Hebrews 4:14–16
This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.
Well, good morning, my friends. It is wonderful to see so many faces that I know and that I love. It is wonderful to hear my church's name being prayed for this morning. Clifton Baptist Church prays for you frequently. We love you and we're thankful for each one of you. I met Greg, actually, in 2002. We took our first seminary class together, and our hearts were knit together by the fact that both of us did not like the class. So thankfully two things have changed. One, that class is no longer required. And two, we've become a little less arrogant and youthful, I think, and critical. So hopefully that will come through even as we look to the word this morning with humility. Because that's what marks, in my opinion, that's what Mark's blessedness of this congregation, the blessedness of Clifton. That's what makes us sister churches, as it was prayed about, is that we humbly want to submit to the word. So let's do
that together. I'm going to ask God to help us, and then we're going to open up God's word to Hebrews chapter 4, okay? Let me pray. Father, would you please speak to us? We know that we don't deserve to be spoken to and yet you are a God whose generosity can't be fathomed. And one of your generous gestures, one of your generous acts towards us is that you speak even on Sunday mornings, even in Louisville, Kentucky, even in this very moment. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
So the title of my sermon is, Jesus is Uniquely Qualified to Help. And we're going to be looking at Hebrews chapter 4, specifically verses 14 through 16, in a moment. But let me say a couple introductory thoughts to set us up to understand well what the text is saying. And here's my thought. You can't hurt God. You know this. Many of you have known this ever since you were children. Of course you can't hurt God, but I want you to think about the implications of that for just a moment. You cannot hurt God because of who God is, his divine characteristics. God the Almighty is invulnerable. You can't hurt him because, well, one, he's self-sufficient. That means he doesn't need anything outside of himself, so he can't be desperate for anything since there's no need apart from him that he can't
meet in himself but he's also invulnerable because he's immutable you know what that word means it means he can't change and that nothing outside him can make him change try to make him change I dare you no one can assault God or force him to change okay another thing that's true about god is he's omnipotent you were waiting for that one right that means he can do all things all things without any effort on his part he merely speaks and his will is done so there's no threat that we could ever level against god that he would take seriously he'd laugh at anything that we said you see god is invulnerable because of the glories of his divine perfection that means he cannot be reduced in any way if all of humanity gathered together and they pooled all
of their resources and all of their genius together to make a weapon to assault god somehow where would they even aim it where would they even direct it how could it even be measured its effectiveness. Friends, what I'm trying to say to you is that you can't hurt God. And so it might surprise you this morning, given that fact, that you actually can do something that God can't do.
You have the ability to suffer. You have the ability to be hurt. You have the ability to die. In other words, you're vulnerable, unlike God. You know what it is to be reduced to a state of desperation when you lack something that you desperately need or desperately want. you know what it is to be assaulted some of you physically actually all of you to some degree verbally or or relationally and to have things taken from you you are aware of threats to your life that you do have to take seriously you can't laugh them off because you are vulnerable to them.
And if even a small portion of humanity pooled their resources and their genius together, they could very easily hurt you and harm you and defeat you. So this ability that you have that God doesn't, the ability to suffer, the ability to feel pain, that doesn't make you superior to God. Do you see that? It makes you inferior to God. And the book of Hebrews, from which our passage this morning is taken, the book of Hebrews is all about God, specifically the second person of the Trinity, taking on your inferiority.
That's what this book is about. the superior God, adding to himself the inferiority of humanity. Hebrews 2.9 tells us that we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of his death, so that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone.
Friends, this entire book is about Jesus Christ taking on the capacity to suffer, to have tissue and skin and nerve endings. He took an ability that he did not have prior in order to accomplish something on your behalf and on mine. And so the verses we're about to read together are about him moving from heaven down to earth, but also then, this is the good news, him moving from earth back up to heaven and amazingly taking his humanity with him.
So let's read together our passage in Hebrews chapter 4, verses 14 through 16. 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 weaknesses, 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 time of need. So here's the main idea for my sermon. If you want to furiously write it down, you can, but I'm going to then unpack it in much simpler points that are easier to write down, okay? So just listen to me for a second. When Jesus ascended into heaven, he took his humanity with him.
