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All right, well, beautiful singing. If I’ve not met you, my name is Aaron, and I’m the preaching pastor here. I’m glad you’re with us this morning. So if you have a Bible with you, please open up to the book of Hebrews, Hebrews chapter four. Our text of study is going to be chapter four, verses 14 through chapter five, verses ten. But for this time here, I’m just going to read verses 14 through 16 of chapter four. If you don’t have a Bible with you, there are two Bibles kind of scattered throughout. It’s on page 582.
So let me read verses 14 through 16, and then I’ll pray, asking for the Lord’s blessing and help in this time, and then we will get to work. This is what the Word says, starting in verse 14:
“Since then, 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 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 the time of need.”
Okay, that’s God’s Word for us this morning. Would you please pray with me?
Lord, thank you for your holy Word. Lord, we trust that you speak through your Word, even through the folly of preaching. So, Lord, please do speak to us through your Word this morning. Please help me to be a good communicator. Please help the congregation to be good listeners. I pray that you use this time just to draw us to you. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.
It was just a little over 13 and a half years ago that my dad passed away after a bout with cancer. If you have lost a loved one, you know that the process of death can be a pretty lonely experience. For me, when I was trying to process the death of my dad, it was really lonely to try to process everything. But one of the more helpful things to me was when I came across someone who had gone through maybe something similar in the past, where they had experienced the lonely process of the death of a loved one.
Why that was so helpful was that I was simply able to find someone who could identify with me, identify what I was feeling, identify what I was going through for me to identify with them. That mutual identity was really helpful to chip away at some of the loneliness. It was a grace in my life in my time of need.
Now, I share that with you this morning just to set up our passage today, which is centered on identifying, particularly identifying that the Lord Jesus Christ has with his people. He is able to identify with us in every way, in every weakness that we have, doing so without sin. Because Jesus identifies with us without sin, in turn, we can identify with Jesus in all of our weaknesses, trusting that he is the true and ultimate source from which we find grace and mercy in our times of need, whatever that need may be.
Before we dig into our passage of study, let me quickly remind us where we’ve been in our study of the book of Hebrews, which is the New Testament letter that was written to Jewish Christians who were certainly in a time of weakness, a time of need brought on because of an increase of Christian persecution. Persecution left these early Christians weak and needy. As mentioned in past sermons of our study of Hebrews, this weakness and this time of need was such a difficulty for these early Christians that they were actually being tempted to walk away from the faith, to walk away from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Throughout this letter, there are both warnings and encouragements given to the first readers. The author of Hebrews hoped that his first readers would hear the warnings, receive the encouragements, and that they would persevere in their faith, finding strength and comfort in the Lord by keeping their eyes fixed on Jesus.
Last week, the text centered on the eternal rest that God gives, which is not a rest of simply kicking up our feet in relaxation or the rest we might find on a vacation. Rather, this rest that God gives is much greater. It’s much more rich. It’s a rest of relationship, of fellowship, of peace and joy between God and his people, which comes through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ—the very one who calls out to all who are weary and heavy laden to come to him and to find rest for their souls.
In our text last week, the author both encouraged and warned his readers concerning this great rest of God. The encouragement was that the rest that Jesus offers is a rest that’s actually still available. It’s available to all those who respond today to Jesus Christ; they will find rest. The warning of our passage last week was a warning against not responding in faith to Jesus Christ but of hardening one’s heart to the voice of God. This warning is that if you harden your heart to Jesus Christ, you will not enter into God’s eternal rest.
As mentioned, the warnings and encouragements run throughout the book of Hebrews, often happening in the same text, both with the same intended purpose: to keep our eyes on Jesus, to run the race of faith that is set before us, to persevere in the faith.
Now, today, as we come to our text to study, we find a passage that really is just an encouragement. There are not really any warnings, just an encouragement. In fact, this may be the most encouraging text in the book of Hebrews, perhaps even one of the most encouraging texts in all of Scripture. It centers on Jesus Christ, who not only is our rest but also is our greatest high priest—the one who identifies with us even in our weakness without sin, who in turn calls us to identify with him to find help in our times of need.
With that as an introduction, please look back with me at our text, starting in verse 14. If you’re new visiting with us today, we’re glad you’re with us. Please keep your Bible open. All I’m going to do is try to walk us through the passage and help us understand what it’s saying. So, please keep your Bible open.
