My Confidence In Christ (March 24th, 2019) - Karl Whittingstall

If you have your Bibles, you can go ahead and open it to Hebrews chapter 4.

Hebrews 4 · chapter mention

Hebrews 4 is where we're gonna be this morning.

And um I don't know when the last time you were in the book of Hebrews was, um, but I've just been loving the book of Hebrews as I've been reading and studying it lately.

And um This has been a passage that for me has been personally impactful at many different times in my life, uh, but it consistently stirs my faith and affection and my love for Jesus.

And so I'm excited to open it with you now.

Now, maybe you're getting here this morning and you're kind of like, you know what?

Um really glad that we're gonna be stirred to love Jesus more, but I really love him a lot right now.

And you're kind of like, I'm fired up for Jesus right now.

I don't need a lot of more firing up.

No, we all do all the time, okay?

So if you're here this morning and you're like, I'm in a great place with the Lord, I am like clicking on all cylinders, all areas of my walk with the Lord are amazing.

Well, then this will just be another log onto your spiritual faith fire, okay?

But the reality is that's probably not where most of us are when we get here this morning.

In fact, maybe you're on the other side of the pendulum, and maybe the fire's let like an all-time low.

Maybe, in fact, you don't have much of a fire or a passion or a love for God at all.

Maybe you, this is all really new to you.

And this morning you're gonna hear the truth of who God is and what he has done that will begin to stir your affection and your love for him and grow your passion for him.

Now, maybe though you're somewhere in the middle and you're kind of like, okay, yeah, it's been it's been a tough winter.

It's been a tough month, it's been a tough maybe the past year.

You've been gone going through some seasons that have been difficult.

Listen, you need to know that again this morning that the Lord loves you and he cares for you, and he wants to teach you again and remind you of truth again and again and again, that you would know him, that you would have faith, to endure all of life's challenges, to go forth with confidence into all of the things that come in our lives.

And that's what this passage is gonna be for you.

And so, Hebrews chapter 4, verses 14 through 16.

Hebrews 4:14–16

Let me read them and then I'm gonna pray, and then we'll begin to get into it.

Here's what it says Hebrews 4, verse 14.

Hebrews 4:14

Since then we have a great high priest who passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God.

Let us hold fast our confession.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in our time of need.

I believe this is one of those passages in Scripture that you can just like bookmark and go to whenever you're a little bit discouraged.

This is one of those like pump you up kind of like, I don't know if any of you are watching uh NCAA basketball stuff that's going on right now, but you see these coaches and they gather the team together and they're like, they give them one final charge, and then it's like, all right, get out there.

This can be that for you in your walk with the Lord every day.

You can go to this and get that stirring and affection of what's truth?

What do I need to know?

What do I need to be reminded of?

And so this is what we're gonna do.

But first, will you bow with me as we pray?

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, God, we just confess.

I confess right now, God, we need you to teach this to us.

It's easy to read it, it's even easy to learn some of these things, but it's not easy to live it out.

So, God, I pray that you would move by your spirit this morning and you would teach us.

God, you would help us to understand these truths, not just in a in a scholarly way, but in a life-changing way.

In a way that touches our hearts, Lord, and makes things different because we are understanding the truth of who you are and what you have done better.

God, build our confidence in you this morning, I pray.

In the name of your Son and our Savior Jesus, I pray these things.

Amen.

Amen.

All right, let's walk through this.

Let's start at verse 14 there.

Since then, we have a great high priest.

I love this statement, great high priest who's passed through the heavens.

And then as the speaker of Hebrews, I'm not sure if you knew this, but Hebrews isn't a letter like some of the other uh books in the New Testament.

Hebrews uh scholars believe it's a sermon that was written down, probably by one of the apostles, and as they're speaking, um, right here in the middle of it, he essentially gives a resume for Jesus.

Maybe an easier way for you to think of it, it's kind of like Jesus' LinkedIn profile.

And he just wants you to make sure, do you know who Jesus is?

Just clearly before we move on.

So he starts with he's the great high priest who passed through the heavens, and then I love there's kind of like a comma, and then it just says, Jesus, in case there was any confusion, Jesus, the Son of God.