Specifically, his status as a human being that was made perfect through his suffering. So then that qualifies him to be something to you. Two things. It qualifies him to be your perfected brother and your minister king. Okay? So I'm going to unpack all that in simple form for you, okay? So two truths about Jesus, and then I'm going to land the plane with one truth about you. So here's the first truth about Jesus.
Jesus is now your perfected brother because of his humiliation. Jesus is now your perfected brother because of his humiliation. So let me see if I can explain this. As son of God, who became son of man, Jesus entered a state of humiliation. He took on the human ability to suffer, allowing him then to enter the process of becoming your perfected brother.
And believe me, I know we have to be very careful with our language here. We're going to be very precise in our understanding of what all that means. Because when I say the word becoming, maybe that makes you a little bit nervous, as it should. Because if we mean the wrong thing by it, we can say really wrong things about Jesus. But let me cite a couple different places. You can just write these references down from the book of Hebrews to make this case. Hebrews 2, 10 and 11 says, For it was fitting that Jesus for whom and by whom all things exist in bringing many sons to glory should make the founder, I'm sorry, God, should make the founder of their salvation perfected through suffering. For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source.
That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers. So did you catch that line in there? That he should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. Talking about God making Jesus perfected through suffering. Again, friends, this is why theology is important. We've got to be precise in our Christology. What does it mean that Jesus was perfected? I thought he was already perfect. Well, yes, he was. Morally perfect.
So we have to make a distinction between his divine nature and then the addition of his human nature okay so can i make something clear about his divine nature for a moment the son of god is the second person of the trinity and we must be clear on the two natures of jesus that's nevertheless in one person and in his divine nature what is true of that divine nature is always true about Jesus. He does not shed any of his divine nature or diminish any of his divine nature in any way when he came to be a carpenter out of Nazareth.
There is no characteristic of his godness that was put on mute or that was turned down or that was taken away in any way whatsoever so how can we say then that he was made inferior if he loses none of his divine characteristics well friends this is a case of subtraction by addition it's not that he lost any of his divine characteristics it's that he added human frailty he added human limitations, okay? Can I give you an example that may help to think about things? And this might be a quirky example, and if it's not helpful, just forget it, okay? But think of one of the most glorious pieces of art that we have, Michelangelo's David, okay? And what if we discovered that there's actually a far more masterful sculpture that Michelangelo did that nobody ever knew about.
It makes David look like a wuss, okay? I mean, this thing is crafted majestically and beautifully, okay? But the reason nobody had discovered it until now is because the family that had it tried to disguise it so no one would take it away from them by adding plaster to it and by forming it into something that was diminished in its beauty that didn't look as good when you look at it you see a plaster sculpture you don't see the glorious glowing marble that michelangelo actually worked on was this statue in itself something less than it was prior to the addition of that plaster no it's glorious but the glory was veiled that's the point by adding to it something that is lesser something that is of not as high a quality of a substance okay so so so
that's how Jesus, that's how Jesus had what appeared to be a diminished glory while being fully the son of God, the second person of the Trinity. Now, why am I going into all this? Okay. Well, first of all, the more we know about our savior, the more effectively we can love him. Okay. But, but most importantly, I want you to, I want you to know this. Jesus volunteered to take on this ability to suffer.
No one forced him to do it. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit all agreed and planned for Jesus to volunteer for this mission. Becoming, this mission of becoming a man so that he could then do as a man what man was designed to do. And that is live unto God with all of his heart and soul and mind and strength as a man.
And that's what makes sense out of all these different passages in Hebrews that talk about this being something that Jesus was perfected through his suffering. Let me read a handful of them more. Don't turn there, but if you want to write down the references, you can. Hebrews 2.17, right? Therefore, he had to be made like his brothers in every respect so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God to make propitiation for the sins of the people.
