, a silver medallion with Delta.

I don't know if that impresses you.

It shouldn't, because some of your gold, right?

You know it, and you're proud of that.

Platinum, you're really proud of it.

Y'all have secrets that the rest of us don't even know about.

I actually I love being a silver medallion, partially because I like putting the tag on my bag and feeling more important than other people as I work my way through the airport.

But I really like the special lines.

I like, I'm just that shallow, impatient person that I like a special line.

And if some of you, not the shadow, not the shallow, you're you're not that impatient.

You're like, you look at people in that line and you don't get it.

I love it.

Like I love the special line.

I like being 20 seconds faster than you.

I just do.

That's just me.

Uh, and then COVID hit, right?

And if you you have status with Delta, you know what I'm talking about as soon as I mentioned that.

COVID hit, and somewhere in your line of priorities, underneath the health and well-being of humanity, uh, was your status with Delta because all your flights were canceled, right?

Anyone else?

This hit you at some point?

Maybe it wasn't March 13th, maybe it was like March 23rd, but somewhere it hit you.

Oh my, the special line might be taken from me.

Um, what am I, how am I going to manage through this next time I go through an airport?

And then you received the email I received.

Do you remember getting it?

Some of you?

You know.

Because your status is secure through January of 2022.

Amen.

Anybody just want to say amen?

Like that's you?

You got that secure status?

A few of you do.

You know exactly what I'm talking about.

The rest of you know what I'm talking about.

But you understand it, right?

Like you understand that we were having to maintain our status, that lowly little silver, it's unimpressive, mind you, status with Delta.

I was having to maintain that with my like handful of flights a year and my spending on my Amex card.

I was having to earn it.

I was having to earn that status, and then by the grace of Delta Airlines, an email comes in.

And everything changes.

The whole way that this thing is structured changes.

By the grace of Delta, our status is secure through January of 2022.

Unbelievable.

So before this grace, our status was maintained by our work.

After this grace, our status is secured by their grace to us.

Such good news.

Amen.

Such good news.

Because we all know how great it is to be in a secure relationship with a steadfast person.

And we all know how horrible it was when you dated that person in college and they weren't steadfast, and you never knew where you stood and what it was like, and you were just anxiety all the time.

There's nothing worse than that.

Or worse, right?

Preacher transition, or worse, what it feels like if you think God is not steadfast toward you.

And you just kind of wake up or you live in this perpetual of like, am I really secure with him?

Like, is he disappointed with me today or after that thing versus the other thing?

And what if I really get my act together?

Like, not how I've gotten my act together in the past, but like really, yeah, really, really get my act together.

Like, will he then suddenly smile upon me?

And this is all cleared up in the book of Hebrews.

Isn't that good?

That's cleared up for us.

It's all cleared up for us that we're not just saved from the uttermost, but we are assured.

We are assured, not because of our work for God, but because of his work for us.

We're gonna read this one verse this morning, Hebrews 7, verse 25.

Hebrews 7:25

Sam Rap did a great job last week in this first half of the verse.

I'm gonna focus on the second half.

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

So, point number one is this Christ is praying for you, which means God is for you.

Christ is praying for you, which means God is for you.

So we've been talking the past few weeks about Christ being the final priest, the priesthood of Christ.

And I'm tempted to repreach all those sermons.

That's what pastors are tempted to do in this moment, kind of get you caught back up.

I'm not gonna do that, but I will read what pastor and author John Piper wrote about this verse, 725.

This means our salvation is as secure as Christ's priesthood is indestructible.

This is why we needed a priest so much greater than any human priest.

Christ's deity and his resurrection from the dead secure his indestructible priesthood for us.

So his priesthood for us is indestructible, which means that our relationship with him is forever secure based on his work on the cross and the resurrection.

Isn't that such good news?

Because it means it's by his grace alone.

And it says, this passage says, that he is praying for us.

Three years ago on a Sunday, we were over in the old sanctuary over on the other side.

Some of you were here when we were back over there in that space.

And I was preaching, I was preaching to a crowd back when we had crowds in churches, and I was preaching to a crowd, like when we shoved you in.

You remember that?

You didn't have all this like leg room, like we shoved you together three times as many people, right?

Like they're in this room.

We would just shove you all in here.

And they were it was crowded, and so you know, you're preaching, you're kind of you're working your way, you know, you're working your way through the crowd as you talk, and you try to even it out here and there and back and forth.

And and in a crowd like that, you don't necessarily see everybody's face all the time.

It kind of blurs together, but then every once in a while you catch somebody's face, right?