Then when we look at the end of verse 14 there, it says, Let us hold fast our confession.

And then in verse 16, which we're gonna get to in just a few minutes, it says that this same Jesus, the Son of God who passed through the heavens, the great high priest, we can go with confidence, with boldness before his throne.

Does that blow your mind a little bit this morning?

It should blow your mind a little bit, because if you think about anybody kind of famous or powerful on our earth right now, for you to get an audience with them, you would go in very reverently and humbly.

And but this is the God of the universe, the creator and sustainer of all things, the one who spoke and the universe existed, and here we see we can go to him.

Now, why what gives us that confidence?

Well, well, the list of things that we see and learn here about Jesus.

And so I want to give you kind of uh three things this morning to help build your confidence and strength when it comes to trusting the Lord.

Here's the first three of the three things that we need to do.

It comes from the end of verse 14 there.

It says, Let us hold fast our confession.

I wrote this down.

This is point number one this morning.

We need to cling to Christ.

We need to cling to Christ.

Why do we do this?

It's there in verse 14.

Follow along with me and we'll just we'll learn this together, okay?

It says, Since then.

Now, you maybe you're thinking, well, since when?

The author or the speaker of Hebrews, so far as he's been going through this sermon from chapter one, and I would encourage you to go home and read today, he has been talking about the supremacy of Christ, about how awesome and amazing Jesus is.

In fact, if you look at chapter three, um, at the beginning of chapter three, there's probably a little title in there.

You see what that title says?

Jesus greater than Moses.

That's a big deal, especially as he's speaking to the Jewish congregation that he's before this time, to the Hebrew people.

They're sitting there and they're like, okay, Moses was pretty awesome.

Like, I don't know if you know Moses, but like, Red Sea, Ten Commandments, like any of that ring of bell, burning bush, come on now.

Like, this guy was bad.

He's like, no, no, no, you need to understand Jesus is greater than Moses.

So this has been kind of how he's been introing and helping them to understand.

Now, when you're preaching or speaking, right now, I have the privilege of looking at it all of your faces.

And some of your faces are tracking with me.

Some of you are a little confused.

Hopefully, we'll clarify that.

Um, but that's kind of the two options in the room right now.

When he's speaking, he's seeing a whole bunch of different things.

He's seeing people who are kind of confused, but he's also seeing people who are they're just straight up angry at what he's saying.

What do you mean Jesus is greater than Moses, man?

Now, I don't know if as he's speaking, people are literally getting up and walking out, or better just kind of like close their Bible, cross their arms, just like I'll wait till this is done, and then I'll go to Swishale and complain about it later.

I'm like, I'm not sure what he's seeing, but he knows the people are not resonating with the words that are coming out of his mouth.

Why?

Because he's just blowing their minds with the truth of who Jesus is that they didn't previously understand.

And he's doing this in such a way that he actually addresses them.

You can see in chapter 3, verse 7, uh, or yes, verse 7, he's like speaking, and also he just like inserts this quote from the Old Testament because he says this.

He says, Today if you hear his voice, don't harden your hearts.

He kind of like jumps out of what he's saying and says, like, stay with me, stay with me, you need to hear this.

And then he keeps preaching a little more, and then obviously he says some stuff that upsets them a little more.

You can read.

It's verses 8 through 14 of chapter 3.

And so he says it again in verse 15.

Today, if you hear his voice, don't harden your heart.

Like, listen, listen, you need to hear this, you need to understand this.

And then he keeps preaching the supremacy of Jesus Christ over Moses.

Now, don't get me wrong, Moses is a great guy.

He's saying that.

Moses was wonderful, Moses was amazing, but Moses wasn't Jesus.

Now, what made Jesus so amazing?

Look at verse 14.

Since then, we have a great high priest.

That's what makes Jesus so amazing.

Jesus is the great high priest.

Romans 3 23 says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Everybody needs their sin taken away.

We all have sin.

Now, in the Old Testament, through Moses, wonderful, godly, faithful servant, God had set up a system.

Maybe you know about this, the sacrificial system.

It was a picture of something, something that's going on in heaven.

