Jesus, The Anointed One | Ps. Keith Pittman

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How's my family doing?

You guys doing good?

That's what I'm talking about.

Would you mind helping me welcome our online community?

Those who are joining us in the family lounge, checking us out on the podcast, however you find us today.

We're so glad that you are with us today.

And we think it's obviously a great time to be with us.

Maybe you haven't been with us for the past couple of weeks, and you're wondering what's the story with this whiteboard up here?

But we are in our summer school series.

This is our second year doing it.

And what we found is that we really love creating some space where we can take an opportunity to kind of unpack some things theologically.

Yes, there'll be some inspiration and some encouragement, but the goal is, as Peter would talk about, growing in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so this is a series where we specifically break out the whiteboard.

We get a little bit more teachy than preachy, but let's be honest, it's me, so there's going to be some preaching in here regardless.

But it's an opportunity for us to come together and really examine some depths of God's word that maybe we typically wouldn't do.

And so this is a great time to get connected.

If you don't have our app, download our app because all of our message notes and a lot of other resources to support this series are available within our app, inclusive of just this past Wednesday, we had a how to buddy study the Bible session.

And so we just kind of expounded on different approaches and practicalities of it.

And so those notes are available within our app.

So please, if you're not a part of our community in our app, download it so you can stay up to date on everything that God is doing.

Can I get a good amen to that?

Alright, if you have your Bibles, join me in the Gospel of Luke, chapter number four.

The Gospel of Luke, chapter number four.

I come to this passage several times a year.

It's a beautiful reminder because it's it's ultimately almost like Jesus' launching verse.

Leading up to this particular passage, Jesus has just come out of a season of being baptized publicly.

Um he went into the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights to kind of be tested by the enemy.

That was kind of like his inauguration, and then he comes back and he launches his public ministry.

And so what the text tells us here at Luke chapter 4, as he comes out of the season of being fired up for the things of God, he's now presented with an opportunity to launch his ministry, and he chooses a passage that I think brilliantly encapsulates who he is and ultimately what he's called to do.

Luke 4 · chapter mention

It's literally like the mission statement of Jesus, encapsulated in a few verses.

So, starting at verse number 16, here's what the word of the Lord says to us.

He came to Nazareth when he had been brought where he'd been brought up.

As usual, he entered the synagogue on a Sabbath day and stood up to read.

The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him, and unrolling the scroll, he found the place where it was written: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he's anointed me to preach good news to the poor, he has sent me to proclaim the release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and he sat down, and everyone's eyes were on him in the synagogue.

He began saying to them, Today, as you listen, this scripture has been fulfilled.

What a powerful idea.

When you look at the implications of this text, when you look at what Jesus is saying, he's quoting from Isaiah chapter 61, and he says something that no one else has ever said.

Isaiah 61 · chapter mention

And what he said is, Today, these words, this scripture is being fulfilled.

I wonder what that meant for the original hearers of it, and I wonder what it means for us.

So today, I just want to take a few moments to unpack what those words mean then, what they mean for us now, and how do we take it into the future?

So if you're taking notes, I want you to write down this message titled, Jesus the Anointed One.

Let's pray and let's see what God wants to speak to us.

Lord, we we thank you for your word.

We thank you for your promises.

We thank you for your presence.

And God, I just ask that as we engage your word, that you speak to us with supernatural clarity.

Holy Spirit, you are welcome here.

We we invite you to inspire us, to challenge us, to convict us, ultimately leading us to the person of Christ.

So, God, I decrease and ask for you to increase.

Give us open eyes to see you, open ears to hear you, and open hearts to receive everything that you have for us.

It's in Jesus' name that we pray.

Amen.

Amen and amen.

So, tonight I'm I'm really excited about tonight, and I'm gonna tell you why.

Tonight is is game seven of the NBA finals.

Nobody's excited except for me.

Any anybody excited?

Game seven?

Eileen's excited?

Like, man, like I'm talking to the wrong audience.

Now, now I know that you guys are probably surprised to hear me talking about the NBA because you guys know that that we are aligned up with the Philadelphia Eagles.

Like, we're a football church.

We're at Philadelphia Eagles Church.

I'm sorry, I misspoke.

Um, the champion Philadelphia Eagles church.

Like, I mean, we get that, we know that, but I also do enjoy basketball, particularly around playoff time.

And so I was I was at my barbershop yesterday, and we had like this massive discussion.

Because like, here we are, it's game seven.

Game seven is a big deal, it's the last game.

Like, it comes down to like whoever wins this game is the champions, whoever doesn't, better luck next year.

Like, it's a massive deal to go to a game seven for the finals.

And and he was talking about just how it's not exciting.

And I was like, okay, that's that's pretty objective.

But we then began to talk about the lack of excitement that we're sensing and just the kind of the way that the finals have played out.

And so it created a discussion uh about the the transitioning from different players to the new season.

I'm I'm old enough that I remember when when my dad took me to go and see Dr.

J and Charles Barkley at the spectrum in Philadelphia.

That's how old I am.

Okay.

I I remember going to see Alan Iverson play uh against Jordan and then subsequently to Kobe.