Or Hebrews 5 verses 8 and 9. Although he was a son, listen to this friends, he learned obedience through what he suffered and being made perfect he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him and one last reference hebrews 7 28 for the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests but the word of the oath which came later than the law appoints the son who has been made perfect forever so friends again to be crystal clear jesus in his in his divine nature is perfect and needs no becoming you cannot perfect the divine perfections but only jesus's human nature required becoming and the reason you should care about this emphasis on becoming
is because you know what it's like to have to become as a human being. You know what it's like to have to be formed and shaped, to grow and to change. And you know one of the main things that life in a broken world uses to bring about that growth, and that's pain. pain is required and that's key to understanding this first truth about jesus as your great high priest friends jesus took on humanity not as some passive status not as god hovering around a human body but as a life lived just like your life so in order to be truly like you to truly represent you to truly be a brother to you he had to be perfected through the same painful process
that you are perfected through and the significance of the incarnation is not merely that jesus took on flesh and blood but that that flesh and blood registered pain and that blood was spilled on the cross. He actually died on your behalf. So folks, think back to the introduction for a second.
What this means is Jesus became vulnerable to the threats that you and I are vulnerable to in this world. Jesus as a man had to practice faith in his father's promise to deliver him. Don't you have to do the same? Jesus as a man had to experience suffering like we do and yet he did it always perfectly trusting his father, not doubting him, loving his father with all of his heart, soul, mind and strength, and then loving his neighbor as himself, something that you and I fail to do in our suffering, don't we kind of get cagey? Don't we kind of get embittered? Don't we kind of get self-pitying? Don't we get nasty, just straight up nasty with each other? And yet Jesus did none of
that jesus perfectly trusted his father and this is the great high priest who our verse says passed through the heavens that's a reference to the ascension taking up his humanity with him he knows that experience from the inside and that's why he's uniquely qualified now as your perfected brother doesn't that make you love jesus more so that leads to the second thing that we see about jesus second truth about jesus jesus is now your minister king because of his exaltation jesus is now your minister king because of his exaltation.
So let me explain this truth about Jesus. As Son of God, who became Son of Man, Jesus then entered a state of exaltation, the opposite of humiliation. So he claims the divine ability now to command all things, which allows him to be your minister king. so jesus this one who took on the new ability to feel pain and to die returns now to his throne to take on his ancient ability that he had prior to the incarnation and that is to command everything he wants to command in any way that he wants to command it that's what it means so jesus returns to heaven with both of his natures the divine nature unaltered and unchallenged and the human nature perfected through suffering and victorious
over death on behalf of his people. Hebrews 8 says this about Jesus. We have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places. Folks, you know what that language means to sit at the right hand of the throne of heaven that means he's sharing the rule of the one on the main throne that means he is God and he rules like God rules because he is it's a sign it's a metaphor of sovereign power Jesus is king and what should blow you away in this book and in what I just read is that how does he choose to utilize the supremacy and sovereignty of his rule?
What's the verb, what's the act that he takes given his status? It's to minister to his people. Isn't that amazing? It could have said so many different things there and it would have been true. It could have said to yield judgment upon the earth for sin. Absolutely. It could have said to do all things for all of his glory. That's also true. But the emphasis of these texts, friends, is that Jesus takes his sovereign rule for the purpose of helping you.
For the purpose of ministering to you. so Jesus is your minister king, minister is kind of a weird word, we hear it so often, we're like, yeah, that's a minister, okay, or the ministry, if you're from England or Canada or something, the ministry of whatever it is, just call the department, okay, but to minister means to attend to the concerns of someone else, it means to advocate on behalf of a people with those who have power to do them good that's what it means to minister and and the writer of hebrews says in in chapter 7 verse 25 if you want to write this down that that jesus always lives to make intercession for his saints always lives and that's what he's doing a high priest offers sacrifice on behalf of the people so that their sins are atoned for
and they can safely approach God and by safely approaching God the emphasis of our text this morning is that you now have access to all of the benefits that God intends to give to you and so you approach with confidence you you approach with with a degree of of boldness to receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. So folks, I want you to notice that our passage this morning, the emphasis is on the object of faith being Jesus, but not just generically. It's not just Jesus in a generic general sense, though that's true, everything about him. But the emphasis of our text is the object of what you trust in is Jesus, but more specifically Jesus who helps that make sense you can hyphenate that in your brain if you want Jesus Jesus who helps it's more specific than that and it's more beautiful it's just beautiful
so the message is not merely approach the throne to bow down and worship though that's true The emphasis is approach the throne to bow down and worship so that you might receive something. And that's grace and mercy to help in time of need. So folks, if you read this in light of the whole point of the book of Hebrews, in terms of the application if you want.