It was a picture of going before God and atoning for sin.

And so what happened in the sacrificial system is that God had set up where you would go to the temple and you would talk to your priest, and he would go into the temple and he would sacrifice an animal on your behalf because the wages of sin is death.

Blood has to be shed for the seriousness of our sin.

The problem with it is it's just a symbol, it's just a picture of what was perfectly gonna come later.

And we know that because you had to keep going back to the temple over and over and over again.

And the blood of all of those thousands, and we gotta imagine millions of sheep and goats that were sacrificed over the years, they didn't atone for sin.

And the priests themselves, they weren't perfect.

I just heard this said this week.

How amazing is this?

Okay, so you think about the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, Jesus, the great high priest, both the perfect priest and the perfect sacrifice.

Good Friday, the day he's being crucified, Passover.

They're coming and they're sacrificing lambs.

Meanwhile, the one perfect lamb is being sacrificed.

You don't need to do it anymore.

This is why Jesus is amazing.

Because Jesus comes and he lays down his life, and then it says that he rose from the dead and he's seated at the right hand of God.

You don't have to keep going back anymore.

Jesus, the great high priest who passed through the heavens.

See that phrase there?

Who passed through the heavens?

That word heavens that's used there, it's an interesting word.

Um, it's a uh a word that's used to describe three different areas.

Now, this is helpful in understanding how Jesus atones for our sins, so just track with me, okay?

The first word that that word heavens is used to describe is if we all go outside this afternoon, um, what we look up and see.

We see the sun coming through the atmosphere, reflecting off of uh the oceans and and and bouncing back up on the inside of the atmosphere, and so the sky looks blue.

They would use the word heavens to describe that.

The sky is the heavens, but then they would also use that same word to describe what you can go outside at night and see.

So there's no sun coming through, so now you can see beyond the heavens, the sky, and now you can see out into space, right?

We love this.

You can see the stars and you can see the moon, and so you can see the heavens, and then you can see the heavens, but then they also use that same word heavens to describe, I know it's confusing, but the place where God and the angels dwell.

So think about this: the priest has to come into the temple, and then he has to go into, and he goes through these chambers into the holy of holies before God, which was all a symbol of going before God with the blood that was shed for our sin.

Jesus, he passes through the heavens, he comes to earth, and he goes to the actual throne room of God to atone for our sin.

How awesome is that?

This is our God.

Since then, since this is what we have, a great high priest who passed through the heavens.

Oh, and just in case you're forgetting what his name is again, it's Jesus.

Notice there in your Bible, there's like commas on either side of Jesus.

It's kind of like he pauses.

Like, hey, this guy is really awesome.

You can never forget him.

Jesus.

And then he kind of continues on speaking because he's like, you got to hold on to Jesus.

Now, I love the next word in the verse there.

Jesus, the.

See that word the?

I love this word the here because this word the, it means that it's not just a then, but an all.

It's a definitive, unchangeable statement.

Jesus is the Son of God.

Period.

If there's anybody who can help us with our sin problem with God, it's Jesus.

Jesus can do this.

He is the perfect atoner for our sin, he's the perfect priest, and he's also the perfect sacrifice.

So then he ends this verse and says, We need to hold fast our confession.

Our confession is our believing in this doctrine, our believing this truth, that Jesus is God's Son, and that he is the only way to be forgiven of our sin.

Now, maybe you're here this morning and you don't believe that.

Maybe you don't have that same confession.

And you need to hear the truth of the gospel is that God loves you.

But the reality is that you have sin, and sin separates you from God.

And in his grace and his mercy, he doesn't want you to stay separated anymore.

And so he makes a way for you to come to him, for your sins to be forgiven, for you to come to God, for you to have eternal life, for you to be with him someday.

But that's not something that you and I can earn or figure out or do on our own.

It only comes through believing in Jesus Christ, through putting our faith in him, in his work.

That is this confession that we hold on to, that we weren't good enough, that Jesus was good enough, that if we put our faith and trust in him, he takes our sin.

For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin, the Bible says, that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

We need to hold on to this.

We need to cling to Jesus.

I don't know about you, but I hope this is starting to stir in you because it's stirring in me again, even as I say it.