I remember seeing these generational giants and these characters who are larger than life and watching these games, and then I've seen the emergence of LeBron, and I've seen now that even it looks as if the torch is being passed on.

And so I've lived on and seen the torch being passed on to the next generation.

So it brought a big discussion and debate that goes on and on forever, like what era was the best era, what players were the best players, and and and honestly, even though you would think at my age I would be 100% Jordan and no one's better than him type guy, but I've also am the type of person that feels like my heart breaks for the new, for the new guys out there, because I think of it this way, and some of y'all are like, man, like get out of here, the game is too soft.

But here's why I say that.

Because I think about how like nowadays these guys are not just competing against their people, they're also competing against the past.

And everything you do will be measured by what someone did in the past in real time.

So your legacy will never be measured at the end of your career, it's being measured in real time, and that's a that's a lot of pressure to live up to.

It's like to try to like meet everyone's expectations.

Because if you're gonna be the GOAT, if you're gonna be the best, then you've got to do these things.

But what if I'm great at these things?

Do they not matter?

It creates this circular logical conversation that I think is really interesting because it's really hard to live up to everyone's expectation at the same time.

Hold that thought.

For the people of God, they had a lot of expectations.

When it came to the Messiah, many of them were saying to themselves, I am in need of a savior.

We are in need of a prophet, we're in need of someone that can lead us to a place of freedom and peace and joy and just prosperity.

But what does it mean to be the Messiah?

What is your expectations of the Messiah?

For some, they were like, Man, we we need to have a Messiah who's just like David.

We need that kind of a messiah.

But they're like, no, we we need a prophet who's just like Elijah because he called down fire on his enemies.

Or no, we we need we need someone who's like Aaron the priest who could go and negotiate on our behalf.

Everyone had different expectations of what they were looking for for the Messiah.

How could someone ever measure up and meet everyone's expectation?

It's with this tension we enter into this text because this was a passage that no matter what you were looking for, they all anchored their belief in.

When Isaiah wrote these words, because Jesus is quoting from Isaiah 61, Isaiah wrote these words to encapsulate the idea of the Messiah coming.

And for the hearers of this passage, they've heard through the centuries people read this passage over and over again, and they their expectation continued to build over and over.

Yeah, we're waiting for the one, the anointed one to come, the one who's gonna proclaim freedom, the one, and they they began to take those words and fit it into their own life, into their own circumstances.

This is what the Messiah is gonna look like for me.

This is what the Messiah is gonna do for me, this is what the Messiah is gonna do for me.

And then Jesus shows up.

This man from a very interesting upbringing, this man whose mom mysteriously got pregnant without ever being with a man, this man's whose stepfather had apparently passed away, this man who who shows up, who doesn't have any notoriety, he's coming from a small town, and this man is reading a familiar passage to everyone, and he has the audacity to say, this prophecy that has gone on for centuries, today it is fulfilled in me.

You can't imagine the reaction from this because again, I have my idea of what the Messiah is going to look like.

Spoiler alert, Jesus is not you.

I have my expectations of what the Messiah is going to do, and Jesus, you're not doing any of those things.

I have my expectations of what it's going to look like, and and and you don't measure up to it.

But Jesus then begins with the launching of this phrase, and then his subsequent life shows you that not only does he fulfill these words of Isaiah, he supersedes them.

Because what we find in this passage as Jesus starts it off, he says something that is so profound.

And what he says is that the Spirit of the Lord is upon me and he has anointed me to do this work.

Anointed was a really, really big phrase.

It's not in the way that we use it now in the New Testament church where we talk about someone's gifts and we're like, oh, they're so anointed.

Or even as we did a couple of weeks ago when we had released our new staff members in their varying roles and we laid hands on them and we released them anointed.

This is a recognition of what God's doing in their life.

But but at the time of Jesus, when someone says they were anointed, that that was something that was designated by God.

To be anointed meant to be set apart.

It meant to be holy, it meant to be consecrated for something significant.

But when you break down what the words mean, I think there's something more interesting.

You have the word anointed in Hebrew is mashach.

You gotta make sure you get that in the back of it.

Clear my throat.

Mashach.

Relax, Nir.

I got the mic.

You know, I'll call you out.

Okay, my daughter's up here trying to like speak on the front, like it's not gonna go well.

Okay, so then we have we have the other, we have the other word.

We have the we have the Greek version of it.

Creo.

So now we have these two root words.

Mashach and Creo.

But if you look a little bit deeper at what these words are, in the Hebrew, Moshach is where you get the word messiah from.

Creo is where you get the word Christ from.

Jesus is literally saying, I am the anointed Messiah, I am the chosen one, I am Christ.

Contrary to many people's belief, Christ is not Jesus' last name.

It was his designation, it was his calling, it was him proclaiming to be the chosen one.

This passage is about me.

And what's so significant about this passage and what we see in the life and ministry of Jesus, for the original hearers of this text, there were only three designations of people who ever carried the title of being anointed by God.

That designation was for prophets, that designation was for priests, and that designation was for kings.

And when you think about the Messiah, each camp had an expectation.

