The High Priest We All Need
Hebrews: A Story Worth Sharing • Sermon • Submitted
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Good morning!
It is good to see all of you.
We are going to finish up chapter seven of Hebrews today.
You can open up to verse 26 this morning.
As we begin, I want to remind you of the charge we were given two weeks ago at our joint service and again last week through the testimonies given and the message.
The charge that Glen gave was that we know him, yet we are hiding together rather and not sharing his excellencies with the people around us.
God has given all believers, not just you and I, the task of sharing what we know of God with others so that they can know Him as well.
We ended last week by looking back at the call of Moses to go out on God’s behalf and deliver his people.
God identified three specific things that Moses struggled with and that we struggle with when it comes to speaking on God’s behalf or sharing what God is doing in our lives.
We are afraid that our past sins disqualify us from ministry.
I think we would be hard-pressed to find anyone who didn’t share this same struggle.
The truth is that we are all found by God in our sin.
That is exactly the thing that we need to share.
We are afraid that we don’t know enough about God to begin sharing.
Moses didn’t even know God’s name.
His call and our call isn’t based on what we know about God, but rather sharing what we are experiencing as we are growing.
We don’t have to know it all and it is good, to be honest with ourselves and others about that.
God asks us to share what he is currently doing and what we are learning as we obey.
This is what God did in Moses’ life and what He wants to do in your life.
We are afraid that no one will want to listen.
Moses was afraid that Pharaoh wouldn’t listen either.
He didn’t for a long time, but that wasn’t because of Moses’s inability.
When we share, it shouldn’t be because we are supposed to, but rather because the Holy Spirit is telling us to.
If we share as he leads, the results are up to him, not you.
We need to remember that it is the work of the Holy Spirit in someone’s heart that draws them to God.
We are simply the tool that God uses to help that person understand.
God wants to use us to proclaim to the world around us just how good he is!
Over the last several months we have been talking about Jesus as the great high priest and what that means for us and for others.
Today the author is finishing up that argument with the last two verses in chapter seven.
Look at this with me.
For this is the kind of high priest we need: holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. He doesn’t need to offer sacrifices every day, as high priests do—first for their own sins, then for those of the people. He did this once for all time when he offered himself. For the law appoints as high priests men who are weak, but the promise of the oath, which came after the law, appoints a Son, who has been perfected forever.
If you will remember when we first started this, the author of Hebrews shared with the churches the problem that exists with the Levitical priest.
For every high priest taken from among men is appointed in matters pertaining to God for the people, to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray, since he is also clothed with weakness. Because of this, he must make an offering for his own sins as well as for the people.
He is drawing our attention back to where we began so that we can clearly see the difference between the Levitical priest that were descendants of Aaron and Jesus, the final high priest, who is in the order of Melchizedek.
Three weaknesses with the Levitical priest:
They are clothed with weakness (sin).
They must offer sacrifices for their own sin before they can even begin to offer them for others.
Their priesthood ends with their death.
Compare that now with how he describes Jesus.
Three Characteristics of Jesus:
Holy, innocent, and undefiled.
Separated from sinners.
Exalted above the heavens.
There was a paradigm shift that happened during their lifetimes of moving from a system of religion that was comfortable and normal to something that was new and not well understood.
The purpose of this letter was to encourage them by explaining the differences in what they learned from the established religion and what they were experiencing as followers of Jesus.
We have drawn this idea in before, but we are experiencing a very similar thing in our lives.
I was having a conversation with a family member on Friday and he was telling me about some conversations he has been having with his son.
His son has been primarily in baptist churches his whole life.
His mother and grandparents on her side grew up in the Catholic faith.
My nephew has gone to public school his whole life but started at Menard this year.
He has been plunged into the Catholic faith and is asking his mom lots of questions.
He is seeing the major differences between what he has learned his whole life, what he reads in the Bible, and what he is being taught at school.
The reality is that we experience a similar thing even between baptist churches.
The answer to figuring all that out is for each person to dig into scripture and engage the Holy Spirit.
All of us need to pursue God and to know him personally.
For most of us, we grew up in dead religion.
We did church simply because we were told or convinced that we should.
Rather than knowing God for ourselves, we went through the motions and pretended that we were satisfied with religious activity.
The problem with dead religion is that it requires us to depend on our own abilities, tenacity, and wisdom.
We are looking to ourselves and others that are in our own condition to fill the God-sized void in our lives.
And we and others always fall short.
We can’t be God and neither can anyone else.
The Levitical priesthood served a purpose, but it was ended when Jesus died.
When we depend on others to make atonement for our sins, satisfy our emptiness, or direct our lives, we are disappointed.
It may last for a while, but eventually, we find ourselves wanting more.
That is when we go on the hunt for a better church, pastor, small group, or even faith.
How many times have we bounced from church to church searching for something?
How many times do we have to watch our loved ones do the same before we share with them what they are searching for?
What we think we are longing for is a church with better classes, a smoother preacher, nicer facilities, etc.
But all those things are really what our hearts desire.
What we are longing for is Jesus.
For this is the kind of high priest we need: holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. He doesn’t need to offer sacrifices every day, as high priests do—first for their own sins, then for those of the people. He did this once for all time when he offered himself. For the law appoints as high priests men who are weak, but the promise of the oath, which came after the law, appoints a Son, who has been perfected forever.
Think back on your own life.
Think about how much your life changed after learning about grace and abiding.
Think about how often God is revealing more of himself to you and how that affects your daily life.
We were talking about this last week in life group.