Verse 14 says this: “Since then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God. Let us hold fast our confession.”
Now, a couple of things already for this morning. First, Jesus being our great high priest is something the writer of Hebrews has mentioned a few times to us already. We read about this in chapters two and three. In chapter two, because Jesus has been made like us in every way, even though he is the eternal Son of God, our text tells us that in his incarnation, Jesus became fully man. As fully man, he became like us in every way. In verse two, he became like us in every way so that he would be the merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and he is the one who is able to make propitiation for the sins of his people.
Then, in chapter three, those who have faith in God ought to consider Jesus, who is the apostle and high priest of our confession. This concept of Jesus being the great high priest has already been introduced in Hebrews, but starting our text today and going forward, this truth is actually one we’re going to circle around quite a bit in the weeks to come.
Second, as we circle around this concept, we’ll be doing so in ways where the author of Hebrews helps his readers to see that Jesus is the better, the superior high priest. In the Old Testament, the high priest had a very important role. The high priest was in charge of ministering the Old Testament sacrificial system, where the high priest was to represent the people before God. As the high priest ministered before God, he would do so by offering up sacrifices to atone for sin.
In the Old Testament, the first high priest was a man named Aaron, who was mentioned in our passage and was the big brother of Moses. But as great as the high priest was, as great as Aaron, the first high priest, was, we see throughout Hebrews that Jesus is better. He is the superior high priest.
Third, let me just mention how our text talks about passing through the heavens, as you see in verse 14. This is not a reference to the coming of Christ, like at Christmas or the incarnation of Christ when Jesus was born of a virgin and Mary. Rather, this is a reference to the ascension of Christ, where in the book of Acts, after his death, after his resurrection, and after presenting himself alive for 40 days with many proofs, Jesus ascended through the clouds back into heaven, where he now sits on his eternal throne.
This ascension back into heaven is significant on multiple fronts. Let me just mention two that are relevant to our passage today. First, the ascension through the clouds back to heaven is a declaration that Jesus’ sacrificial work on the cross was fully accepted, that there is no more work that Jesus needed to do to save his people from their sin; his work was complete.
Second, the ascension of Christ is also important because it allows him to be our great high priest—our great high priest who continues to minister on behalf of his people on his eternal throne, where forever and ever, his people can approach him with boldness and confidence.
Fourth, let me mention a real application to Jesus being our great high priest who ascended back to his heavenly throne. The application is that we are to hold fast to our confession of faith in him. Obviously, this encouragement, this exhortation to the first readers, is something we see time and time again in Hebrews, as they were tempted to leave Jesus to return to the Old Testament faith, to go back to the Old Testament sacrificial system.
Here in our text, because Jesus, the great high priest, has passed through the heavens, because he is now on his heavenly throne, we hold fast. We hold fast even in times of suffering, even in times of weakness. We hold fast in those times of suffering and weakness knowing we have a great high priest who can identify with us yet without sin. As he identifies with us, we, in turn, identify with him.
We see in our text, and we know that he is actually there to help us, to care for us in our weakness, which is actually the next verse in the text. However, before we get there, let me just quickly mention that there is actually a real folly in our society when it comes to this idea of sympathy or being sympathetic, which can often be void of trying to help others in need. This cultural idea of sympathy can be almost enabling or justifying or even harmful, leaving people in their weakness or sin rather than being truly loving, kind, and patient while helping those in their weakness.
While this is a folly of society, this is not a folly of our Lord, as our great high priest is there to sympathize with us in every respect, allowing us, in verse 16, to go to him with confidence to his heavenly throne. As we do that, we do so knowing that we will receive grace and mercy to help us in our times of need.
Meaning, when we go to Jesus, it’s not like society, where he just leaves us in our weakness or enables us in our weakness or sin. Friends, in our text, our sympathetic high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ, he actually helps us. He is there to pick us up when we are down. He is there to clean us up in our sinful failures. He is there for us when we are weak to prove, indeed, that he is strong—in our text, strong in grace, strong in mercy, strong with his gentle and tender heart towards his people, strong to help us.
By the way, this is one of the reasons why Jesus is a better, superior high priest. Not only does he identify with our weakness with perfect sympathy, not only does he allow us to come and continue to boldly come with confidence to him and his throne, but, friends, he’s actually there to help us in every way.
