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[0:00] But this week, we're going to be continuing our study of the book of Hebrews by bringing our attention to somebody that we've kind of hinted around about for a little while now.

[0:11] This Melchizedek. Now, up to this point, Melchizedek has been mentioned, and it seems like the author was getting ready to say something about him, but then he paused himself.

[0:23] He paused himself and says, look, we've got to just kind of do a reset here. Some of you, you're not able to hear what I'm about to tell you about Melchizedek because you've become dull of hearing.

[0:34] And so he begins to kind of introduce this Melchizedek in several places, but primarily he begins this process back in chapter 5. And so back in chapter 5, we see this Melchizedek being introduced in verse, let's just start reading in verse 5 of chapter 5.

[0:53] It says, so also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said, you are my son, today I have begotten you.

[1:03] As he also says in another place, you are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. And then he goes on to say a few more things about this, and then in verse 10 there he says, being designated by God a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

[1:20] And so you hear this name over and over again, and it's kind of interesting that he keeps introducing him and trying to get this started. But then he says, look, at this point the author takes a break from it, and he actually kind of gets on to the readers a little bit.

[1:36] He scolds them a little bit, and he tells them that about this there's a lot that I have to say, but I can't say right now because you have become dull of hearing.

[1:47] Or probably my favorite translation of that verse is he tells them that they have become too lazy to understand. Now, however, the author is ready to dig deeper into this now.

[2:00] He's ready to say, you know what, we've been introducing Melchizedek, now let's just jump right into the deep end and talk about who this Melchizedek was. Now I believe that as we look at chapter 7 as a whole, that I believe the main idea of this text is that Jesus is our high priest and king, and because of this he is able to save.

[2:24] Jesus is our high priest, he's our king, and because of this he is able to save. And the point that I want us to clearly see today as we work our way through this text is that Jesus is the only one with the authority to save.

[2:41] And our only hope in this life and the life to come is by placing our faith and our trust in him. This is the hope that we are going to be diving into today.

[2:55] And so before we can truly understand the point the author is trying to make about who Jesus is and what this means for us, we must first get some background information about this Melchizedek.

[3:08] So to begin with, I want us to quickly answer a question. And the question that I want us to answer as we begin this is very simply, who is Melchizedek?

[3:19] Who is this Melchizedek? And so we're going to look at the first 10 verses to begin with. And so if you will follow along as I read Hebrews chapter 7, verses 1 through 10, it says this.

[3:31] For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him. And to him, Abraham apportioned a 10th part of everything.

[3:46] He is first, by translation of his name, king of righteousness. And he is also king of Salem, that is, king of peace. He is without father or mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God, he continues a priest forever.

[4:05] See how great this man was to whom Abraham the patriarch gave a 10th of the spoils. And those descendants of Levi who received the priestly office have a commandment in the law to take tithes from the people, that is, from their brothers, though these also are descended from Abraham.

[4:25] But this man, who does not have his descent from them, received tithes from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises. It is beyond dispute that the inferior is blessed by the superior.

[4:39] In the one case, tithes are received by mortal men, but in the other case, by one of whom it is testified that he lives. One might even say that Levi himself, who receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham, for he was still in the loins of his ancestor when Melchizedek met him.

[5:00] And so as we look at this, we're beginning to see a little bit more of who Melchizedek is. Now this passage right here is really key for us understanding this, because outside of this, there are very few passages that shed light on Melchizedek, especially outside of Hebrews.

[5:16] Outside of Hebrews, there are just a couple of places that we'll find in Scripture where Melchizedek is mentioned or at least talked about. You have Genesis 14, which is pretty much giving you much of the same information that you see right here in Hebrews chapter 7.

[5:32] And then you also have Psalm 110 that says what Hebrews continues to say over and over again, that this Melchizedek is a high priest forever.

[5:44] Now in this passage, there are a few things that we really need to understand to better make this connection between Jesus and Melchizedek. Just in the first three verses here, there's a few things that we're able to see about who Melchizedek was.

[6:01] First of all, it says that he was a king. It says for this Melchizedek, king of Salem. Now Salem is a Hebrew word here that means peace.

[6:12] It tells us that again in verse 2 right there that he is a king of peace. And so we see that this king is king of Salem. He's king of peace.

[6:23] But it also tells us what his name Melchizedek means. It means this righteousness. He's a king of righteousness. And so right out of the gates, we're able to see that this Melchizedek is king of Salem.

[6:36] And many people believe that Salem would go on to become Jerusalem. And so this king of Jerusalem, this king of peace and this king of righteousness is who Melchizedek was.