One camp wanted a prophet, another camp they needed a priest, and another camp was looking for a king.

But Jesus begins to pull it all together and says that they all are pointing to me.

So I want to take the next couple of moments to unpack what each of these implications are in Christ and ultimately what it means for us as his modern-day followers.

Here's the first thing that I want you to kind of lean in with me on.

Jesus, the anointed prophet.

Prophets were God's appointed truth tellers, they were his messengers.

They served as his mouthpiece.

They were a mirror to reflect the direction that God ultimately wanted them to go into.

You have prophets like Moses, Isaiah, and Jeremiah.

And they didn't just merely predict the future, but they often did, but they were meant to proclaim God's heart in the present.

Their core function was to speak on God's behalf.

They would often enter into a space and they would start off their statements by saying, Thus saith the Lord.

Maybe you've been in church settings, I know I have with my Pentecostal holiness settings, but I remember being in services and the service could be going on, and someone would stand up and say, Thus saith the Lord, and that was an indication that there's a prophetic word was about to emerge from the community, thus saith the Lord.

And the things that God would always say was connected to three primary things.

That when God speaks, he's gonna speak truth, he's gonna lead people to repent, and he's gonna remind them of their ultimate purpose.

That whenever a prophet would show up to speak, when they say, Thus saith the Lord, they would always speak truth, if they were sent by God.

Here's why that's such a big deal.

Because speaking the truth often meant confronting someone sent.

In fact, when when prophets would often show up, the leaders of the time, they would get a little bit nervous.

They would be a little bit cautious because they never knew what the prophet was going to deliver.

Like, man, are you here to are you here to speak judgment over us?

What are you here to do?

They're here to speak truth.

I think about how Nathan, the prophet, confronted David.

Maybe you're familiar with the story of David when he slept with Bathsheba and then had her husband killed to cover it up.

Now, David is a very powerful, influential man.

He's the king.

He could literally call for someone to get killed, as we've seen what happened with Bathsheba's husband.

But because Nathan was called by God and he said, I'd much rather be obedient to God than popular with man, that when he showed up and he spoke truth to power, he was not concerned about his own well-being.

So the Bible says that Nathan steps into the space and he literally says to David, You are wrong.

I wonder where the prophetic voice is right now in our society.

Where we as the church have done the same thing that the community of belief did back when they took Jesus and put them into the hands of Pontius Pilate, aka into the hands of politicians, they stopped speaking truth.

They lost their authority.

And my concern is even today, we're so quick to try to buddy up to gain power, we've lost the ability to simply say the truth is that's wrong.

Don't let me don't let me get started, y'all.

Don't don't don't do that.

Okay, so so Jesus, so Jesus is saying we are called to speak truth, uncompromising truth.

The truth doesn't have a political party, the truth doesn't have a gender.

The truth is the thing that we rise our lives to meet up to instead of lowering the truth to meet our lives.

The truth will step into our worlds and confront us and make us feel a little bit uncomfortable.

But the truth will lead us to a place where we need to repent.

It leads us to a place where, hey, there's there's some things in your life that don't measure up with the with the word of God.

And as a prophet, I'm here to reveal the truth to you and let you know that there is still time to repent.

It's still time to turn around, there's still time to shift the direction in the trajectory of your life.

But the beautiful thing is there's always a reminder of the purpose in your life.

I think about how Jeremiah, when he came to the people of Israel, the famous passage in Jeremiah 29, 11, I know the plans that I have for you.

He was speaking to people who had ignored the truth of God's word.

The consequence of that is that they were now in captivity, but yet God still sent the prophet to say, even though it's uncomfortable in your current life circumstances, is the consequence of you going against the will and word of God, I still have a plan for you.

I'm still not done with you.

That's the beautiful power that we find.

And so now Jesus steps into this space of saying that I am God's true prophet.

We see in Deuteronomy 18, 15, where Moses prepared the hearers for this.

He says, That the Lord will raise up a prophet from me, like me, among your brothers.

You must listen to him.

Moses was preparing him, saying, like, hey, a prophet's gonna come who's who's like me, that you're gonna need to listen to.

The writer of Hebrews reminds us of this person that we now need to listen to.

Hebrews 1, verses 1 through 2, it says, Long ago God spoke to our ancestors by the prophets at different times and in different ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.

Hebrews 1:1–2

Jesus is the voice that we now listen to.

And when Jesus enacted his ministry, he came through fulfilling the role of the prophet, declaring the kingdom of God, confronting religious hypocrisy, embodying divine compassion, pointing people towards the Father.

Crowds were consistently amazed at Jesus.

Look at what it says in Matthew 7.29.

They were amazed at him because he taught them as one having authority.

Every other time when someone would speak, they were speaking on behalf of, they were speaking as a designation of.

But Jesus wasn't just speaking the truth, he was the truth.

He wasn't just saying, Thus says the word of God, thus saith the Lord.

He's saying, I am the word of God.

Jesus was shifting their perspective and helping them to understand that he himself is the truth.

And this prophetic ministry wasn't just rhetorical, it was also relational.

Because Jesus, as the prophet, would speak with authority but also with compassion.

