Hebrews: Christ, Our Compassionate Priest

Let me pray for us as we open these scriptures.

God, we thank you for this great book of Hebrews that we have been going through, for what it is telling us about the goodness of your grace to us known in Christ Jesus.

And I pray that this morning, would our understanding from our minds and into our hearts, would it be even greater?

Would we just expand in the knowledge of how good you are to us?

And would we deepen, would we deepen even more our identity in Jesus?

We pray this in his good name.

When I was in my early 20s, I had a very kind man who entered my life.

His name was Ronnie, and he was a Sunday school teacher at the Big Baptist church that I attended.

I've talked about him before.

I just graduated college.

I had working full-time and attending seminary full-time.

Some of you have done stuff like that at a period of your life.

College was way over.

I mean, that was really clear with full-time work and full-time seminary.

College days were over.

In that real world, it hit me like a dump truck.

It was not easy, but but Ronnie was there.

He was a farmer who went bankrupt.

His company went bankrupt.

His life, entire life, went bankrupt with that.

And so he was driving a tractor at the time that he was my Sunday school teacher during the day.

He graded dirt.

At night, he was in school to be a Christian counselor, which he is now.

And one day for me, I'd worked all day.

I drove 55 minutes home in horrible I-85 North traffic.

I got home.

I needed to study.

There's no kind of open minute during those years.

And I was just burned out.

I was burned out.

I was I was broken.

I didn't know kind of what to do or where to go.

All I knew is like with the condition I was in, I was just falling apart.

I think I was depressed, to tell you the truth.

I think this was a stage of depression in my life, but I didn't have that language at that point in my life, or perhaps thought that it was okay for me to have that language for myself.

So I didn't know where to go.

So I called Ronnie.

I can remember the street that I was on in Lartsville, Georgia, when I called, and I called him weeping.

And when I called him, he was not disappointed in me.

And he did not shout advice to me.

He never once judged me.

Looking back on it, I can see what he did for me.

He knew the pain I was feeling, see, because he had already experienced burnout and broken down and worn out.

So he listened to me and he asked some very caring questions, and then he listened some more.

And then he prayed for me.

And then he told me that he was with me and for me.

You see, he could sympathize with me because he had been in that valley.

He knew what it felt like.

And in that way, he was, and this is the word for this morning, he was a priest to me.

So now we're ready for Hebrews 5.

One through four.

For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.

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

Because of this, he's obligated 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, just as Aaron was.

So point number one is this we all have weakness, and we're all looking for help in our weakness.

We all have weakness and we're all looking for help in our weakness.

Now, you may look for help in your weakness in the world to feel righteous or feel self-justified by your work or another person or your achievement or your body or your status or your money, but we're all looking.

Humanity is looking.

We're all looking for a high priest.

We're all looking for representation.

That's what the high priest does, he represents.

I want to show you a few iconic images just as sort of gameplay this morning.

I want to show a few iconic images, and then you think about what this image represents.

So here's the first image coming up.

There's the first image man on the moon.

And what does this represent?

Maybe somebody could say it out loud.

What does this represent?

Anyone want to go for that in a group of 70 people?

American capability, right?

American pride.

I know there's two of you think that it's a total farce, American farce.

There's two of you that are thinking that right now.

All right, the next image is this, the Berlin Wall.

Right?

I mean, the wall being up represented one thing, right?

Enslavement, bondage.

And then the wall coming down, if you remember that and you're old enough, that represented the image of freedom and breakthrough.

Now, people can represent something, right?

Here's an image of a person, right?

Elvis Presley, he certainly represents something.

Perhaps to you, you first saw it was drugs.

Maybe.

Perhaps he's still alive to you.

I don't know.

For a few of you, he's still alive and also Man on the Moon didn't happen, right?

All this kind of ties together.

But ultimately, rock and roll, right?

Elvis Presley represents rock and roll.

Equally important in American history, this next person, Michael Scott from the office.

And we know what he represents, at least to himself, what he wants to represent as the coffee mug, right?

World's best boss.

And a person can represent not just something, but a person can represent someone else.

Right?

That's what the word to represent means.

It means to stand in the place of something or someone else, like a lawyer for a client.

Or an older brother who shows up for the fight for the younger brother.

Or in our text this morning, for us to understand the greatness of what God did for us in Christ Jesus is a high priest for a sinner.

Now, these people that this letter was written to at the time, they had no problem with understanding they were sinners.

They embraced being rightly diagnosed.

It's actually quite helpful when you can just come to grips with what is actually true.

And then this high priest represented, of the text says, the people, and gave gifts and sacrifices to God to atone for the sins of the people.

That's what the high priest did in the temple.

But at the time, this high priest had become very politicized.

It was a highly political position at the time leading up to Jesus.

The priesthood was greedy and self-serving at the time.

And so these people they didn't have a high view of the high priest.

And so the writer is trying to get them to understand how Jesus is their high priest, and at the same time, he's with this dilemma of getting the restoration inside of them of the idea of the high priest.

So he goes searching for a good metaphor, an alignment.

What is the high priest like?

And he finds this mysterious guy.

He thinks about this mysterious guy in the Old Testament, Melchizedek.

So verse 5.

So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said to him, You are my son, today I have begotten you.

As he says also in another place, you are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.

Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered and being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.