The writer of Hebrews is most concerned that you believe that God really is who he says he is towards you and is really as generous as he says he is towards you. And he makes the argument early in the chapter, hey, you want to know why Israel failed? You want to know why some people died in the wilderness and didn't enter into the promised land? You know why they grumbled? You know why were the disobedient. You know why they sin? Folks, all sin flows from unbelief. It flows from a refusal to trust that God is God and God will help. And so, flip that. What is righteousness in God's eyes? You know this from all of your Bible reading, hopefully, especially in the New testament the righteous live by faith don't they so so so the admonition of this text in looking
at who jesus is and what he did on your behalf and taking on inferiority is trust him trust him in whatever suffering you're undergoing in whatever pain you're experiencing and whatever impatience with the process that you're in why isn't god helping me with the version of help that I prefer? The answer, friends, is trust that he's giving you what he says he's giving you and stop striving for your version of help. Stop striving for your timing. Stop striving for your manner and your means and whatever you have defined in your mind about if God really loved me, he would give me this kind of help friends we don't get to say that to god and that's really good news for us because you know what that means when you go before his throne he's going to give you something better than that pathetic
little version that you're obsessed with isn't that good news i hope you find that to be encouraging, and good news. Confidence, guys, friends, confidence is not just some sort of swagger it's talking about in this passage as we approach the throne with confidence. It's not about you. It's that you know that the source you're going to has what you need. So if you have a house fire, okay, don't call Lowe's or Home Depot and ask if they have fire extinguishers. Because there's two problems if you do that okay number one the fire extinguishers are not able to put out a fire in your house and number two the Lowe's workers aren't paid to come to your house and to use the fire extinguishers fire extinguishers so they're not willing so there's Lowe's is unable and unwilling to actually help you who do you call when you have a fire
you call the fire department because they're not relying on fire extinguishers they have massive trucks in fact there's like five different types of trucks that they're going to bring to your house okay and they are also trained and paid and wanting to come in and to assist you and to put that fire out on your behalf so they are both able and willing that's why when you pick up the phone and dial 9-1-1 to get the fire department you have confidence that you're going to the right spot if you put confidence in Lowe's or Home Depot you're going to be miserably miserably sad okay so confidence guys again is about God is the source of what I actually need so those are the two truths about jesus let me tell you the one truth about you now that i think flows from this passage you become perfected in the same way jesus did
by trusting god to be good to you in your suffering you become perfected in the same way Jesus did by trusting God to be good to you in your suffering by the way even as I say this I have to be very careful here because I'm not simply saying yeah Jesus did it so you do it too yeah be like Jesus that's true but but Jesus did it, which now enables you to do it. Your confidence that God is going to listen to your prayer is that Jesus already has this completed. Your salvation is a done deal. Jesus has accomplished it. And so now as we live the Christian life being perfected, it's actually merely an expression of what's already done. I need to make that clear to you because I don't want to lay another law on you because I know you're aware that you don't do this well. I know you're aware that in your suffering
you often fail to trust god in the way that you ought and what i'm saying to you now is the object of your faith is not your faith the object of your faith is jesus your minister king and so that's what gives you confidence and that's why he says you know these these two these two verbs that often go together let us hold fast our confession and let us draw near to the throne of grace those are the two verbs that you're commanded in this passage so what does it mean to do these things by the way i'm just going to show you my cards right now i just these these are different ways of saying faith what i've been saying the main command of all of hebrews is trust him trust him trust him so these two specific metaphors are just versions of saying trust so to hold fast means to continually grip something as your only security in life
you grabbed it and you're not letting it go imagine you're on some epic hike on some at some national park yosemite we were just there a couple summers ago absolutely epic okay and you're on a very steep hike up Angel Falls or whatever it is that you're doing and it's a really windy day and so you're you're making your way up and the wind is gusting and it's kind of catching some of your clothes and you're you've got a sheer drop to your right but thankfully they have anchored in the rock these metal bars that you grab onto and hold on to now imagine if there was some hiker who's more experienced than you. You respect him. You know him from, you know, down in your orientation part. And he says to you, you don't need to hold on to that. Hold on to my shoulder and let's keep going while the wind gusts. What are you going to say to that guy?