I've gone over this message a few times, and even as I say it again, I'm just like more excited.

I'm like, I want to cling to Jesus, I want to hold on to Jesus with everything that I have going on.

But maybe you find it hard to do this sometimes.

You're not the only one.

Maybe sometimes you would say, you lack clinginess to Jesus.

Peter.

On the night that Jesus was betrayed, he lacked clinginess.

I don't even know if clinginess is a word, but you understand what I'm getting at here, right?

He he failed to cling to Jesus.

You gotta think about this.

Peter is one of like the three, Peter, James, and John, these like special three disciples.

Like nobody hung out with Jesus more than Peter, James, and John.

Peter's been there, he has seen Jesus heal blind, deaf, lame, mute, crippled people.

He has walked on water with Jesus.

He has eaten bread and fish, that Jesus was multiplied.

He has seen Jesus heal people from the dead, and now he's kind of like, well, yeah, Jesus and our friends, maybe.

And he's not clinging to Jesus.

In fact, people come to him and they're like, hey, are you friends with Jesus?

And he's like, I don't know him.

Hey, weren't you, weren't you?

And he's like, no, no, no.

And three times he he fails to cling to Jesus.

And it's easy for us to sit back and be like, Peter.

What was he thinking?

In hindsight, history looks back and we're all like, Peter, what did you do?

We do it all the time.

We do that, we whenever we get into a situation where we fail to trust in Jesus, where we fail to run to the cross and put our arms around Jesus, when we fail to look to the author and perfecter of life, the sustainer of all things, to depend on him for all of our hope and all of our confidence, we're failing to cling to Christ.

And we do this.

We get our arms around self-gratification and financial success and the respect of others.

And in doing those things, we don't have room in our arms to hold on to Jesus.

God's word is calling us this morning.

Listen, the thing that you and I need most is Jesus.

We need to cling to Jesus.

He loves you.

He loves you.

Cling to Him.

If you skip church regularly, that's a problem.

Why?

Because you're failing to understand and learn and gather with God's believers and know more and more of who He is that you would want to hold on to Him more.

If you're in a small group, and your small group leaders and your pastors didn't tell me to say this, but you come unprepared all of the time, that's a problem.

Because you're just walking through life kind of like hoping everything's gonna work out.

Listen, God has given us his word that we may know him and we may grow in our faith and our love and our affection for him.

And whenever we leave God's word closed and fail to go to him, we're kind of saying, Yeah, I don't need you.

When the reality is that we need him, because there is no other way for our sins to be forgiven.

There is no other way for us to be made right with God but through Jesus Christ.

And then he's given us this book that we would know him, that our faith and our courage and our boldness would be strengthened, not in ourselves, not in who we are, but in who he is and in what he has done for us.

I wrote down uh five things, five convictions of a person who clings to Christ.

You can write these down if you want.

They all have a verse that goes with them from Hebrews.

The first one is this a person who clings to Christ knows his word.

You know the word of God.

Hebrews 4 12 says that the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul, sharper.

Like God's word is powerful, massively powerful, and we need God's word to teach us.

People who cling to Christ, they know his word, they love his people.

Do you love God's people?

Hebrews 10, 24 says, and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another as you see the day drawing near.

God uses us.

I'm just, who am I?

I'm just a guy who happens to be up here this morning.

But God uses other people to help us grow in our love and affection for Jesus.

Are you doing that?

If you're gonna cling to Christ, it means you need to be with other believers.

You need to love his people.

Third thing is you need to give him worship.

You need to give God worship, you need to focus your heart and your affection on him.

Hebrews 12, 23 says, Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken.

And thus let us offer an acceptable worship with reverence and awe.

Worship is a great thing to do because it's a way to remind ourselves of truth.

I have a playlist that I call it it's literally on my phone.

It says, Fuel your faith.

It's all just about fueling my faith in Jesus, and it's full of songs that are just help me understand the character and the power and the work and truth of God.

Maybe you need to go home and make something like that.

Just to help you, help you worship.

I listen to it when I'm driving.

I listened, I literally was listening to it as I drove here this morning.