And you go, like, oh, there you know, John is, right?

Like, or something like that.

And then every once in a while you'd see somebody you hadn't seen in a long time.

Like that's what happens when you're pastor.

Like somebody comes in and you hadn't seen it, you want to stop.

You want to be like, hey, you know, Charles, hey, I hadn't seen you in a while.

Like it gets you get excited and you can't do that, but you want to.

And so, anyway, so I'm preaching, and I I scanned back to the back corner, back where Charles is, back over there.

Hey, Charles.

And back over there was a retired minister.

And I I see him and I met him like years before.

I hadn't I hadn't seen or talked to him since then.

But he's sitting back over there, he just kind of came and visited our church.

And oh, that's kind of nice.

I mean, like he's like a well-respected guy.

Like a lot of people, a lot of people know him.

I don't think he would even have known me again, except that one time that we met, a lot of people really adored this man, and he was sitting back there just attending our church at service ends, and he leaves.

I didn't talk to him or anything.

And then four days later, I get a letter in the mail.

And I'm not talking like a little note card, right?

Like a little note, you know, like four sentences, you know, like no, I'm talking like a letter, like the old days, right?

Like a whole sheet, like the whole thing, written, covered, like the whole thing.

And it wasn't, it was, it was real, like it was personal, it was thoughtful.

It was just filled with encouragement for our church and what we're doing.

And at the end of the letter, he said, I am praying for your church.

And then after that, the next said, I am praying for you.

Now, what does that mean?

Like literally, I think it means he's praying for our church and for me.

But here's how it made me feel.

It made me feel like he is for me.

And he's with me, and he cares about me.

Right?

Because when someone prays for you, when you know that person is praying for you, it's they're for you and they're with you.

Now, these prayers of Christ, right?

He's for you, he's with you, he's praying for you.

They're they're not to persuade and upset or withholding, you know, God, and like God's upset and withholding, and then oh, Jesus is gonna pray to God, and then that withholding God all of a sudden is gonna like change his mind, and now be for you.

I mean, this is the Trinity, they are all satisfied, and everything of any judgment towards him is handled on the cross.

So this is an all-satisfying deity, and within the deity, Christ is fully satisfied, and his full satisfaction, he is pouring out prayers for you.

It's not about changing God's mind.

Christ is praying in the present moment of pouring out the same grace that that was shown on the cross.

It's like the cross is brought into the present moment.

Point number two is this Christ's present moment prayers for you reveal God's loyal heart and care for you.

Dane Ortland in the book Gentle and Lowly, I've been reading quotes from that book as we've been going through the book of Hebrews.

A lot of that book is about Hebrews.

Here's what he wrote about this verse, 725.

Christ's heart is a steady reality flowing through time.

It isn't as if his heart throbbed for his people when he was on earth but has dissipated now that he is in heaven.

It's not that his heart was flowing forth in a burst of mercy that took him all the way to the cross but now cooled down, settling back once more into kindly indifference.

His heart is as drawn to his people now as ever it was in his incarnate state.

And the present manifestation of his heart for his people is his constant interceding on their behalf.

I love that.

His heart is as drawn to you now as it ever has been.

I mean, knowing that changes everything.

All that kind of like wondering about my status with God.

That's all been settled on the cross, and even now, this doctrine of intercession is the present moment manifestation of the same grace we saw on the cross in the present moment.

I've never preached a sermon on this in 20 years.

And then I hit this verse, I start studying, I'm like, this is incredible.

How have I not hit this before?

This concept, this idea that Jesus in this present moment is still loving you with such delight.

Years ago, I was interviewing for the job that I had before this job, so a church down in Atlanta, uh a real nice and fancy church, and we're way out of my league.

I was from Gwinnett County, like right on the edge of rural.

I owned, I think I've told you this before, I owned one pair of khakis at that point in my life.

They were cargo pants, mind you.

So, like they I don't even know if they count as khakis and one button-up shirt.

That was all I had in my closet.

One pair of khakis and one button-up shirt.

That was it.

The rest were jeans, shorts, flip-flops, and t-shirts.

That was the wardrobe in Gwinnett County.

It was not the wardrobe in Buckhead.

Let's just say that.

I show up with the cargo pants and the button-up shirt, the one, and I'm just working my way, like interviewed and interviewed, and interviewed.

I mean, it's like getting in the CIA just over and over and over, different person, different person, different person.

Finally, the final step was this psychologist.

And he has me go through all these tasks online, and then we have this phone conversation, and in the phone conversation, he starts to pick me apart, and he's got me.

He has it, I mean, he has me nailed.

