The Priest We Need
Hebrews 4:14-5:10;
By: Dr. Sinclair B. Ferguson
Original Audio
OPENING PRAYER:
Our Heavenly Father, truly you are a God from whom blessings, not merely come but flow into our lives like a mighty river rushing upon us. We thank you, that they come to us not by accident but because you are yourself the ever blessed God ever to be blessed. We thank you for the joy that you have given to us in knowing that you our Father bless your Son. And that together with the Holy Spirit, your Son blesses you. And then that inexpressible and eternal joy your amazing plan has been to make creatures like ourselves from the dust of the earth, from nothing, and form us into men and women and young people and boys and girls, to whom you can extend your blessing. Oh, Lord, how foolish we have been to seek blessing elsewhere, when there is this river flowing from within the very heart of God towards his children. We pray, that we may taste that blessing today in your word, and that as we read it and study it, meditate on it, we may be conscious, that you are speaking to us — that there is nothing in us hidden from you. That there is nowhere to go to hide, but that we need not hide. Because you are calling us to confess our faults and our needs — to receive your embrace as our gracious Father. To trust in Christ, as our glorious Redeemer. To live in the power of the Spirit. You mean nothing but blessing for your children, Father. We pray, we may taste it together today, through your Word. And we ask this in Jesus name. Amen. Please be seated.
SCRIPTURE READING:
Now, perhaps I can say for visitors and guests today that we are in the process of studying the amazing letter to the Hebrews. And we have been thinking more recently about the way in which the author of Hebrews tells us that Jesus, whom we are to consider is both the Apostle and High Priest of our confession.
In chapters three and four, the author has been teaching us a little about how Jesus is God's apostle. He ends that section by telling us about the power of the Word of God. And now we turn this morning to Hebrews chapter four, verse 14. We read through to chapter five, verse 10. And you'll find the passage in the pew Bible page 1003. 10-03. Be helpful for you, I think, to follow along in the pew Bible. And for our children who have their Children's Bible, the passage is on page 1494. 1-4-9-4.
So let us hear God's word Hebrews, chapter four, beginning to read 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 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.
For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness. Because of this he is obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins just as he does for those of the people. And no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was. So also, Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said to him,
and follow two quotations from the Psalms,
“You are my Son, today I have begotten you”; as he says, also in another place, “You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.”
In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what He suffered. And being made perfect,
that's not morally perfect, he was always morally perfect. That's him being made complete to be our Savior.
And being made complete, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey Him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.
SERMON:
Wonder if any of us in the congregation has recently had a conversation with a friend, a neighbor. Somebody alongside whom we work, who happens to be an Episcopalian, or perhaps a Roman Catholic? And the subject of church has come up and as you've been comparing notes about a church life, they have said to you, as Episcopalians or as Roman Catholics, who don't always think kindly about the common or garden Presbyterians that we are, they may have said to you, but of course, you have pastors in your church. Don’t you? And ministers. You don't, you don't have a priest in your church. But sometimes difficult to be quick thinking on your feet, but the next time anyone says that to you here is the best answer. You say actually, in our church, we have the best of both worlds. Yes, we have a pastoral staff. Do we have a pastoral staff! We have pastor Lawson from Texas. And Pastor Wilkes from Georgia. We have pastor Mathias from Pennsylvania. We have Dr. Thomas from Wales. We have Sinclair Ferguson, from Scotland. And we've just added an Irishman, Dr. McDowell. And a Pole Dr. Briscoe. We are talking about an Englishman but that's still under discussion. Plus, we have one priest. And the truth is, we love him best of all. If the truth were told, our love for Him outweighs our love for our pastors put together. He seems to know every single one of us through and through. He is wonderful to go to when you're in difficulties. When you have messed up your life or when you're struggling with suffering are wondering, What is God doing in my life. And he has the most amazing qualifications to be a priest. And best of all, you can go to him any time of the day, and any time of the night.
If your friend didn't know a great deal about the Christian gospel, I'm sure they would be eager to ask what seminary your priest had trained in. He might even say to you, she might even ask you, because people try to steal people from other churches for their churches, Would you be willing to give me his name? And of course, we should really do this in unison. At that point, you would say with just a little smile playing on your lips — why our priest’s name is Jesus. Our priest’s name is Jesus.