As we keep going on to chapter five, verse one, the author goes back to the Old Testament high priest to remind his first readers of that important role. For the high priest to be placed into this important role, he had to be chosen among men. As he was chosen among men, he was appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, which is what I was referring to earlier as it relates to the sacrificial system, by which the high priest would minister on behalf of the people as their representative.
In our text, as the Old Testament high priest acted on behalf of men in relation to God, the high priest would offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. As he did that, in verse two of our text, the Old Testament priests would deal gently with the ignorant and wayward. He would deal gently, since he himself was beset with weakness.
Meaning, as great as the Old Testament high priest was, he was still weak and needy. In that weakness and neediness, he was meant to identify with the very people he was ministering to with sympathy, recognizing his own weakness. We’ll come back to this at the end, but to keep going: because the high priest was filled with weakness, even the weakness of sin, when the high priest offered up sacrifice, verse three of our text tells us he was also obligated to offer up sacrifices for his own sins, just as he did for the sins of the people.
Here, the author of Hebrews is doing a little comparison and contrasting between the Old Testament high priest and Jesus, the greater, the superior high priest. Yes, the Old Testament high priest could identify with weakness, but no, he didn’t have ultimate power to provide grace and mercy in times of need because, unlike Jesus, who was tempted without sin, even the high priest sinned.
Let me just say it again: this is why Jesus is better, why he is superior. Verse four tells us that no one could take this honor of being the high priest for himself. No one could walk into the Old Testament temple and say, “Hey, look at me! I am now the high priest. There is a new high priest in town, and it is me.” They could not do that. In our text, no one had the right to do that and give themselves the self-appointed title. Rather, in our text, the only way someone could become a high priest was because of the call of God.
This was the way it was from the very beginning of the Old Testament priesthood, as our text tells us. It was just with Aaron, the brother of Moses, who was appointed to be the first high priest, which you can read about later in Exodus 28.
Continuing in verse five, “So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made high priest.” Rather, our text tells us that even Christ had to wait to be appointed by him, meaning God the Father—the very one who said, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you.” This is a quote from the Old Testament book of Psalms, Psalm 2. In our text, he also says in another place, which is Psalm 110, speaking to Jesus, “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”
Now let me pause to say a few things here. First, as mentioned in the incarnation, the eternal Son became flesh in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. As the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, he subjected himself fully to the will of God the Father. This included humbly submitting himself to the will of God in ways that did not bring exaltation or glory to self by taking positions of power and honor, like the high priesthood, for himself. Rather, as the text reminds us, Jesus waited to be appointed by God the Father to that role.
By the way, on this note, this is actually one of the ways that Jesus was tempted by Satan. Remember this in Matthew four, as he was led into the wilderness, where there’s a temptation to take glory for himself apart from the glory being given or appointed to him by God the Father. Remember how Jesus was taken up the high mountain where Satan tempted him to think that on his own, he could seize the kingdoms of the earth and their glory.
So yes, Jesus was tempted to take glory and power to himself, yet he was tempted without sinning.
Second, let me just help us think through these two quotes here in chapter five. First, in verse five, the quote from Psalm 2, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you,” is a quote the author of Hebrews used in chapter one, where the author used Psalm 2 to distinguish Christ as being different, better, and superior to even the angels. Jesus is better than the angels because, in Psalm 2, Christ is the appointed eternal king, the one to whom all the nations belong.
Now here, as the author uses this quote again, he is not only further underscoring the humiliation of Christ, who had to wait to be appointed to the position of high priest, but the writer of Hebrews is also using Psalm 2 to link Christ being a priest and a king, which adds to his role. As established in chapter one, the true prophet Jesus is the prophet, the priest, and the king.
Now, back to our text: this use of Psalm 2 to establish Christ as the heavenly high priest is actually setting up for the significance of the second quote we have in our text, which mentions Psalm 110. Just as a side note, this is actually the most quoted psalm in the New Testament. This quote in our text says, “You are forever a priest after the order of Melchizedek.”
Now, in the weeks to come, we are going to spend a significant amount of time on Melchizedek, just because the author of Hebrews actually turns to him at the end of chapter six and then all of chapter seven. So since we’ll be spending a lot of time on Melchizedek in those texts, I’m not going to spend a ton of time talking about him today.