Bro, I don't care how experienced you are. You're not a metal bar anchored into a rock, okay? Because to release your grip on this and take hold of him would be the most fatal thing you can do. That's what it means to hold fast. Guys, there's a thousand more experienced hikers that are going to come along in life and tell you, Hey, that's lame. That's not really about your problems. You need this. Hold on to this. And folks, you'll fall.
You'll fall every time. Hold fast to your only confession that Jesus knows what you need. he knows better than anybody else so that's the hold fast so then to draw near again is another verb that expresses faith and to draw near is to continually approach something as your only source of life to continually approach something as the only source so a metaphor i think of with this is i've i was reading an article a couple weeks back on just a town that didn't have like reliable water source there was bacteria and toxins in in in their water and obviously you can't see that so when they turn on their taps they're thinking it's just fine but it just becomes super clear like it's it's killing the population but imagine that on the edge of that town there's a farmer who has an artesian spring that's a naturally occurring spring from the ground and that farmer says yeah anybody in the town can can come can come get water i'm not going to deliver it though
you got to come and get it you have a choice to make then right you can turn on your tap and use your water it's way more convenient it's passive in that sense you don't have to move towards anything you just turn it on right and you drink from it it's going to kill you if you really believe that the source of life in that artisan spring or artesian it's not artisan that's craft artesian spring okay is the source of life and he says move towards it approach me it's free i'll literally give it all you want you can bring whatever tanks you want that means it's active so that's that's actually one of the points that i want to say your faith is not just passive guys it's active okay faith is a gift it's been given to you by god but it's also exercise it's active so friends press into it press put jesus in front of you this is why
you read your bible this is why you pray this is why you gather this morning and you're reminded jesus really is alive jesus really is as amazing and wonderful as he says we believe it together and our faith is strengthened it's active is what i'm saying to you so we hold fast we draw near and folks i really do want to emphasize as i sort of land the plane here that even those verbs those active verbs that you should be doing it's based on what jesus already did he was the most active in his faith in his father and because of that you can have confidence that you're going to have the resources that you need to do the same thing okay so you can believe him you can trust him and what jesus showed us in his life in these various texts
of scripture and or of the book of hebrews right is that jesus taught us that in his prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death he teaches us that sometimes faith doesn't look happy and pretty sometimes faith looks rugged and beat up and in pain and that doesn't mean it's any less genuine okay and so folks I want you what I'm landing the plane with is this guys your suffering is never in vain God is God won't waste a single ounce of it to accomplish things that are far better than what you would choose to accomplish if you could push the delete button on your suffering and part of trusting him guys I know
that doesn't make your pain go away I know some of you are some of you are suffering remarkably right now that doesn't make your pain go away but it does change the quality of how you see your pain doesn't it it does change the quality of what you see God's presence doing in delivering to you any help any grace any mercy that you need for help in times of need so jesus the eternal son of god took on a new ability that he didn't have and that is to die to suffer and to die so that now he has an even better ability as he ascends and has ascended into heaven and that is to help you as your sympathetic high priest in your suffering believe it let's pray Father we
trust you and we trust your son whom you sent to be what we are unable to be on our own and we trust the spirit sent by the son who even now occupies our hearts even when we can't discern and feel those things necessarily even when we are more aware of our pain than we are of the presence of the triune God with us lord our faith is not in our faith our faith is in the fact that jesus is our perfected brother and our minister king and it's his name that we declare back to you and to one another in his name amen