John chapter 4 tells a story when Jesus is having a conversation with a Samaritan woman at the well.

John 4 · chapter mention

And as they're having this conversation with expertise, with surgical precision, he's able to speak to her theology, talk about her sin, and lead her to God all in one conversation.

Beautifully, gracefully, gently, but firmly.

The Bible says that after she has this encounter with Jesus, she leaves and says, I perceive that you're a prophet.

There's something about the authority that you speak from in the context that you have that God has anointed you to do this work.

What about in Luke chapter number seven?

The Bible talks about how when Jesus was walking on his journey and he saw a funeral procession coming by, he pauses the procession and he speaks to the woman as she's in the midst of her grief.

He he honors her pain, he acknowledges her situation, and then he rises up, he raises up her son who had just passed away.

And after Jesus is walking away, the crowd says, A prophet has risen amongst us.

They were able to acknowledge and recognize that there's something different about this man.

That when prophets would come, they would come to represent God.

But Jesus was saying that I'm revealing that I am God myself.

And he wasn't just acting out on what it meant to be a prophet, he was defining the whole purpose behind it.

When Jesus went into the temple and he threw the religious people out, that was the things that you would see from prophets who were turning over tables.

When he healed on his Sabbath, he was updating their theology to recognize the heart from God.

When he was forgiving sins, when he was challenging injustice, that he wasn't just speaking on behalf of heaven, but he was bringing heaven to earth.

See, prophets, they would declare the will of God, but Jesus embodied the will of God.

Prophets would proclaim the release of the captives, but he was the release of the captives.

Prophets would announce recovery of sight, but Jesus was the light that leads them to a place of healing.

He wasn't just promising freedom of the oppressed, he was also the liberator of the oppressed.

In short, Jesus didn't just come to predict the future, he came to fulfill it.

And our response in these moments is to listen.

Not not listen in a sense of just, man, that's a good word.

Man, I agree with that.

Not just saying amen at the end of a statement, but listen with An obedient heart.

The Gospel of Matthew chapter 17, verse number five, speaks about what we call the transfiguration.

Matthew 17 · chapter mention

This is a moment when Jesus takes three of his closest disciples up on a mountain and he literally reveals his glory in front of them.

The glory of God is shining, and they can literally see Jesus in his glory.

And so the Bible talks about how Elijah was there and Moses was there.

And the Bible says how Peter sees this in typical Peter fashion.

He's like, Lord, it is so good that I'm here.

You are so lucky that I'm here, God.

Here's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to build a tabernacle for Moses.

I'm going to build a tabernacle for Elijah.

And Jesus, you may get one too.

This was Peter just stepping into a space because he recognized the voice of these prophets.

But as he was speaking, verse number five says, Suddenly a bright cloud covered over them, and the voice of the cloud said, This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased.

Listen to him.

He was shifting Peter's perspective from listening to the voice of ancestors, listening to the voice of tradition.

But he was saying, you need to listen to him.

I don't know who needs to hear that today, but I feel like so many of us were listening to the voice of everyone else.

But if I can declare God's word over your life, you need to listen to what Jesus says about your situation.

I know that we're responding to what culture says, you need to listen to what Jesus says about this situation.

I know you're listening to what the doctors and everyone has said, but you need to listen to what Jesus says about the situation.

And when I'm talking about listening to what Jesus says, it means engaging his word on a daily basis.

Give us this day our daily bread.

We don't need snacks.

We need the word of God that's going to nourish our very soul and give us a foundation in our faith.

He's saying you need to root yourself in this word.

And I believe that God is speaking to us more than we're able to recognize.

But it's important for us to begin to get so fixated on the truth of God's word that we spend so much time in the truth of his word that when we hear the counterfeit lies of the enemy, we're able to immediately sort it out because God's voice is the only thing that we respond to.

What are the areas of your life that God is speaking to right now that we haven't even considered what his voice is saying?

What are the areas that God is leading you into that he's telling you that this is my will for your life?

But because it's not easy, you haven't stepped into it.

Because somehow we built a theology that said if it's God, it must be easy.

I don't know where that came from.

But what I've learned is that whenever God is leading me to do something, it costs me something.

There's a sacrifice attached to it, there's a burden attached to it, but there's also a connection and a peace that surpasses all understanding.

The Bible says that Jesus is speaking as our prophet, and we don't want to miss it.

Here's the second thing that I want us to recognize that Jesus is our anointed priest.

That when Jesus is speaking these words and he says that the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, and he's proclaiming to declare the release of the captives, that he's not just reading from Isaiah, but he's pulling from a concept that is connected to the Jubilee.

Let me just give you a quick lesson on that.

The Jubilee, as the Bible tells us in Leviticus chapter 25, is a time when all of the things that people had in bondage were released back into freedom.

Leviticus 25 · chapter mention

That means that all of their lost wages, that meant slaves, that even meant their land, that every 50 years, whatever you lost was restored back to you.

So a Jubilee year was a big deal, and it would be kicked off by the high priest blowing a trumpet and letting people know this is the year of Jubilee.

So that was a time of celebration where the captives were set free.