[6:48] But we're also told right here something that's a little unique to him. That he's not only a king, but he's also a priest. Now essentially in the Old Testament, you had two priesthoods.

[7:01] You had the Levitical priesthood that we generally think of when we think of the priest in the Old Testament. The Levitical priesthood that was there when they conquered the promised land.

[7:13] The Levites were not given a portion of the land like the other tribes. Instead, their job was to work in the temple, handling all the details and the logistics of temple life.

[7:24] And a subset of the Levites, those who were descended from Aaron, the brother of Moses, could become priest. And so you have this Levitical priesthood. But our passage introduces another priesthood that's not nearly as well defined throughout the Old Testament.

[7:42] And it is a priesthood after the order of Melchizedek. The author's making the case that this order is greater than the Levitical order.

[7:52] This priesthood is greater than the Levitical priesthood. And so why would he even bother to do that? Because he's about to introduce to us this idea that Jesus is a better high priest.

[8:08] Because Jesus is a priest after the order of Melchizedek. And so we begin to see this. But also, I want us to quickly see right here that he was appointed.

[8:21] He's a priestly king who was appointed. Verse 3 tells us he was without father or mother or genealogy. Having neither beginning of days nor end of life.

[8:32] But resembling the Son of God, he continues a priest forever. So what does this mean? Does this mean that he's eternal? Is this a Christophomy? Is this an appearance of Christ in the Old Testament here?

[8:46] This doesn't seem to be the case. It seems that he was a real human and that he had a real father and mother. But the way that he's presented in Jesus makes it seem like he just pops in and he pops right back out.

[8:58] He's there and he's gone. He appears for a moment and then he is gone. He shows up out of nowhere and then disappears. It seems a little mysterious here. We're not told about his parents so it seems like he's eternal.

[9:14] And so what the author is trying to communicate is the great king and priest, the king of righteousness and priest, the priest who is a priest forever, is greater than Abraham and thus he is greater than the Levitical priesthood.

[9:29] But he's not just doing this for the fun of it. He's not just trying to build this idea of who Melchizedek is just for the fun of it. He's doing it to point to Christ.

[9:42] And so the next truth that I want us to see in this passage is that Jesus is our priestly king. Jesus is our priestly king.

[9:52] I want you to look at verses 11 through 19 with me here in Hebrews chapter 7. It says, It says, It says,

[10:58] Now this is one of those moments when I realized that we could spend a lot of time in this passage just looking at this.

[11:26] But in this section we clearly see that Jesus is perfect. We clearly see that he is sufficient. We clearly see he's a priestly king who has made the perfect sacrifice and the final atonement for his people.

[11:42] We see that his priesthood is perfect. We see that his priesthood is royal. And we see that his priesthood is eternal. Something that we continue to come back to over and over again in this.

[11:55] And so I want us to think about that last truth for just a moment. That his priesthood is eternal. Look at verses 15 and 16 again right there.

[12:05] Let's look at it a little more closely. Do you know what? Do you know what?

[12:24] Do you know what indestructible means? Isn't it a trick question? I mean, it just means that something can't be destroyed, right? It just simply means that it's something that can't be destroyed.

[12:38] Now, I don't know if you were like me, but I can remember when Nalgene bottles really first started making an appearance. I got those. I mean, everybody had a Nalgene bottle.

[12:49] And what everybody was saying about these bottles was you can't break them. They were making all kinds of crazy claims about it. And they're saying you could run over them with a car. You can slam them down. You can do all of these things.

[13:00] And they're indestructible. And they're indestructible. Well, when I hear that, I kind of want to put it to the test. I kind of want to see how indestructible this is. And so the first thing I did, filled it up with ice water, went up on a balcony, threw it off of the balcony onto a parking lot, and it cracked and busted immediately.

[13:19] Water went everywhere. And I'm like, okay, well, that didn't work. That wasn't what I was expecting. And so when we say that something's indestructible, we're not talking about that.

[13:29] We're not talking about something being tough or difficult to break, but a life that is impossible to destroy. A life that is impossible to destroy.

[13:42] A life that is beautifully and powerfully described in Acts chapter 2 when Peter is preaching at Pentecost and says, This Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

[14:02] Now, at this point, he doesn't seem indestructible. At this point, Peter's just said that Jesus died. And if this is where the story ends, well, then that's where the Bible ends.

[14:17] If this is where the story ends, then why are we even here today? But that's not where the story ends. So let's keep reading there. He was crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

[14:28] But God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death because it was not possible for him to be held by it.

[14:40] That is an indestructible life. That is our hope. That is what we build our lives on. This is everything.

[14:50] That's an indestructible life. Jesus holds a priesthood that is truly forever. This truth is life-changing and life-giving for us today. It means that Jesus' victory over death, hell, and the grave is final and it is eternal.