And this is how this passage opens in chapter four and verse 14. “Since we have a great high priest, who has passed through the heavens.” That short cut language for ministering here on our dying on the cross, being raised on the third day and ascending to the right hand of the father since he has passed through to the heavens to the very throne of God, we today have a great high priest, Jesus, the Son of God.
And he is going on now for several chapters to explain to us what this means. He had said, consider Jesus as the apostle of your calling. And now he wants to say, consider the Lord Jesus as the high priest of your calling. And he does a very interesting thing. He tells us what the application of his exposition is. And then he goes on to explain to us why it is that he has made this application.
Now we preachers tend to do it the other way around. We give the exposition, and then we give the application. But he gives us, in this instance, the application, and then he gives us the exposition. The application is twofold. Since we have this great high priest: First of all, “Let us hold fast our confession”, verse 14b. “Let us hold fast our confession.” And the second application, in verse 16, “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.”
Sometimes, you know, when you're reading a book, it's only as you've gone on that you realize you need to turn back a few pages earlier, because only now do you understand exactly what it meant to read something earlier on. And I think this is the case here in Hebrews chapters four and five. So I want to say something about his exposition of what it means for Jesus to be our high priest. And then turn back to what has been an interesting question to me, as I've been thinking about this passage towards the end of the week, why does he make these particular applications? Why would knowing Jesus as our priest cause him to say, “Hold fast your confession?” Why having Jesus as our priest, would cause him to say, “Draw nearer to the throne of grace?”
So first of all, his exposition of Jesus’ priestly ministry. What does a priest need to be? What does a priest need to do? Well, he thinks back to the high priests of the old covenant period. And he suggests that there were three marks of a true high priest. The first was his function. The second was his character. And the third was his calling.
First of all, his function. He says in chapter five, verse one, “every high priest chosen from among men, is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.” The purpose of a priest is that we should have somebody who is able to bring it to pass, that our sins will be forgiven. That of course, was the reason for all of these sacrifices in the Old Testament. And especially the sacrifices that were associated with the high priest who, as you remember, in Leviticus 16, one day, a year after very careful preparation, would go into the presence of God and he would sprinkle sacrificial blood over the mercy seat. And ask God to forgive the sins of the people. That's what a priest is for. A priest serves so that it will be possible that my sins will be forgiven. And the reason we need a priest is because we are not able to forgive our own sins. Isn't it?
Now you hear some very confusing psychobabble these days when people say you need to learn to forgive yourself. The truth of the matter is you can't forgive yourself. You can say to yourself 1000 times, Self I forgive you. Look in the mirror every single day and say, Self I forgive you. But the self who looks at you from the mirror will say, You must be joking. Because there is no word of forgiveness, I can speak to myself that will quiet in my conscience for a very simple reason, you do not have the authority to forgive your own sins. It's a ludicrous idea. And it is a psychobabble of our times that we need to push to the side. We need somebody else to make it possible for our sins to be forgiven.
Sometimes, of course, we assume we can do this ourselves. Not by looking at self in the mirror and saying, self your sins are forgiven. But of course, since we are Western people built on a model of Christendom, the way we tend to do it is by saying, what I will do actually — what I have already done, we say to ourselves, is I place more good works in the scale than the bad things I have done. And eventually, I tip the scales in my favor before God. Well I have fair awakening news failure. The bad things in the other pan in the scale are still in the scale. And no matter how much you pile up the good things, no matter how much they seem to outweigh the bad things — And my guess is most of us in the church today would naturally feel we've probably at least marginally outweighed the bad things with the good things. We are at least 51% decent citizens. But you see you can find no assurance of forgiveness in that.
Dr. Thomas and I have a very close friend who one night was summoned to the bedside of one of the most famous women in England. Famed especially for her good works. My guess is that was no more respected name in the whole of England than this woman's name when it came to admiration for good works. And I mean, really good works. Not Pharisaical pretense works, but really good works. She had been honored by the Queen, her name known everywhere. Her name was synonymous with good works. And as my friend and Dr. Thomas's friend was called to her bedside and spoke to her about why she felt this need — that one of her nurses — she was a dying woman had sensed — I don't know that the nurse was a Christian, but she knew our friend she she called him. He came. But was the problem. The problem was this, she had no assurance that our sins had been forgiven. The best of women, but no assurance that her sins had been forgiven. And he had this amazing privilege of speaking to her about the fact that we need a very special high priest to bring us the forgiveness of sins.