To help encourage and strengthen my faith in him.

People who are clinging to Christ, they know his word, they love his people, they give him worship.

Fourth, they reject his rivals.

Hebrews 12, 1 and 2 says, Let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus.

We ignore the world, we push the world away because we want to focus on Jesus.

Here's the fifth thing, and we're gonna see this more in verse 16 in a second, but we seek his face.

Hebrews 4:16 says, Let us with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in our time of need.

Hebrews 4:16

If we're gonna understand who Jesus is, we're gonna have to be intentional about this.

And then as you understand who Jesus is and what he has done for you and how he loves you, listen, you need to hold on to that.

The verse here says, Let us hold fast our confession.

But you don't know my situation.

And you're right.

I don't maybe you're going through a season of hurt and pain and discouragement and loneliness, and I don't mean to sound like I'm making that a small thing at all.

In fact, I probably can't even come close to relating to a lot of the hurt that many of you have.

In fact, maybe there aren't even people in this room or in this church or anybody else right now who's alive who know exactly what you're going through.

But let me tell you and encourage you with verse 15.

Verse 15 goes on to say this for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are.

Check this out, yet without sin.

Here's the second thing, our second point this morning, to help us have confidence, our confidence in Christ strengthened.

It happens this when we understand he knows what we're going through.

Jesus knows what you're going through.

Now, if you look at the beginning of verse 15 there, you'll see that there's a double negative.

For those of you who are a few years removed from school, a double negative means a positive.

So if he is not unable, those are two negatives, okay?

He is not, we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness.

That means that we do have a high priest who is able to sympathize with our weakness.

Speaker of Hebrews here, he throws this double negative in to make it hard for preachers in English.

It didn't mean the same thing in Hebrew, but for us, we have to like kind of wrap our minds around.

Okay, so he can.

So he does.

He does know what we're going through.

Yes, he does.

He has a perspective that I might not be able to have for you, but he has for you.

And it says there that he has gone through this in and been tempted in every respect as we are, yet without sin.

Tempted to be filled with pride, to be jealous, to covet, to be angry, to say things that weren't true or not honoring to God, to think things that were unkind or mean.

Listen, Jesus has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.

Now, if you're not convinced of that, just from one verse, I want to give you two places you can go later and read.

Matthew 4 and Luke 4.

In both those places, we read of the temptation of Jesus.

And in Luke 4, it says that when Satan had tempted him in every way.

So if you're like, well, does real Jesus really know all of the pressure that I Yes, yes, he does.

Like there's we're not that we don't even have to talk about it anymore.

He knows.

I don't.

But he does.

He knows all of it.

The temptation of Jesus that jumps out to me the most when I think about like, does he really know all of the fears and the worries and the things that I have going on in my life?

It came in Matthew 26.

And it's the night before Jesus is going to be crucified.

And being fully God, but also fully human, the fully human side is like, I don't want to be crucified.

I don't want to die.

I've seen that before.

I don't want to be nailed to a cross.

But he continues in obedience and honors his heavenly father who has sent him.

In Matthew 26, 39, it says this, and going a little further, he fell on his face and he prayed this.

Okay?

This is his humanity, but also his full willingness to obey.

This is how he can sympathize with us.

He says, My Father, if it possible, let this cup pass from me.

I don't want to be crucified in the flesh, but nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.

See, he was looking to the crucifixion and he knew the physical pain that he was about to endure, but he also, being fully God, was willing to endure it.

He was willing to come under the weight.

So he can sympathize with us.

He goes through that and then he rose victoriously.

He's been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Opportunities for selfish pride, opportunities for self-promotion, opportunities for unlawful gain or idolatry or revenge or coveting or speaking fault, all of it.

He was tempted as we are.

Look at the end of verse 15, yet without sin.

He did not sin.

Now, Bible scholars in the room right now, you're asking this question then.

Could he have really felt the pressure to sin and the weakness that that would have if by his nature, being fully God, he was unable to sin?

And the answer is yes.

He can still feel both.

John 14, 30 tells us that the ruler of this world has no claim on him, and James 1, verse 13 says that he can sympathize with our weakness as well, and that God is not tempted.