All of us were talking about the fact that Jesus is interceding on our behalf and how revolutionary that is in our understanding of how much He loves us.
I shared that I gave my life to God almost thirty years ago and this was rocking my world.
I wasn’t alone.
Several others in the group that are older than I am were having the same experience.
God is changing our lives.
We are growing in our understanding by experiencing God working in our lives on a daily basis.
There are men, women, and children all around us that are searching for something that is that real.
So many people look at a relationship with God as something that is extremely abstract, but when you get to experience God speaking into your circumstances on a regular basis, what was abstract becomes tangible.
Jesus is what our friends, coworkers, teammates, families, etc. are longing for.
If you read Tozer’s devotional this morning, remember what he said.
“God's gifts are many; His best gift is one. It is the gift of Himself. Above all gifts, God desires most to give Himself to His people. Our nature being what it is, we are the best fitted of all creatures to know and enjoy God. "For Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee" (from The Confessions of St. Augustine).”
For the entire fullness of God’s nature dwells bodily in Christ, and you have been filled by him, who is the head over every ruler and authority.
Jesus is what people are longing for and until they find him, their hearts will not rest.
In making the transition from explaining how Jesus is the perfect high priest to also being the perfect sacrifice, the author summarizes this whole section that covered chapters 5-7.
Now the main point of what is being said is this: We have this kind of high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a minister of the sanctuary and the true tabernacle that was set up by the Lord and not man.
We don’t want to point people to yet another man-made tabernacle or leader.
Our goal is the same as the author of Hebrews.
We want to share our experiences with God to help others see just how real and good God is.
Our stories make God real in the lives of people who are longing for him.
Our stories are how we share with others the kind of High Priest we have.
You know, I was thinking last night that one of the ways we are hiding the beauty of what we have discovered is in our Life Groups.
Most of the people that are hanging out in our LG’s, enjoying the company of their fellow believers, are more than capable of leading or hosting their own group.
Remember what we talked about at the beginning about Moses.
You aren’t required to have all the biblical knowledge, be good in front of a crowd, or have a perfect past.
All you need is a willingness to obey God.
I would venture to say that if all of our members spent the next week asking God if they should lead, start, or host a new group, we would have multiple new life groups pop up.
This isn’t about numbers or church growth.
This is about us sharing the beauty of what we have enjoyed for so long.
Last week I asked you if God has put someone on your heart that wants what you are experiencing.
I would be willing to bet if you spent the next few weeks praying about leading and praying for that person, God would work in both of your lives to draw both of you to him.
That could result in several different ways, but regardless of what God does, you will miss it if you aren’t asking the questions.
I think that one of the reasons we aren’t offering to bring people to these groups, which are such a blessing to us, is because there is no room for them.
We know that if we invite them and they come, it will be uncomfortable because so many are there.
It’s good that we love our groups so much.
We love them because God is working in them.
But we need to consider how much other people need them too.
We aren’t meaning to, but we are selfishly hoarding that time and our people for ourselves.
I believe that if we were sitting across a cup of coffee, just you and I, and I asked you if you wanted to share what you have experienced of God, you would say yes.
I don’t think there is a person in this room today who would say no.
I was reading Tozer yesterday and he referenced this verse.
46 “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and don’t do the things I say?
I believe that while we want others to know what we know of God, we are unwilling to say yes to what God has already been speaking in our hearts.
I want to ask you to do something.
If God has been speaking to you about sharing, leading, or anything that is difficult for you, come talk to me or one of the other elders about it.
I know as well as anyone the struggle of stepping out in faith.
Let us encourage you and walk with you as you trust God to walk in obedience.
I heard a story about a good friend this week that has walked with God for a long time.
He knows how to hear from God and he knows how it feels to obey and disobey.
He has been a faithful servant in most areas of his life, but started becoming discontented with his church.
He found lots of excuses why he was struggling, but a few weeks ago God made it clear that his struggle was the result of him not walking in obedience to the role that God had given him in the church.
He finally heard God, and is beginning to do the things that God has been speaking.
All of the sudden, he is in love with his church.
He is giving and receiving love from his fellow church members in way that he never has before.
His life is being changed because he started doing what God was asking of him.
As Jake talked about last week, God is expanding his comfort zone and he is loving it.
I think my friend is not alone.
I believe that many of us, myself included, have been hearing God speak for a while now and are finding reasons to avoid doing what he is saying.
Don’t wait another day.
Start right now or this afternoon to begin doing what God is saying.
Take baby steps if you need to, but take some.
Involve your life group or an elder in what is going on.
God has placed an incredible support structure in your life.
You know this because they have been there for you before.
I promise you that whatever God is speaking will not be a huge shock to everyone.
I wasn’t surprised that God was calling Jake and Mattie to start a new group.
Honestly, I was surprised that it took as long as it did. (Not that I liked it.)
The reality is, we know each other.
We know how blessed our brothers and sisters in our LG are.
We know that they can hear from God and we know that we are called to share that with others.
Stop waiting for someone else to do what God is calling you to do.
We have an incredible story to share.
Our own.
We know Jesus, the great high priest, who knows our sufferings.
He knows what it is like to deal with sin, to be sad, to mourn, to love deeply, to feel rejected.
We can look at our own lives and see how Jesus has changed everything.
We have people around us that need the same comfort and love that we do.
Those people need to know that Jesus is at God’s right hand interceding on their behalf.
Commit time this week to asking God what your next steps are.
You have a lifetime of experiences to share and God is giving you an avenue to do just that.