But for today, let me mention that he is one of the more interesting, confusing, and mysterious figures in the Old Testament. All that we read about this person, this individual, in terms of who he was, is actually in Genesis 14, where he and Abraham had an interaction. In that interaction, we learn that Melchizedek was both the king of Salem and a priest of God Most High, which is what the author of Hebrews is picking up on in regard to Christ being a priest and king like Melchizedek.
We’ll look more specifically at the interaction that Abraham and Melchizedek had in chapter seven, but for today, let me mention why he is such a mysterious figure on a couple of fronts. First, I just mentioned that Genesis 14 is really the only information we have concerning him, so he’s by no means a major figure running through the Old Testament scriptures. Yet for the writer of Hebrews, he is massively important in helping us to see who Jesus Christ is—the truest priest, the truest king, who has been appointed by God to rule and care for his people, which Jesus does eternally, forever and ever.
Second, perhaps the most mysterious aspect of Melchizedek is just where did he come from? When we get to chapter seven, the author of Hebrews picks up on the mysterious origins of Melchizedek, and we’ll spend more time there. But for today, what we see in chapter seven is that we don’t know anything about him concerning his father or mother or his genealogy, nor the beginning of days, nor the end of days. Yet he resembles the Son of God as he continues as a priest—a forever priest. Because we don’t know his beginning or end, this has led many throughout church history to believe he was actually a theophany, or better said, a Christophany—an actual appearance of Christ before his incarnation that we celebrate every Christmas.
Now, I personally don’t think that’s who he was—a pre-incarnate Christ. I’ll explain more when we get to chapter seven why that is, but as mentioned, many do, and we’ll talk more about that when we get there.
For today, there are two important things to see regarding Melchizedek. First, Christ is the priest and king, which further speaks to both his ability to sympathize with us as a priest, but also emphasizes his power as it comes to our sin and weakness. Second, because his priesthood comes from Melchizedek, the one who has no beginning or end, this is a forever priesthood that Jesus has. This is a much different priesthood from the priesthood started by Aaron in Exodus 28, which was a temporary priesthood—one that was created with the intention that one day it would come to an end, which it did with the coming of Jesus Christ, who shed his blood as the one-time sacrifice needed for sin. Because that sacrifice, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, was enough to atone for sin, there’s no more need for another sacrifice. Thus, there is no more need for a priest coming from Aaron.
There’s a lot of significance to this as we go back to the context of the letter. Remember how the Jewish Christians were entertaining the idea of going back to the Old Testament religion, the Old Testament priesthood? For the author of Hebrews, the coming of Jesus, the great high priest who came from the order of Melchizedek, means that the Old Testament priesthood ended. Thus, for the first readers, these Jewish Christians, there’s nothing for them to go back to; the priesthood and the sacrificial system are now null and void.
I could share a lot more here, but as mentioned, we’ll spend more time in the weeks to come on Melchizedek. For today, we’ll move on to verse seven.
Speaking of Jesus, in verse seven, we read that “in the days of his flesh,” rooted in the incarnation, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. In the days of his flesh, the Lord Jesus offered up prayers and supplications for his people, doing so with loud cries and tears as he prayed to the very one who was able to save him from death. I think this here specifically refers to the garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus went on the night that he was betrayed. In the garden, he prayed as he pled with his heavenly Father. If there’s any other way for the cup of judgment that he was about to endure on the cross to pass, he prayed that the cup would pass while still bringing salvation to his people.
I think these loud cries, these loud prayers, these tears further speak to the true human nature of Jesus Christ, who in his humanity experienced all the emotions that we experience, experiencing them in full and complete ways. This further qualifies Jesus to be our great high priest, who can sympathize with us. As Christ prayed for the cup to pass, he did so feeling all the pain, all of the agony that can cripple us as mankind in the flesh.
Our great high priest, friends, knows the emotional pain that we can feel. By the way, friends, in the incarnation, as the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, he fully experienced and displayed all the different emotions that we can experience, including tears, pain, sorrow, and grief. By faith, we can too, as we experience all those different emotions. Friends, use them to drive you to identify with your great high priest, who can sympathize with you yet without sin.
In our text, as our Lord Jesus cried out prayers with tears, he prayed to the very one who was able to save him, which refers to God the Father. God the Father saved him from death. In our text, when we read these words, we see that he was able to pray these prayers because of the reverence with which Christ prayed.