James 1:13

So how does he feel all the same pressure that we feel, yet he didn't give in?

I want you to think about it like this.

Imagine I'm one of those big weightlifter guys.

It's a stretch of your imagination.

Um they grab onto that weight, those massive, like the bar bending, like there's it's like a small elephant on either side.

Like it's just, it's huge what they're pulling.

And when they get it a little bit off to the ground, they're beginning to understand the full weight and the pressure that is whatever this massive weight that they're about to lift is, right?

Now, we would say, like, if you've ever lifted something kind of just momentarily off the ground, like you're kind of like, oh yeah, I get it, it's super heavy.

But do you really understand the full weight of it?

No, you don't.

You don't even understand the full weight when you get to like here.

Because you can see, if you just watch their face, there's uh another moment that's coming when they get the full weight, right?

They kind of get it here, they get to here, and they're like starting to move and shake a little, and you can tell that they're like, they kind of like lock their knees in.

I don't know if you're supposed to do that, or I obviously I don't work out.

I don't know why I said that.

You look at me and you're like, we know, but you get here, and then you like, and then they get it up, and then they start to push, and now you can see the expression on their face that they're feeling more of the weight than they did down here.

And then they get it up to that spot and they do that like that little shimmy stand for a second, like little baby deer just born, kind of like I'm gonna fall, and then they drop the bar, boom, and it comes down.

But just for a fraction of a moment, they feel the full weight because there's nothing above, like that's it.

It is all above them pressing down on them.

Okay, Jesus, being fully God and fully man, he feels all the weight and pressure of sin to sin, but being fully God, he can never drop the bar.

He knows exactly those worries and those fears and that pain and the disco all of those things.

He he feels it the same, but without the relief.

Without the relief that comes by giving in to those things.

I heard someone saying recently that it's harder to not sin than it is to sin.

Because to not sin, you have to choose to not give in to something.

And that's what Jesus did the whole time of his whole life.

So he knows the pressure.

He knows the pressure and what it's like.

Jesus can sympathize with us in different ways from different points in our life and all of the different points in his life.

He is our great high priest.

How encouraging then is this to us?

He knows all of the pressure of the sin that we gave into, but he never gave into any of it.

And he's like, I still love you.

I lay down my life for you that you can be forgiven of your sin.

I know the pressure.

I want to read this to you.

I read this from a book a few years ago.

The book was called Simply Jesus by Dr.

Joe Stoole.

He was the president of Moody College, and he wrote this about Jesus.

He wrote, Have you ever felt lonely, displaced, misrepresented, or misunderstood?

Have you ever found yourself severely restricted, denied of your rights and privileges, betrayed by a close friend, maybe?

Have you ever been left out of the power group and plotted against?

Have you ever done right and suffered for it?

Have you ever tasted the bitterness of injustice?

Have you ever longed for friends to stand with you in your moment of weakness only to sense that they're really too consumed with their own need to pay much attention?

Have you ever experienced unbearable pain?

Have you ever felt abandoned by God?

If your answer is yes to any of these questions, then you have had pain and suffering and temptation like Jesus.

You can identify with him because he really does know what you're going through.

Take courage.

Have your confidence in Jesus strengthened this morning.

He is not far off not knowing what's going on in your life or what it's like.

So we see these two things that we need to hold on to him, that he knows what we're going through.

And then the author of Hebrews here, the speaker of Hebrews, he gives us one more thing, some more direction then, as we understand this, then what should we do with our lives?

As we go forth in this confidence, we can have this encouragement, knowing that we're guaranteed blessing.

This is point number three, that we're guaranteed blessing.

Verse 16 says, Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in our time of need.

He's gonna take care of us.

How much more confidence do we need than that?

That Jesus loves you, that Jesus died on the cross so you can be forgiven of your sin, and he wants to help you.

Now, sometimes when we use that word blessing, we immediately think like dollar signs, but if you look at verse 16 here, there is no mention of finance at all.

In fact, all of the blessing that we received is connected to the very last word in verse 16, and that is our time of need.

Need.

What we need when we need it.

That's what Jesus will provide.

That's his love for us.