So that's the function of the high priest. There is a second thing here because you notice, Hebrews underscores the character of the high priest. And, and this is a very important qualification - verse two. “He can deal gently, with the ignorant and wayward since he himself is beset with weakness.” Now, of course, one of the reasons he’s beset with weaknesses because he has weakened through his sin. And so he needs to make a sacrifice for his own sins before he makes a sacrifice for the people’s sins. It's a very interesting statement, isn't it? Qualification for the priest is he needs to be conscious of what it means to be weak. Now why is that the case? Oh you know why it's the case? Because if somebody is metallic and self-righteous and always seems to do the right thing, you are not going to go to that person when you've messed up. You will not go to that person thinking, Now there is a heart capacious enough to hold the confession of my needs, my weakness, my suffering. I could never go to them. Somehow or another. It's one of the curses of being a Presbyterian minister that that many people say to themselves, either, Well, he is far too busy for the likes of me. My dear friends, we are never too busy for the likes of you. Because we are the likes of you. But it's even worse, you know, if you, if you say to yourself, I could never tell him. It’d be such a shock. I need to tell you, it wouldn't be any shock. We know our hearts. But it would be awful. If you thought we could never go to him, we could never go to them because they wouldn't understand. They wouldn't be gentle. Actually, it's easy, isn't it to use the rod. If you're a parent, you know that when the kids mess up, it's far easier to use the rod. But to be gentle. To find that instead of you searching out your children, “Aha, caught you! BangI I don't think you're allowed to do that any longer. Never did us any harm. But it's a very different thing, you know, when you're a parent, when your son or your daughter comes to you — isn’t it's one of the most moving things in all the world, when they come and say, Dad I’ve really messed up? Can you help me?
And this, this is why Hebrew has taught us that we have a brother to whom we can go, who understands. So the high priest has a specific function to deal with our sins, he needs to have a specific character that draws us to go to him. But there's a third thing he needs. He needs to have a divine calling, doesn't he? Why is that? You notice how we're told this in verse three of chapter five, “Because of this, he is obligated to offer sacrifice, offer sacrifices for his own sins just as he does for those of the people, and in addition, no one takes this honor for himself. But only when called by God. Why is that so important? Well, just think about ministers. The last thing in the world a congregation should want is somebody as their minister that God has never called into the ministry. That's the worst thing for that minister. And it's the worst thing for that congregation to have a square peg that we're trying to bash into a round hole. We need to be sure that these ministers have a sense that God has called them. And we need to have a sense that God has called them because their ministry has borne some fruit in our lives. Now that's what is being said here. We need to be sure that we have a priest whom God has called for the very simple reason: Because if he's not called by God, he can't do anything to bring us to God. It's his task to make these sacrifices for our sins. But if God has not called him, then his service lacks power and efficacy. And this is what the author of Hebrews is thinking about. Because he wants to say this to us. My dear friends, these things are supremely and uniquely true of our Lord Jesus.
And you notice he he does it in the reverse order. The Miss Universe order or the Mr. Miss World Order. Not that I watch of course, but you know, you can learn an amazing amount of things just by listening. Yes, I know what's happening in Downton Abbey but I don't see Downton Abbey. I know it's awful. But the guy is going to be on Broadway next season so — go to Broadway and watch him.
Now what is it that's true of Jesus? Well, first of all, he fulfills qualification number three. He has not chosen this ministry just by himself. But he has been appointed by God. Isn't that an amazing statement in verse five. “So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said to him,” and the kernel of these two quotations from the Psalms is that his Heavenly Father has said to him, “You are My eternal son”, and you are going to serve in this world, so that what you do has an eternal impact. And you’re to be, verse six, “a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek”. Now, we'll get to Mel Melchizedek, we'll get to Melchizedek big time as he goes on here. The only thing you need to know about Melchizedek at the moment is, he's a royal priest who appears in Genesis 14, and he just appears from nowhere, and then he disappears into nowhere. And the author of Hebrews has this sense about him, he, he comes from a way in the past, and then he goes away into the future. And he says Jesus is like, he comes from eternity, he goes to eternity. And he is therefore called by God to be an everlasting and eternal priest. And that's a great thing. High Priests came and went. From the days of the gospels until about this period, there had been a couple of dozen high priests. They didn't last long. They come and go. But Jesus is a high priest forever. Umm, I don't want to touch on our raw nerves, overlay — and our wounds. But maybe it’ll make the point, if I say this. We have many ministers in our congregation, but only one priest, and that one priest has no intention of going back to Scotland. He does not plan to enter retirement. He has been here among us from the beginning. He will be here as long as First Presbyterian Church is here, and perhaps longer. It's amazing. He fulfills these qualifications, because he has been called by God to be an eternal High Priest.