This here may be a little confusing for us to try to understand, especially regarding what it means that he could save the one who could save him from death. We know the Scripture is abundantly clear that Jesus Christ did die on the cross, that the cup of judgment indeed was poured out on him. That’s the only way forgiveness could be found. So what does this mean? Most scholars agree that the writer of Hebrews is actually referring to eternal death, eternal judgment. God the Father saved Jesus from that. We know that Jesus was saved from eternal death, eternal judgment, because on the third day, Jesus rose again from the dead, where he passed through the clouds and went back to his heavenly throne.
Jesus did not need to be eternally killed or sacrificed over and over again to bring about forgiveness. We’ll get more of this in chapter ten. This is the one-time sacrifice that paid for sin. After sin was paid for, the one who can save raised Jesus from the dead.
Finally, we’re going to end today, starting at verse eight. If you want to take your eyes back there, these words are also perhaps a little confusing to us. “Although he,” meaning Jesus, “even though he was a Son” (the Son here refers to a unique place of privilege and honor), “he learned obedience through what he suffered.” Being made perfect, he became a source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God as a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.
Now, to try to walk through this to best understand what the author is communicating here, first, let me address the learned obedience through suffering, which in the text is tied to being made perfect. From the moment of being conceived by the Holy Spirit, Scripture is clear that Jesus has been without sin. In that sense, he’s always perfect. He’s always been made or has always been sinless.
To help us understand what the author is communicating here about learning obedience to be made perfect, the Pillar Commentary on Hebrews is actually pretty helpful. There we read these words: “So Christ did not have to learn obedience because he is deficient in it. Rather, his learning consists of experience—obedience in practice—where he learned how to be obedient in every weakness and temptation known to man, including that of suffering, which Natalie proved through his experience that he is indeed the perfect man, complete and holy in every way.”
Through this learning of obedience in every situation, this further emphasizes his ability to sympathize with us—to sympathize with us in every way, in every weakness, without sin, as our one true great high priest. Furthermore, on this note, Tom Schreiner, in his helpful commentary on Hebrews, wrote that Jesus’ perfecting obedience had to be worked out in every day and every stage of his life, capped off with the crucifixion, where he learned obedience through the ultimate suffering—where his suffering and death proved to be the source of eternal salvation.
For us, friends, as we read this about being made perfect by his obedience, this does not mean there was a time that Jesus was not perfect. Rather, his being made perfect speaks to Jesus experiencing obedience in every situation with every temptation known to man in each of those situations.
Second, just take note that our text tells us this being made perfect was through suffering. Let’s go back once again to the context of this letter: suffering. That was the reality of the first readers—suffering persecution, suffering in ways they were tempted to believe that maybe their suffering for Jesus was in vain. It appears that the author of Hebrews is communicating this truth here of Christ being made perfect through suffering to encourage his readers as they suffered.
This week, my mind kept going back to James, who told us in his letter, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness, and let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
This is actually one of the reasons why we call it all joy when we meet trials, even in suffering. Not only are those trials making us perfect and complete, but they are there to drive us to our great high priest who suffered and can sympathize with our suffering.
Let me quickly address Jesus being the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him. What the author is not communicating to us is that somehow our obedience to Jesus is how we earn eternal salvation. Scripture is abundantly clear, including other places in Hebrews, that it’s by grace through faith in Jesus Christ that we enter into eternal life. However, within that, as one has faith in Jesus Christ, as you receive the Spirit, evidence of genuine faith will be measures of obedience.
So not perfect obedience, but growing obedience—obedience even in suffering, even in persecution, even when being tempted by sin.
For us this morning, that’s how we’re going to finish off our text. As I start to close, I do want to close by giving us three encouragements. I mentioned this is a very encouraging passage, so let me try to finish off with some encouragements.
The first two encouragements are just overall exhortations that we see in this passage, which are to hold fast to Jesus Christ by identifying with him— the one who identifies with his people. As we work through these two encouragements of who Jesus Christ is, the one that we can identify with, the one who identifies with us:
For some here, I wonder if your confession of faith in Jesus has been wandering. Maybe there’s some weakness, maybe some sin, where in your weakness and sin, you’ve distanced yourself from the Lord Jesus Christ in ways that you’re not taking your weakness to him, you’re not bringing your sin to him to nail to the cross. Rather, you find yourself in growing disobedience.