Now Melchizedek, he's only mentioned, this mysterious guy, he's only mentioned a handful of times in the Bible.

The first time is in Genesis 14.

Abraham was on his way back from a battle.

On the way back from the battle, Abraham runs into this guy named Melchizedek.

And Melchizedek was the king of Salem.

So we get no background about this guy there in Genesis 14.

We don't really get any more information about him in the rest of the Bible.

But here in this place, again in Psalms, and then in Hebrews, is this reference to this Melchizedek, and Jesus is a priest like him.

And it's almost like the lack of information about him draws us closer to the little bit of information we do have.

Because what we have is we have his name and we have the city that he's from.

And Melchizedek means king of righteousness.

And Salem means peace.

So this king of righteousness is from a place of peace.

So the writer of Hebrews he picks this obscure figure with his name from that city.

And to say, Jesus is like that for you.

Now he goes on and nails this down even more.

We're going to see it in Hebrews 7 and 8.

This is an entry into this idea of high priest.

Point number two is this Jesus is our righteousness ushering us toward peace.

Jesus is your righteousness, which is what ushers you toward peace.

Isn't that good news?

You don't have to be your own righteousness, trying to usher yourself toward peace.

That gospel process is that he, the high priest, Jesus, made the final sacrifice.

You don't have to keep making sacrifices for forgiveness.

It's given to you.

And you also don't have to create or maintain your own righteousness.

Righteousness is a status given to you before, before it is a life that you live out in your behavior.

And that's the very thing, that gospel news, that good news, that grants us peace.

The king of righteousness from the place of peace.

Dane Ortland, in his book Gentle and Lowly, I quoted it last week.

I'll probably keep quoting it because this book has a lot to do with the book of Hebrews.

He writes a lot about Hebrews.

And when he's writing about Hebrews chapter 5, here's what he says: Hebrews is not just telling us that instead of scolding us, Jesus loves us.

Hebrews 5 · chapter mention

It's telling us the kind of love he has.

Rather than dispensing grace to us from on high, he gets down with us.

He puts his arms around us.

He deals with us in a way that is just what we need.

He deals gently with us.

When I was a senior in high school, I played basketball and I sprained my ankle really badly right before season started, preseason game about a month before.

And so I blew it out, not going for a dunk.

That was not me.

I think I could touch the backboard.

That was about it.

It was pretty sad.

Got worse after the sprained ankle, but I was out.

And my coach's name, his name was Coach Sweat.

I mean, his classic basketball coach name.

And Coach Sweat was basketball in Larchville, Georgia.

He owned basketball in Larchville, Georgia for 20 years.

He was the king.

If you had anything to do with basketball, he was the king of basketball.

And during those three weeks, while I was resting it and icing it, I was over on the sideline during practice, stretching, do little drills, you know, cuts here and there, during that whole process of three weeks.

I think maybe he checked in with me like every other day and just like, when are you gonna be ready?

Not yet.

He moved on back to running his kingdom of basketball.

Yet there was another guy, Coach Cassell, the assistant coach.

Now, Coach Cassell, total different story.

Coach Cassell was with me every day during that practice.

He was with me on the sideline, he was getting me ice, he was suggesting new stretches, new drills.

He was with me.

How was I doing?

How was it feeling?

What can we change?

He was patient, he was helpful.

Classic setup, right?

Head coach, assistant coach, one with the power, one with the people.

Here's the point.

You picked up on it.

Jesus is our king and our priest.

Power and with us.

It means he reigns supreme over our world and our lives, and yet he deals gently with us.

That's point number three.

Jesus reigns supreme over all and deals gently with you.

God perfectly knows us in our mess.

He's even experienced mess even while he was sinless.

And that is how he can sympathize with us.

The gospel implication for our lives this week for me, it hit me when I read this prayer I'm about to read by Scotty Smith on his blog Heavenword this week.

It's just the implication of Christ being in you, the Holy Spirit working in you, of having him as your high priest.

And here's the prayer.

Since the gospel is true, and you'll be able to hear and pick up on all the application in your heart and life as I read it, since the gospel is true, we don't have to feign sufficiency and medicate foolishly or blame relentlessly.

Thank you, God, for both your invitation and provision.

With hearts open and palms up, we trust you for the rest.

You alone can give.

Rest from fear, fatigue, and worry mulling.

Rest from taking on more than you've given us.

Rest from the lies and accusations of the enemy.

Rest from the idolatry of capability.

Rest from vain regrets, false guilt, and real shame.

Rest from the uncertainties of our future.

Rest from, like Martha, choosing irritation over adoration.

Rest from focusing more on what we don't get from people than what we do have in you.

Jesus, you are our perfect righteousness and deepest at peace as our loving spouse and reigning King.

You see, Jesus is your high priest, your king of righteousness.

Gently with you, ushering you, walking with you toward peace.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you that you are our worthy King, creator of the world, holy and mighty, and at the same time you are our priest, compassionate and patient, able to sympathize because you have lived in this world and know the pressures.

Forgive us for all the ways we don't trust in you.

Forgive us for all the ways we act out in those ways of blaming and medicating and misbehaving.

God, would we come into a greater knowledge of you in both our minds and our hearts that we might be more enamored, more astonished, and that our lives might honor you in always in Jesus' name.

Amen.