[15:08] Which means that the same power that conquered the grave is the same power that saves us today. The same power that raised Jesus from the grave is the same power that holds us today, that gives us hope, that gives us meaning.

[15:25] And so meaning that because it is not possible for death to have the final say over Jesus, this means that for those of us who are in Christ, it is not possible for death to have the final say over us either.

[15:41] This is the hope that we build our lives on. This is the hope that the Bible says if this isn't true, then it's all for nothing. This is everything. And so the fact that Jesus holds this priesthood forever, eternal, is life-changing and life-giving to us today.

[16:00] It is also what helps us to see one final truth that I want to spend the remainder of our time thinking about today. All of this is pointing to the truth that Jesus is a better Savior.

[16:16] All of this is coming together in the fact that Jesus is a better Savior. We've seen it through the order of Melchizedek, that Melchizedek is a better priesthood, a higher priesthood than the Levitical priesthood, because he's a priest and he's a king, and because he was appointed and he holds this forever.

[16:39] We see it through that. We see it that all of this is pointing to Jesus, that all of those things that were said about Melchizedek are perfected in Jesus, and now is coming to this final point that I want us to wrap our minds around this morning, that Jesus is a better Savior.

[16:58] I want you to look at verses 20 through 28 with me. It says this, And it was not without an oath, for those who formerly became priests were made such without an oath.

[17:11] But this one was made a priest with an oath by the one who said to him, The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, you are a priest forever.

[17:23] This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant. The former priests were many in number because they were prevented by death from continuing office. But he holds his priesthood permanently because he continues forever.

[17:39] Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

[17:50] For it was indeed fitting that we should have a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.

[18:01] He has no need, like those high priests, who offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself.

[18:15] For the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a son who has been made perfect forever.

[18:31] You see, up to this point, you may be thinking, Brett, this is great and all. I'm glad you're sharing this Melchizedek with us. The early readers probably would have been really impressed by this because, you know, there wasn't much to say about them, but now you're making it clear to them, but what in the world does it have to do with us today?

[18:49] I've never even thought about Melchizedek. I've never even come across it in my mind. I wouldn't even know how to pronounce it on the page right here. And you may be thinking, what's the point of all of this?

[19:00] The fact that Melchizedek was better than the Levitical priesthood, but what difference does it make to me today that Jesus is a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek?

[19:12] Well, first, it shows us that we have a better and final Savior. We have a better and final Savior. There are so many things that we could focus on in this passage, but there's three things that I want to really just bring our attention to that are laid out for us in these last few verses.

[19:32] All this talk about Melchizedek and Jesus helps us to see that Jesus is the guarantor of a better covenant. It allows us to see that He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to Him, draw near to God through Him.

[19:49] It allows us to understand that He always lives to make intercession for us. And so as we think about that, the first thing that I want us to see about Jesus being a better Savior is that we clearly see Jesus as the guarantor of a better covenant.

[20:07] Jesus as the guarantor. If you remember from last week, one of the major themes that we talked about was the surety of God's Word. We talked about how when God makes a promise, when God says something, it's true.

[20:23] That it doesn't matter what He says, if God speaks it, it's true. And so sometimes if the author is saying, hey, God made an oath with this, He swore by this, then what it's really emphasizing is the fact that we have a God who speaks, and when He speaks, He speaks truth.

[20:39] And so right here in this passage, He speaks this truth, and it tells us of this oath that He is making. The Lord has sworn and will not change His mind. You are a priest forever.

[20:51] You see, all of God's promises in the new covenant are guaranteed by Jesus Himself. He guarantees to pay all the debts that our sins have incurred or will ever incur against us.

[21:05] And so what this passage is reminding us of is that God's covenant promise cannot fail because God's priest, Jesus, cannot fail.

[21:18] All of these promises cannot fail because Jesus can't fail. He's the guarantor of this better covenant. A guarantor, you see, is someone who gives a guarantee to be responsible for someone else's debt.

[21:33] Jesus has guaranteed His life, death, and resurrection to be responsible for our debts. All too often, we think, Lord, if I could just be good enough.

[21:45] We try to gain confidence before God by saying, Lord, maybe if I come to church enough, maybe, I know, I'll give 11% to the church. And then maybe that will, you know, kind of make up for some of these other things.

[21:57] You know, I'll try to be there every time the church doors are open. I'll try to do this, and I'll try to do this. And we spend so much of our time trying to gain confidence before God based on our own works that we miss the point of this.

[22:12] And so maybe today you need to stop trying to be responsible for the debt that you can't pay and give it over to Jesus, the guarantor of a better covenant.