So when Jesus is pulling this language and saying, I've been anointed to release the captives, he's pulling the language of Jubilee into who he is and what he is called to do.

But unlike the Jubilee, Jesus is not saying that this is something that is going to get done once every 50 years.

No, this is done every day in me because I am the full expression of Jubilee, a combination of God's grace and mercy at the same time.

Jesus is displaying and embodying what it means to have fulfillment in the Jubilee.

He's the great high priest.

And he's not dressed up and going into a temple, but he's embodied by the very Spirit of God, declaring a permanent and cosmic release.

Now, the thing about high priests is that they do a couple of things that are so meaningful and impactful for us.

The thing about a priest is that priests, they're the ones that navigate and give us access to heaven.

The Bible tells us in Psalm 110, verse number 4, it speaks about this mystical character.

That here's some homework for you guys.

I want y'all to look up.

This is some homework I want y'all to go and look up.

I want you to Google or ChatGBT, not here to judge, the term Melchizedek.

And what you're going to find about this man named Melchizedek is that he is a priest before the temple was even created, before the sacrificial system was created.

He's a high priest before any of the structures existed.

Abraham paid ties to him, and Abraham's considered to be the apex of what it means to be a person of faith pre-Jesus.

So what Melchizedek represents is he represents a figure without beginning or end of days.

So many people will say that he was a type of a Christ-like figure, a person who emerges in the Old Testament and whose ministry is fully expressed in Jesus.

So David talks about this in Psalm 110 when he said, The Lord has sworn an oath and will not take it back, that you will be a priest forever according to the pattern of Melchizedek.

Again, underline that, go do some research on it, let's have a conversation next week about it.

But Melchazedek was this powerful priest who transcended and was not bound by any system.

Jesus is now stepping into that space, and he is our Melchizedek in this perpetual role that gives us access to God.

Because that's a large part of what priests would do, is they were responsible for dealing with sin and brokenness, and they would allow access into the presence of God.

Hebrews chapter 4 affirms that Jesus fulfills this.

Hebrews 4 · chapter mention

Let's look at what it says here at verses 14 through 16.

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has 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 has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.

Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

That, my friends, is access.

In a world where our sin separated us from the perfect presence of God, that now Jesus, because he's our great high priest, he gives us access to something that we were once locked out of.

A few weeks ago, I contacted my son Caleb.

I said, Hey man, I said, Your mom's not feeling well.

Um she needs to come home.

I still have some meetings here, so I'm stuck here at the office.

So I need you to bring my car to me.

And he's like, Okay, dad, like I'll I'm I'm glad to do it, but I don't have keys to the car.

Like, you got a set of keys, mom has a set of keys, so I don't have any keys to the car.

I said, Hey man, I said, look, look at your phone.

And he's like, All right, I said, I just texted you access to the car through text.

He was like, What does this even mean?

I said, I don't know, son, but apparently I'm able to send you a digital key that gives you access to the car.

And he's like, he's like, that's interesting.

He's like, so what am I supposed to do?

You don't have to do anything.

Like, you just have to walk up to the car and get in.

He's like, No, I don't think you understand my question.

I get the text message.

I see that the text message says, Caleb Pittman, you've been granted access to this vehicle.

He's like, but but what am I supposed to do with this?

It's just like, what do I do?

Like, there's no one I could talk to.

It's like, hey, my dad said I can drive.

Like, he's like, what do I do?

I said, son, you don't have to do anything.

Just walk up to the car and get in.

So I'm on speaker with him.

And he's like, I don't know how this is gonna work.

He walks up to the car and he puts his hand on the handle and the door unlocks, and he says, Ain't no way.

He gets in the car and he hits the button, the car turns on, he's like, You gotta be kidding me.

And then he took the longest way possible to come and drop that car off.

You still owe me gas money, son.

And I remember talking to him, I'm saying, Hey son, I said, Isn't it interesting how something that you didn't have access to, you didn't have to do anything to get access to it.

All you had to do is walk in it because your father had granted you access.

I'm trying to talk to somebody right now because there's so many of us that God has made so many things available to us, and we're still so fixated in saying, but what do I gotta do?

Nothing.

You just gotta walk in fellowship with the Lord.

No, no, you don't understand.

I don't have the degree that allows me to be in this position.

You don't gotta do anything except follow God and He's gonna open the door for you.

But keep I don't you don't understand.

I still got some struggles in my life.

You're not hearing me.

God's word says that he's gonna make your path straight.

There's nothing that you need to do except follow God.

Put your hands on the things that he said you can have and you can walk in total freedom from it.

I'm talking to somebody that feels discouraged.

I'm talking to somebody who has no hope.

But if God says that you have it, you have it.

You have access to everything that God has for you.

God gives us access to the very presence of the throne room of God.

He gives us access because of his grace and his mercy.

Another beautiful thing that priests are able to do is man, they they manage sacrifices on our behalf.

The Bible tells us in Hebrews chapter 7, verses 24 through 27, but he remains forever.

Hebrews 7:24–27

He holds this position of high priest permanently.

Therefore, he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, since he always lives to intercede for them.

Verse 26 for this is the kind of high priest we need.