He knows more about me in that test in that hour and 15 minutes than anybody on planet Earth.

It was unbelievable.

I mean, he just had me absolutely pegged.

And finally, at the end of it, I was just like, hey, like, what was that?

Like, what just happened?

What kind of black magic did you just put on me?

That was amazing.

And he said, Well, most of humanity behaves in patterns.

If I know your pattern, I can I can predict how you will behave.

Right?

It's just like like being on repeat, right?

It's just it's the same idea of maybe like a song.

You fall in love with a song, you just keep putting it on repeat over and over and over and over again.

In our house, uh, it's the Skylar sisters in Hamilton, because we have three girls and there's three Skylars.

Angelica lies.

Anybody else?

Nobody?

Okay, there's a few of us.

I mean, three girls in the song, three girls in the house, they can divide up roles and new dances and then just play the song again, trade roles, new dance, right?

Like you just do it over and over.

I know, I know it.

The scholar sisters are looking for a mind at work.

Like, I know it.

Like, I know everything about the scholar sisters, how they're going downtown, they're looking for a man for the mind at work.

I know the whole song because it's on repeat, right?

And I mentioned that because this has something to do with God.

Like this idea of enduring love for you, this idea, this is on repeat, it's on perpetual repeat.

It's stable, it's steadfast.

That's why we're assured it's fully reliable.

Point number three is this just as praying for someone is personal, Christ's prayers reveal how He personally loves you.

The Old Testament Hebrew word that we learned a couple years ago for loyal love, like perpetual loyal love, is this Hebrew word chysid.

And chissid is love that's so enduring.

It's a perpetual force.

That it persists beyond sin and betrayal, and it can mend brokenness and it can heal.

It's a perfectly loyal love that says, I'm for you and I'm with you, and I'm not going anywhere.

I read this quote back when we studied that word by theologian John Oswalt.

Chasid, so loyal love, God's loyal love speaks of a completely undeserved kindness and generosity done by a person who is in a position of power.

This was the Israelites' experience of God.

He revealed himself to them when they were not looking for him, and he kept his covenant with them long after they persistent, a persistent breaking of it, had destroyed any reason for his continued keeping of it.

Unlike humans, this deity was not fickle, undependable, self-serving, and grasping.

Instead, he was, and we can say, he is, faithful, true, upright, and generous.

Always.

See, the story is always our need and his sufficiency.

It's our, yes, on and off prayers, hot and cold prayers.

But his constant prayers for us.

It's that one song that just keeps going.

In closing, I think there's two gospel implications for us.

Number one is this you are his beloved, and he is patiently pursuing, we can say perpetually pursuing, your heart by means of conviction, comfort, and healing.

This is the Holy Spirit's work in your life.

There's going to be conviction, there's going to be comfort, and that is unto healing, and that is unto wholeness and holiness.

Number two, you may have a lot of worries in life.

We can just stop there, right?

You say, Yep, yep, that's me.

Okay, you got me in the first part of the sentence.

You will have a lot of worries in life.

But in Christ's work and devotion, you can be healed from spiritual anxiety, lack of assurance, and fear of God's regard to you.

The other worries might continue on, but these are worries you don't have to carry around.

The question I grew up with, in the context I grew up with, a lot of times I would hear this question, maybe you heard this question, maybe you didn't, and you won't associate with it.

The question I heard is, do you know that you know that you know that you know Jesus is Lord?

Well, now that you phrase it that way, no.

Like, right?

Like if it was just like, do you know Jesus is Lord?

I'm like, yes, I do.

But now that you said, do you know that you know, like, like, no, now I'm not, I'm not sure.

I don't I don't even know if I'm a member of the Y at this point.

Like, there's so much pressure, right?

Some of you know what I'm talking about.

It can just produce so much anxiety.

See, the question is not, do you know, do you know, do you know, do you know?

The question is, do you know?

That he knows, that he knows, that he knows, that he knows, that he redeems you.

Do you know that?

Because that is such a good news to rest in and be assured of it.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you for the assurance that we have in you that we can be healed from spiritual anxiety and the fear that might creep into our hearts about how you might feel about us today.

Thank you that your regard to us has been settled on the cross, and even more in this present moment, we have such security that even now your heart is being poured out about us.

That any of our suffering and conviction is all unto our healing, wholeness and holiness.

God, for the many of us that are in this room or watching online and have suffered with spiritual anxiety for so long, would this be such good news for our hearts?

And would your Holy Spirit use it to create such healing and such assurance of our status with you and the good and perfect word of Jesus?

Amen.