But then of course, he fulfills the qualification of the character. Doesn’t it? And this is in verses seven and eight, “in the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death.” You know, wonder, you know, when you meet the author of Hebrews and heaven, you know, there's going to be a line with Paul. You know, all the theologians and New Testaments are they all be lining up with Paul. You know, it's like going to be like going to Disney World, look for the slight-ish, slightly shorter line, because it will. It'll be a while before what gets out who actually wrote Hebrews and get into that short line. And then when you get to the author of Hebrews, you say, When did Jesus cry so profoundly? Well, of course, we know that he wept over Jerusalem. And it certainly looks from the way in which he describes this “prayer, supplications, loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death”, which means probably not, in the great instance, prevent him from dying, but to save him through death in his resurrection. Well, that is reminiscent of the Garden of Gethsemane, isn’t it? Those aching moments when the father pressed the cup of judgment into his hands and, and some of the language that's used, as you know, because you've heard it said probably frequently, is breathtaking in its power. As some of you will know what it means to have, to have an event taking place in life that causes your mind to reel and stagger, and so impacts you physically, that that you wonder if you're going to die on the spot. And that's the kind of language that's used of our Lord Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. No, no wonder there were loud cries, “Father, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but Your will be done.” And you remember how we are told in the gospels, the Father sent an emissary of strengthening to him — an angel? To strengthen him. Ah yes, when the angel appears, everything's gonna be fine, isn't it? No, not at all. The angel strengthens him because it's clear in the gospel narrative, that what follows was even darker than what had preceded the angelic vision. These loud cries of tears to him who was able to save him from death.
My dear friend, he has been down there, and further down. Whether it be temptation we have failed to resist, he has resisted. Whether it be sorrow we have experienced, but there is no sorrow like unto His sorrow. Whether it be the mystery of a sense of what, what is God doing in my life, if anything? He has gone down deeper and cried, “My God, My God, why am I forsaken?” And so he's able to help you in your weakness. And unlike these old priests, because he has never sinned, he's actually strong enough to help you in your weakness. I mean, we can help and encourage one another. But at the end of the day, at the end of the day, when we pour out our souls to another, the fact of the matter may well be that that other is sitting there thinking, if you only knew what's been going on in my life, I don't think you'd be speaking to me. But with Jesus, he knows the deepest weakness and fragility. But he is strong and able to save us to the uttermost. It’s marvelous.
So he has the calling from God, he has the character for the ministry. And of course, he not only fulfills qualification number three and qualification number two, he fulfills qualification number one. Although he was a Son, He learned obedience through what He suffered. And being made a complete savior he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey Him. You see a thing about the high priest, the high priest needed the sacrifice in order even to begin to minister. Because Jesus is without sin, as Hebrews as already told us. He is uniquely in all history, as the eternal Son of God in our flesh, He is uniquely qualified to make himself the sacrifice for our sins.
And as Hebrews will go on to teach us so marvelously, we understand that the blood of bulls and goats isn't even an appropriate sacrifice for the sins of a man or a woman. But the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin: as he makes one perfect, complete sacrifice for all the sins of all of his people. And so, as the priest who makes the sacrifice, we are told here he is the one from whom all the blessings flow.
Our introit today, written by our dear late friend, Jim Boice. And I think it's probably my favorite Jim Boice hymn. And it has this first verse that you'll not find in the order of service, I hear some of you looking up. It’s first verse is this.
Come to the waters, all ye that are thirsty
Drink From the fountain that never runs dry,
Jesus, the living one offers you mercy,
Life more abundant in boundless supply.