Holy, innocent, undefiled, separate from sinners, exalted above the heavens.

He doesn't need to offer sacrifices every day as high priests do for their own sins and for the sins of their people.

He did this once for all when he offered himself.

I want you to catch that.

The high priest, they would go into the presence of God and they had to offer sacrifices for themselves, and they had to offer sacrifices on behalf of the people.

This was an annual process that was fully expressed on the Day of Atonement, or as we celebrate now Yom Kippur, a day of repentance, a day of surrender.

This is a regular rhythm.

But the Bible says that Jesus is different because he is the first priest that has never had to repent.

That Jesus is different because he's the first priest that has never had to be cleansed.

But what makes this even better is that not only was Jesus the perfect priest, he was also the perfect lamb that laid his life down so that we could be reconciled back to God.

At that time, a lamb would be slaughtered.

In fact, they would have this process called the scapegoat, where they would declare all the sins on one goat and they would tie them up and release him out in the wilderness.

That was a way of transferring sins, and then they would have a lamb that they would slaughter, and they did this every single year.

But then Jesus being the only perfect lamb, he could handle the full weight of all of the sins of all of mankind, past, present, and future, and he could offer himself up as the perfect sacrifice.

That means that when we sin, Jesus doesn't need to go to the cross again because of his perfect sacrifice, it covers all of our sin, past, present, and future.

That is what we celebrate when we think about the perfect sacrifice of Christ.

That when we think about Jesus, it reminds us that our sin death has been fully paid.

That we're able to engage the presence of God guilt free.

Here's the third thing that I want to help us understand the role of the high priest is the role of the high priest is to intercede for us.

To intercede means to stand in the gap.

To intercede means to mediate, to negotiate, to represent us.

It's almost like the idea that we get from an advocate, someone whose language is connected to that of the Holy Spirit, with him being a great counselor, someone who navigates and negotiates on our behalf.

Hebrews 7 reminds us, and we read this earlier, it says, but he remains a priest forever, permanently.

Therefore, he is able to completely save those who come to him, since he always lives to intercede for them.

Jesus is interceding for us.

Let me put this plainly Jesus is interceding for you.

The Bible tells us in the Old Testament that the high priest that they literally would have what they called an ephod.

And an ephod was like this vest that had these stones.

It was 12 stones total that they would have on their chest.

And each of the stones represented the 12 tribes of Israel.

And the the imagery, the symbolism was that whenever the high priest was going before God, he was bringing the people before God on their behalf.

So when the priest is working and he's doing the bread, and he's keep making sure that the lamps are lit, and he's making sure there's oil, he's doing this and he's bringing the people's pains and burdens before God.

This is what it meant to be the high priest is that you're bringing people into the presence of God.

In the same way, with Jesus being our great high priest, he carries us into the presence of God.

Not symbolically, but spiritually, and not with stones, but with his scars.

Right now in heaven, Jesus is speaking your burden in the presence of God.

Not as a memory, but as a very real reality.

And they're engraved in his skin and they're engraved in his heart.

And he stands between the weakness of us and the holiness of God.

This is not ritual, this is relationship.

This is not distance, but this is nearness.

Jesus, the high priest, he never forgets your burden, he never forgets your name.

This is why Paul says to Timothy in 1 Timothy 2, 5, for there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.

There's one God and there's one who mediates, who navigates on our behalf.

Going back to Hebrews 4 15, for we don't have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but he was tempted in every way that we are, yet without sin.

You know why that's so important?

It's because sometimes we honestly believe that our struggle is beyond the realm of God's understanding.

Sometimes we believe that our burden is beyond the realm of God's comprehension.

But what the scriptures show us with Jesus coming in, walking this life out in the flesh, and the text telling us that he dealt with every temptation as we do, yet without sin, that means that he gets it.

He knows what it feels like to be betrayed by somebody.

Jesus, he he knows the ache of losing a loved one too soon.

He knows.

He knows the the the what it means to be misunderstood and misjudged.

He knows.

He knows the loneliness that you can feel even when you're still in a crowd, he knows.

He knows the struggle of resisting temptation when no one else is looking, he knows.

He knows the exhaustion of caring for others when you yourself still feel empty, he knows.

He knows what it feels like to be angry at injustice and the lack of change and why religion and the people of faith aren't doing anything about it, he knows.

He knows the pain of being falsely accused and having the people that are the closest to you abandon you, he knows.

He knows the silent suffering of the anxiety and the fear of the future, he knows it.

He knows the grief of watching broken systems continue to hurt people.

He doesn't just understand these things, he walks through these things and he wants you to know he knows.

He knows your struggle, he knows your fear, he knows your burden, he knows your struggles, he knows the things that you're tempted with, and these aren't theories, this is the reality.

And it's with that knowledge and it's with that empathy and it's with that sympathy that he continues to say, and even in all of this, I still love you.

Even in all of this, I am still for you.

The compassionate high priest who stands to intercede for us.

So that allows us to know that when we pray, we pray with confidence and not performance.

That means that when we repent, we repent in confidence and not in shame because the price has been paid.

It means that when we worship, we worship as invited members of the family and not as outsiders hoping that we can find a seat at the table.