So the verse says, let us then, see that there at the beginning of verse 16?

He's kind of like recapping as a good preacher.

You kind of like circle back to make sure your your audience caught what you said before or they were listening.

He says, Let us then, because of what we know, because we have a great high priest who passed through the heavens, the Son of God who knows what you're going through, let us then with confidence, because he loves you and he died for you, and he knows what it's like to be you.

Let us then, with confidence, it says, with confidence, draw near to the throne of grace.

Again, that's amazing to me.

I don't know if you've ever watched a movie where there's kind of like a throne room scene and you see people and they kind of come in and they're quiet and reverent.

And maybe it's one of those scenes where like they can't even look up at the person and you don't speak until you're spoken to or anything like that.

Or maybe it's like, I remember watching a cartoon with my kids a while ago, and the people had to come in like this with their hands away, and then when they walked out, they had to turn their hands again, and like they had to walk backwards at a certain point, and it was like just goofy.

We don't have to do that with Jesus.

And we're talking about the throne room of God, the most powerful person in all ever that is.

Jesus.

And we can freely now it doesn't mean we kind of like stroll in and sit on the front steps and just be like, yo, Jesus, let me tell you about my.

No, no, no, we still come with this reverence and awe and respect because he is the great high priest who passed through the heavens.

But we don't have to come in with worry and fear that we're coming before a throne of judgment anymore, because he has already taken the judgment for us.

He has already laid down his life that we can be forgiven of our sin.

Listen, if our faith is in Jesus, if your faith is in Jesus, you can approach the throne with boldness to receive mercy and grace for your time of need.

But listen, if you're not a follower of Jesus, if you've not put your faith and trust in him, it is a different throne.

It is a throne of judgment.

It is a seat where he will hold your rights and your wrongs before you, and you will be found wanting.

You will be found with sin unforgiven, and you will not be able to be in his presence, and you will be sent away for all of eternity.

But listen, it doesn't have to be like that because he loves you.

He wants to make it so you can come to him and not only just come to him, but come to him with confidence and with boldness, and not only come into his presence, but look what it says in the rest of the verse there, that you can receive grace and mercy to help in your time of need.

He not only makes it so you can come to him, he's like, Come to me and let me help you with everything that's going on in your life.

That's awesome.

We don't deserve any of that, but this is what he does.

And so, what is it that he's giving us here?

Two really important words that we need to make sure we understand.

Mercy.

What is mercy?

Mercy is not getting what we do deserve.

Mercy is a withholding.

We deserve wrath, we deserve punishment, we deserve separation from God.

He's like, I won't do that.

I will withhold the pushing of you away because of my son Jesus, because he died and he took the punishment that you deserve.

You can come into the presence.

So you get mercy, but then you also get grace.

Grace is a wonderful word.

Grace is a word we use lots.

We love the word grace.

What is grace?

Grace is getting something that you don't deserve.

So he withholds the judgment that we do deserve, and but then he gives us all of this love and this compassion and this help in our time of need.

Exactly what we need when we need it.

Now, I don't know how he's gonna do that in your life.

I don't I just know different ways he's worked in my life and in many other people's life.

Maybe he will he will give you encouragement to persevere, maybe he will give you some wisdom, maybe he will give you uh strength to persevere, maybe he will give you someone to come along and shoulder part of your burden with you.

Maybe he may give you a few days of relief, maybe he may take it right away from you.

But this is what we do know that's true in this text.

He will give you what you need in your time of need.

The question is, will we come to him?

Listen, our confidence can be strengthened in him, in him who has done this for us.

We need to go to him to receive mercy and grace to help in our time of need.

How do we do this?

One word.

Pray.

The full application to this message, if you understand who Jesus is and that he cares for you, that's points one and points two.

Point number three, then, is you gotta pray.

You've got to go to the Lord, and you can do it with confidence and with boldness, knowing that he loves you, knowing that he cares for you.

I had a grandpa, he's passed away, he's with Jesus now, who was an amazing prayer warrior.

And I want to just share with you four prayer to-dos that I witnessed from his life.

The first is this is that he made time to pray.

Prayer is difficult for us often.