This morning, as we close, I want to invite you to stop distancing yourself from Jesus, but to actually go to him with boldness and confidence. If you’ve never gone to Jesus in your weakness and sin, if that’s you this morning, I encourage you through these encouragements to actually do that today—to go to Jesus with your weakness, to go to Jesus with your sin in ways that you’re trusting in him, that today you confess him as Lord.
After working through these two encouragements concerning Jesus Christ, I just want to give one more encouragement. I think it’s a little more subtle in our text regarding how we are to go to others in ways that hopefully resemble Jesus Christ.
So the first encouragement is to hold fast to the one who can identify with your weakness, as I’ve said many times this morning. He identifies with us with sympathy yet without sin. I know this is true; all of us walked in this morning with some type of weakness, some type of sin. We all stumble and fall in many ways, and even though we are all weak, we all sin. Friends, the good news is that Jesus Christ is our great high priest who can sympathize with us because he has been tempted in every respect. Because Jesus sympathizes with his people, as he identifies with us, it should drive us with confidence to draw near to him—to continue to draw near to him.
And as we draw near to Jesus Christ, he will meet us with his mercy and grace.
Now, for the sake of time, I can’t go over each respect in which Jesus was tempted, but let me point out a few that we see directly in our text. As I go through these, I just wonder how many of these weaknesses you can identify with, perhaps a personal area of weakness where you’re finding yourself being tempted to fall.
In our text, I mentioned earlier that Jesus was tempted with pride in ways to take positions of power and authority before it was given to him, which was true of both roles as a priest and king. He had to wait to be appointed by God the Father into those roles. This week, as I thought about this, the waiting of our Lord, my mind went back to Palm Sunday, which in many respects is the high point of his public ministry regarding the popularity that Jesus had. Everyone in the crowd wanted Jesus to rule over them as they cried out, “Hosanna!” Yet, as you may remember, at the end of Palm Sunday, remember how Jesus entered into the temple, where it seemed natural that he would take the crown and assume the role as high priest. But because his time had not yet come, remember how he, in humility, quietly left the temple.
He went to the cross to pay the punishment for the sins of his people. This morning, if you’re being tempted by pride, maybe to take some power that’s not yours to have, or to hold on to some authority that you just need to release, take heart, friend. Jesus can sympathize with you in that weakness without sin. Rather than giving in to your temptation, identify with the one who can identify with you.
Second, on this note, Jesus was tempted to be impatient. He had to wait and wait and wait all the way to the cross and the resurrection from the dead on the third day before he could receive his kingly crown and be appointed as the great high priest.
I’m sure all of us here know how strong the temptation is to fall into impatience in so many areas of life. We know how impatient we can be to wait upon the Lord for whatever it is that we’re desiring him to give us. So, friend, this morning, if you’re being tempted by impatience, rather than sinfully giving in to that temptation, I want to invite you to identify with the one who can identify with you yet without sin.
Third, Jesus was tempted to be faithless in the mundane. Let’s be honest: most of life is pretty mundane. It can feel fairly insignificant to the point it can be so mundane that life can become maddening to us. This is why I actually like the book of Ecclesiastes as much as I do—because it captures how maddening life can be. We can be so tempted to think that all these mundane things that fill up our lives—things at work, things at home, things here at church—we can be tempted to think they just don’t matter.
We might be tempted to cut corners, to get lazy, or to take things for granted, where we stop faithfully doing these normal, mundane things that God would have us do and become more and more faithless. I think this is one of the more encouraging aspects of this passage today: Jesus learned obedience through every aspect of his life, most of which were pretty mundane. You may know this: Jesus had a job that I’m sure wasn’t always easy. He had family and friends who, as we see in the Scriptures, certainly are not always easy. He ministered to difficult people—not easy at all.
He experienced all the folly of life that we experience. Yet through all these mundane, boring, ordinary things, where Jesus was tempted to be faithless, he proved over and over again to be the one who is faithful. By the way, if he was not faithful in all those boring, normal, mundane things, he would not have been fit to be the propitiation for our sins.
So this morning, as you look at your life and see yourself becoming less and less faithful in the ordinary, in the mundane, rather than giving in to that sinful temptation, I invite you to identify with the one who can identify with you without sin.