Romans 8:1 reminds us that there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

Romans 8:1

Jesus, as our great high priest, he exhibits mercy and grace manifested.

And because of that, he then releases us to be high priests on his account.

Another homework for Simon for you.

Go and read 1 Peter 2 9, where it speaks about now we have been commissioned to be priests in our own household.

Peace priests in our own callings.

Here's the third and final thing I want to share before we go into some time of reflection.

I'm gonna move a little quick on this.

Is that Jesus, the anointed king?

We have Jesus, the anointed one, the Messiah, Christ, the prophet, the priest, and now we have our king.

And the thing to know about kings is that typically kings had three primary functions.

There's an argument to be made for more, but a king was meant to be a shepherd, that means a leader.

Leading people as to where they're supposed to go.

A king is supposed to be a protector.

The idea of being under someone's kingdom kingdom meant that.

That king would say, if the enemy wants to get to you, it has to go through me.

And then we also knew the king to be a deliverer.

He would go into battle on behalf of his people to keep them from being oppressed by their adversary.

David modeled aspects of this calling.

But most of Israel's monarchs fell into corruption, idolatry, and self-interest.

And still beneath these failures ran this powerful prophetic line and undercurrent of hope.

A promise was made to David by God.

It's found in 2 Samuel chapter 7, verses 12 through 13.

2 Samuel 7:12–13

The Lord says to David, When your time comes and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up after you your descendant, who will come from your body and I will establish his kingdom.

He is the one who built a house for my name and will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

Over time, that prophetic promise crystallized inside of this longing for the Messiah.

The anointed one who would truly become king from David's line, not ruling with oppression, but with righteousness and peace.

The prophet Isaiah began to provide some language around when this king would come and what it would look like.

A passage that we typically read around Christmas time, Isaiah chapter 9, verses 6 through 7.

Isaiah 9:6–7

It says, For a child will be born unto us, a son will be given to us, and the government will be on his shoulders, and who will be named wonderful counselor, mighty God, eternal father, prince of peace.

The dominion will be vast, and his prosperity will never end.

He will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness from now on and forever.

Justice and righteousness, that was a sign of the king.

Justice and righteousness.

So when Jesus steps on the scene and he says that the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, and He's anointed me to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, this was Jesus saying, I am the king you've been waiting for.

And I have been issuing my decree, and my decree is the good news to the poor because the king is about lifting burdens.

The release of the captives because the king is declaring liberation.

Freedom for the oppressed because a king is all about acknowledging and breaking injustice.

The year of the Lord's favor is the king announcing a new administration.

And then his royal authority.

Jesus says these words that today this scripture has been fulfilled.

That's the language of someone who's sitting on a throne.

Because Jesus revealed himself in a way that was completely unexpected, people didn't know how to process through that reality.

To continue on this sports analogy, it's almost like when people are comparing present players to past players, and the game has changed so much because we're so fixated on what was we can't even acknowledge and celebrate what is.

And this is what was happening in the times of Jesus because for many of the people, they were looking for a king to come who was gonna be just like David.

And you know what David was?

David was a man after God's own heart, but David put his hands on a lot of people.

We're not talking about prayer.

David was about that life.

If you read the exploits of David, David had killed so many people, and he was like, Lord, I want to build a house in your name.

Lord's like, nah, bro.

You got so much blood on your hands, man, you were not fit for it.

We'll let your son do it.

Like, David was a warrior.

So, watch this.

So, there were people that were expecting the Messiah to come in the same energy that David brought.

He's going to come in on a on a he's going to come in as a conquering.

Meanwhile, Jesus shows up in the town on a donkey.

We're looking for a king to come in and to to talk about his dominion and authority.

Meanwhile, Jesus is in the room washing his disciples' feet.

How often are we looking into the eyes of Jesus and we ignore him because he's coming in gentle, because we're expecting him to come in aggressive.

We're expecting him to come in and turn over tables and do all these things in a way that we expected.

And we're missing the fact that the Bible says that he's going to come in with righteousness and addressing injustice.

Jesus didn't take the throne by conquest, he took it through the crucifixion.

The Bible tells us in Colossians 2 15 that he disarmed all the rulers in darkness and disgraced them publicly, not by getting into a fisticuffs with the devil, but by breathing it is finished on the cross.

The cross was his coronation, and his resurrection was his enthronement.

Because it was when he was resurrected, he looked at his disciples and said these words All power and authority has been given unto me in heaven and in earth.

While we're figuring out what it looks like to come in and force the king to be the leader of the free world, we're forcing Jesus into people's worlds, we're forcing the Ten Commandments in every classroom.

Did I offend anybody yet?

We're forcing Jesus down people's throats, and Jesus is saying, there's a difference between the Jesus you made up in your mind and the Jesus in this Bible.

Because what Jesus says is, Behold, I stand at your door and knock.

I don't force myself on anyone.

For those who have an ear, let them hear.

But I will not force myself onto anyone.

That's spiritual rape.

And we're living in a culture where we have somehow allowed our politicians to connect and integrate to our faith and hijack what it really means to be the prince of peace and prostitute the gospel in a way that oppresses people?