He is an all sufficient savior. Now back to my question. Do you remember my question that was a few minutes ago? The question is this. Why, in light of this marvelous exposition of the priestly ministry of Jesus Christ has he said, up front, as it were, now, as you listen to this have two things in mind. First of all, I want to exhort you in the light of His greatness as your Savior, to hold fast your confession. Now, why that? And then why, in the light of this, I want you to draw near, so that you can find mercy and grace to help in time of need.
Yesterday, I was sharing in a wedding here in the church and the father of the bride, Colonel Lind, who is a chaplain in the army was sharing the service. We were sharing the service together. And I thought I should do what I actually hate doing, I thought, in light of this, I should get a haircut. And not let you all down by having unruly hair standing beside a military chaplain. And so I went to the barber and the barber I go to, he goes through the same routine every time. The last part of his ritual is he takes away the tissue from the back of the neck. Loosens the collar, a wee bit more. He dabs some mysterious stuff up here, down here around the back of the neck, and then he opens his cut throat razor. He may be your barber too. And as he put that cut throat razor to the back of my neck, the thought did cross my mind, “What if he loses the plot here?” And you may think our ministers very pious that he was thinking about this text when he was in the barbershop, but it was just as the razor touched the back of my neck, I thought, Ah, this is the reason why. This is the reason why. It is our common experience as Christians, to be under threat of the open razors of this world, to prevent us speaking about the Lord Jesus. And it's going to happen to you and to me this week. It happened to all of us probably last week, somebody use the Lord's name in vain. What did you do? A situation arose when that was a door open for you to make confession of your faith, but you thought, it's going to be embarrassing. I don't know how they will respond. What will happen to me. And he's saying, it's almost as though he is saying all of this to remind us of the promise of the Lord Jesus in the gospels: Never forget, that whoever confesses Me before men I will confess before My Father in heaven. And say to him, Father, do you see our child, my disciple there, send strength to them! Help them to know I am here loving them, protecting them, praying for them! That they are mine! Give them strength to be faithful and gracious in their witness! Why is that? Because actually, this is where we're all at our weakest. Now, some of us are very strange personalities. And sometimes they're very twisted personalities, actually. Because we behave like bulls in china shops. And we we put people off by what we call our faithfulness. And we don't have any gentleness and approachability in our witness. He’s not thinking about that. He's thinking about the fact that the challenge has come. And we need somebody to support us so that we can be faithful witnesses and make a good confession of our Lord Jesus Christ.
One of the late John Stott's probably least known books in the United states, is a little book he wrote entitled, Our Guilty Silence. Now this is the man of whom David whoever it is, who writes for The New York Times. And appears with Mark whatever his name is on the News Hour on a Friday night to discuss the situation, wrote, I think on the front page of The New York Times. If people should listen to one Christian in the English speaking world, who speaks intelligently and reasonably ungraciously, John Stott’s the man. So we're not talking here about some fringe individual, some strange individual. And he opens the book by saying he was traveling on an overnight train, and he had to share a compartment with a total stranger. And I think the stranger dropped his razor. Excuse me for the razor sermon this morning. But he dropped something. And he, I think, took the name of the Lord Jesus in vain. And here is John Stott, who has spoken to endless 1000s, about Jesus. And he finds himself wrestling with the question, Do I or do I not say something to him? This is, this is this is not something that you experience because you are Mr. or Mrs. or Master or Miss Nobody Christian. This is something we experience because we are Christians. The challenge is always there. And we need a great Savior to know that it's safe to confess Him - and will in his mercy be fruitful.
And then of course, there's the other area in which we are so weak. And we suffer some of us suffer pain day by day that few know about. For some of us that's physical pain for others of us it’s, it's the pain of a deep sorrow. Many of us feel weak, and we are tempted — and we need somebody — we’re just little boys and girls. My dear friends, we're just little boys and girls, we need somebody so that we can run right into his very heart and say, Lord Jesus just help me. And we are being told here, that the Lord Jesus will welcome us and as our priest, he would draw us into the very presence of God and assure us of the forgiveness of our sins and enable us to find mercy and grace in our time of need.
No wonder Richard of Chichester prayed, “Thanks be to You, Lord Jesus Christ, for all the benefits you have won for us. Oh most merciful Redeemer, friend and brother may we see you more clearly, love you more dearly and follow you more nearly.” Amen and amen.