One more: Jesus was tempted to fall into deep, deep despair. He faced that temptation, but Scripture tells us he’s a man of sorrows, one acquainted with grief, who in our text learned obedience through suffering. In his suffering, he prayed with loud cries and tears. I know there are people in this room who are feeling the pain of despair, where in your suffering, there are real cries and real tears filled with all kinds of pain.
Friend, if that’s you this morning, and you’re being tempted to be overwhelmed with despair in ways that you might be tempted to actually walk away from Jesus, can I invite you to identify with the one who identifies with you without sin? He identifies with your despair. I invite you to go to Jesus, who fully sympathizes with you yet without sin. As you go to Jesus, the great high priest, take heart—a bruised reed he will not break; a smoking flax he will not quench. Rather, even in your weakness, even in your despair, he will meet you with grace and mercy to help you and continue to help you in times of need.
So, friend, hold fast to him. Identify yourself with him, which actually leads to the second encouragement I want to give us from our text: hold fast to the one who is there to help us in all of our weakness.
So go back to what I said earlier: it’s just not enough to simply sympathize with someone. We need help. We need help in our weakness. That’s exactly what the Lord does for his people. Through his mercy and grace, he’s there to help us in our times of need.
Now, as I say that, how the Lord helps us in our times of need could look different, depending on the purpose that he has for us. At times, he might help us in our weakness and sin by almost immediately and completely removing it from us. However, at other times, he might use and continue to use our weakness to be like a thorn in our flesh, meant to drive us to him so that he can prove over and over that his grace is sufficient, that his power is made perfect even in our weakness.
Whoever he helps, friends, that’s the help that we need when we go to him. That’s the help that he promises and assures us that he will give.
Once again, throughout the Scriptures, there are many places that speak to how the Lord is actually able to help us in our times of need, which is why we are to keep going to him so we can see that his grace is sufficient. For this time, I just want to quickly work back through this text to give us some confidence in why we can go and continue to go to the throne to find help—not just sympathy, but actual help.
Here are some things I’m going to go through pretty quickly.
First, friend, the Lord is able to help you. Why? Because he is our great high priest. He’s our great high priest who has been appointed by God to minister to his people in all of our weakness. Friends, there’s no other priest who can do that. Jesus indeed is our great high priest, the superior high priest, who is there to help us with perfect grace and mercy.
Second, the Lord is able to help us in our times of need. Why? Because he’s the one who died and rose again from the dead, defeating sin, defeating the devil, defeating death, only to pass through the clouds to eternally sit on the throne where he reigns forever from the order of Melchizedek—the one who has all power, all authority, and all sovereignty over all things.
So, friends, this morning, in your weakness and your temptation to sin, take heart and identify with Jesus, who can actually help in our times of need, which we know are many, trusting that in the end, by faith, we know that he’s actually the one holding fast to us.
Finally, let me just close with this: hold fast to others in their weakness, which is perhaps the opposite of what we naturally want to do when we see others in weakness and sin. We might want to push them away, maybe judge them, or cast them out.
This is a little more subtle truth in our text, but one I quickly wanted to point out. In verse two, the Old Testament high priest should have been able to identify with others who came to him. As he identified with others, he should have been able to identify with gentleness, lovingly holding fast to others in ways that pointed them to the Lord while humbly understanding that he himself was beset with sin.
Even though we’re not the great high priest— that position belongs only to Jesus—Scripture tells us that for all those who are in Christ, Jesus says, “You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light.”
Church, may that be true of us—that we lovingly, gently, sympathetically, and boldly identify with one another, as well as with those whom God has placed in our lives. May we do so in Christ-like ways, helping those in need with the spirit of gentleness, correcting them in ways that point them to Jesus, hoping that perhaps the Lord would bring them back to Jesus Christ or to him for the first time.
May we act Christ-like to others who are in loneliness and difficulty as they try to process life. May we help others in Christ-like ways when they are in times of need, doing so while always pointing them to Jesus.
Let’s pray.
Lord, thank you for our great high priest. Thank you that not only can he sympathize with us, but he can help us. Lord, we need help. Please help us today to go and continue to go to Jesus with confidence and boldness. Lord, help us to trust in him. We pray this all in his name. Amen.