What Bible are we reading?

Here's the problem.

Many of us, we say that we want a Messiah.

We say we want the prophet.

But when the prophet comes, just speak to my purpose.

Because I don't want a prophet that's going to tell me the truth.

And I certainly don't want a prophet that's going to tell me to repent.

And I need the priest because the priest is going to give me access.

I need access to the throne of grace.

I absolutely.

I need a priest that's going to intercede for me.

I need a priest to handle the sacred.

I need a priest to handle my sins.

But when we're talking about kings, I don't know if I want to follow the king where he wants to shepherd me to.

I don't really know if I if I can trust his protection, so I'm going to start to protect my.

I don't know if the king is really capable of delivering me, so I'm going to start listening to other voices.

I've found in my life that we have no issue with the prophet speaking a word.

I just need to get to church and hear a good word.

A word that makes me feel good about myself, that doesn't confront my sin and doesn't challenge me to repent.

That's how I know that service is good.

That's how I know I'm at a great church.

Make me feel great.

I'm great with the priest.

Jesus, handle my sin.

But I don't want you to be the Lord of my finances.

No, I don't want you to be the Lord of my relationships.

I don't want you to be the Lord of my time.

So, so Jesus, I want you to be prophet.

Just make sure you say the right things.

I want you to be priest, please deal with my sin.

And maybe I'll give you aspects of my loyalty when it comes to you being a king.

And here's what I find to be true.

Jesus is fulfilling all of these things.

And we can live in relationship with him, and because of the access, because of the sacrifice, because he intercedes, we can truly be forgiven, but we won't be free until we surrender to his kingdom.

I'm forgiven, but I'm not free because I haven't submitted to his lordship.

Do you know what salvation means?

Salvation is not just an ideal belief, it's a belief that has behavior to support it.

This is what it means when we say that he is the king of kings and the Lord of Lords.

Listen to him.

It's almost like we want the benefits of the kingdom and we don't want the king.

Lord, give me the healing, give me the job, give me the breakthrough, give me the marriage, give me the kids, but I'm not going to give you my surrender.

But he's anointed me as the Messiah.

And if I am not the Messiah of all, he's not your Messiah at all.

This is the space that the truth confronts us.

He's leading us to turn, but he's letting us know that we have purpose.

If we can truly be surrendered to the King of Kings.

I feel like there's a healthy fear of the Lord that has gotten lost amongst us.

I'm a little over time, but it's okay.

I want y'all to hear me.

The Bible says we work on our salvation with fear and trembling.

And I think that we have packaged Jesus in a way that we've made him safe.

And it's like we fixate on him being the lamb, and we've lost sight of the fact that he's also a lion.

C.S.

Lewis and his incredible work, The Lion, a Witch in a Wardrobe.

Aslan is a Christ-like figure.

And when speaking about Aslan to the children, they said, Is he safe?

They said, No, he's not safe.

But he is good.

He is so good.

He is good beyond imagination.

We work on our salvation with fear and trembling.

Jesus paid the price.

We walk in fellowship with him.

But we don't lose sight of the fact that he is the lion of the tribe of Judah.

And the lion of the tribe of Judah, he demands our loyalty.

He demands us.

And he's saying, Listen, heaven is available, but you gotta stick close to me.

No more of this, have it your way, have it that way.

In fact, next week, Spirit of the Lord just spoke to me.

Next week I'm gonna be preaching on what it means to be lukewarm.

Come back next week.

Church is gonna be empty.

They're like, nah, nope.

I'm good.

I'm good.

Here's what I want to do.

I want to I want to lead us to a moment, because here every single one of these messages are meant to lead us into a time of reflection.

I I I went a little bit longer, but it's it's it's what it is.

Listen, if we had a permanent location, we'll just keep going and going and going and going.

But we we do got to wrap up, but I do want to lead us into a time of reflection because here's what I know.

I I believe that the prophet is speaking to us right now.

What is the Lord speaking to you?

What area of your life is he speaking to right now?

I believe that the priest is trying to give you access, and maybe shame is holding us back, but he wants to let you know that his sacrifice it covers all your sin for all time.

You're covered, you're good, you have access.

He's interceding on your behalf, there's freedom in that.

But I also believe that the king is saying there's some areas of your life that you haven't given me the ability to reign over it.

You've given me pieces of access, but if you really want to live in freedom, let me really reign in your life and watch the rain that comes in your life.

That was good.

Oh hey, hey! Ha ha! Okay, so let's so here's what I want to do.

I I just want us to take a quiet moment, just just you get along with God and just simply ask the question, Lord, what are you speaking to me?

Lord, where are you interceding?

What areas do I need to have more access to you in?

But Lord, also, where do I need to release you to reign in my life?

Let's just take a few moments to just reflect.

Worship music is going to come on in the background.

I'm gonna come up and lead us out.

But let's just let's just honor this moment what God is speaking to us because I believe that He wants to speak, He wants to intercede, and He wants to reign in some crucial areas in our lives.

Thank you for joining us to learn more about Celebration Orlando, a church devoted to reaching the lost, equipping the found, and helping the hurting.

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