We're kind of like, oh, I'll do it later.

Uh, maybe I'll get to it later.

Listen, if you push prayer off, you're probably not gonna end up praying.

Prayer is the easiest thing to do, but it's also the hardest thing to do.

It's like a screw on like a cabinet in your house that keeps coming loose, and you just keep like every few weeks you gotta go back and like twist it.

Do you have one of those in your house where you're kind of like, it's in our one of our bathroom door things in the and I'm always like, how'd this get loose again?

Like, I feel like I just tightened it.

That's what prayer's like.

We gotta keep going back to it.

We gotta like think it through.

We gotta make time.

So mate, we need to make time to prayer.

Then, secondly, we need to be specific about what we pray.

What we pray.

We're not just kind of rolling into the throne room of God and we're kind of like, uh, so thanks for seeing me right now.

I guess there should be some stuff that I'd like you to do, because you can do anything.

Uh but that's often how we pray.

We're not really thinking it through very much.

And maybe you're here right now and you're kind of like, well, I'd like to know a little bit more about how to pray.

You can go read Luke 11.

Jesus says, When you pray, pray like this, and he gives some principles of how we are to pray.

Thoughtful, intentional prayers.

So we need to make time to pray.

We need to be specific when we pray.

And I wrote this down.

This is something that my grandpa was great at, is he made lists when he prayed.

He wrote down, he had lists, he had a binder when he passed away that he was current of things he was currently praying through, but he had other binders full of answered prayer.

And he would go through that binder, and as he grew older and closer to going to be with the Lord, I remember him asking my mom to like photocopy and blow it up to get the font bigger because he couldn't see it.

But at times in his life, when he was retired, he would go through that binder two, sometimes three, and a few times, four times a day.

Serious and intentional about this in what we see here in verse 16, with confidence, drawing near to the throne of grace, that he would receive mercy and grace to help in his time of need.

We need to make lists.

And then this is the last thing that my grandpa was great at is he tracked his prayer.

I remember flipping through his binder when he had passed away, and he hadn't like torn out pages or anything like that.

In fact, what he would do is he would take a pen and he would just put a line through it.

And I asked him one day, why do you just put a line through it?

And I knew the answer, but I wanted him to say it.

And he was like, Because I want to look back and be able to read what it was that I was praying for that I saw God answer.

You can't praise God for answered prayers you don't remember praying.

In fact, you can't praise God for answered prayers that you never prayed.

We need to be intentional about this.

Listen, God loves you.

He sent his son to this earth, the great high priest, to make a way for you to come to him.

He knows what you're going through.

He wants you to come, he wants you to approach with boldness, knowing that he will take care of you, knowing that he will provide what you and I need in our time of need.

We are guaranteed this blessing.

This should be building confidence in you to trust in Jesus, to rely in Jesus, to hold on to Jesus, to love him more and more.

This is who our God is.

I hope this morning that faith fire is getting stirred for you.

I hope it's no longer just coals.

And if it was already fired up, I pray that it's a roaring blaze and people around you are gonna catch fire.

Not literally, but just they're gonna see your faith and they're gonna be like, I want what they have.

Because you know this to be true that God loves you and he sent his son for you.

That you can know him, that you can approach him, and that you can receive from him.

This is the confidence that we have.

The great high priest who passed through the heavens, the son of God, we need to go to him.

Let's pray.

God, I thank you for your son.

I thank you for your son who makes it possible, Lord, for us to come to you, to approach you, and to know you.

And Lord, I pray if there's people in this room right now who are hearing that for the first time and they have they don't have the same confession, this same confidence of knowing that their sins are forgiven through Jesus Christ.

God, I pray that you would help them to understand that that can be true this morning.

That there is no way to be forgiven of sin except through Jesus Christ and putting our faith in Him.

And for those of us who are here, Lord, who have that truth, who understand that, Lord, who who love that, but maybe haven't been cherishing it, God, would you help us?

Help us to love you more.

Help us to grow our affection and our wonder and our amazement and our faith in you more.

God, that you'd get glory from our lives.

We need you to do this.

We love you.

We build and strengthen our confidence in you, I pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.