[22:24] But it also tells us here that Jesus is better because He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Him.

[22:36] In other words, Jesus is able to save to the uttermost. He's able to save those wretched sinners who are spending life in prison for crimes that we wouldn't even dare to speak about in church or from the pulpit.

[22:55] And He's able to save those wretched sinners who spent their life going to church, who spent their life looking good on the outside, who gave their life to being good on the outside, that they look good, they look the part, they look all these things, that on the outside, everybody said, they've got it together.

[23:17] And so Jesus is able to save those who are spending life in prison and those who are sitting in churches today who've put their hope in themselves. He's able to save to the uttermost.

[23:29] He's able to save in the greatest possible way. He's able to... So who does Jesus save to the uttermost? It tells us those who draw near to God through Him.

[23:42] Spurgeon, reflecting on this verse, said, he says, Where do these people come? They come to God, which implies leaving something else. If a man comes to God, he must leave his sins and his righteousness.

[23:58] He must leave both his bad works and his good ones. How do they come? They come by Jesus Christ. Do not consider that any will be heard and saved by God apart from the merits of his Son.

[24:15] This is why God is able to save to the uttermost. This is why God is able to save anyone that comes to Him. Because in coming to Him, you're saying that there is nothing that you can do to save yourself.

[24:28] This is how Jesus is able to save to the uttermost. Because He realizes that His life is the only one that can pay for yours. His life is the only one that is perfect.

[24:40] His life is the only one that is good enough. And because of that, by placing our faith and our trust in Him, by drawing near to God through Him, He is able to save us wherever we are today.

[24:53] But also finally, as we think about Jesus as a better Savior, there is a powerful and comforting truth in this passage. And that is that He always lives to make intercession.

[25:09] He always lives to make intercession. Sometimes we get a wrong picture of what it means for Jesus to be interceding for us. If you're like me, then you probably sometimes feel like Jesus and God must be getting fed up with you.

[25:26] If you're like me, you probably feel like, you know what? I've sinned again. You know, I keep going back to God saying, Lord, I keep doing this. And if you're like me, then it's really easy in your mind to just think God's getting fed up with you.

[25:40] That Jesus being an intercessor for us is like, God, I've looked. I know He's done it again. But look, just give Him one more shot. Give Him one more shot and let's see how.

[25:52] And before He has that sentence out of His mouth, I've done messed up again. And so finally, after the thousandth time of messing up and falling short, God finally says, that's it.

[26:04] Enough is enough. But this passage lets us know that this will never happen. man. This passage lets us know that He lives forever to make intercession for us.

[26:25] That there's never going to come an end to that. One of my favorite, if not favorite authors is Jerry Bridges. And in one of his books, he was reflecting on this idea that this justice has been satisfied.

[26:41] And he wrote this. And I've mentioned this a time or two before a while back. But it's a chapter in the book that I continue to go back to sometimes. And it continues to be helpful for me.

[26:52] So I pray that it's helpful for you as well. But he wrote this. He says, Now this is where Christians oftentimes find themselves.

[27:20] Where a lot of times we get fed up with ourselves and we fed up with our decisions and we fed up with our sin and so frustrated by our actions that we think God is about to just get fed up with us and be done with us forever.

[27:35] But Bridges went on to say, he says, Immediately, on the hill of those words though came this thought, No, you wouldn't. Because Jesus satisfied your justice for me.

[27:50] You see, if you are a follower of Christ, if you've placed your faith and your trust in Jesus, you can never say that God would be perfectly just in sending you to hell because of Jesus.

[28:04] It is a very accurate statement that apart from Jesus, we are all perfectly on a path to hell. That God would be perfectly just in sending us to hell apart from Jesus.

[28:17] But because of Jesus, that truth changes. Because of that truth, our eternity changes. This is the beauty of the gospel that we need to be reminded of every day.

[28:29] That there is nothing we can do to make God love us anymore. Nothing that we have done to make Him love us any less. This is a truth that we can hold on to because of what Jesus accomplished on the cross.

[28:43] It was perfect. It was complete. It was finished. It was finished. And so instead of Jesus standing before God shaking His hand, His head with His arms telling us, God, I don't know what to do with Him.

[28:54] We must picture Jesus standing before God holding up His finished work on the cross and saying, He's mine. That's mine.

[29:05] That one belongs to me. That one's bought and paid for. And then exhaustible love and mercy bought and paid for by Christ Himself.

[29:18] Look at verse 26. It says, For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.

[29:33] That sounds like a better high priest to me. And He says, He has no need like the other priests who offer sacrifices daily first for His own sins and then also for those of the people since He did this once and for all when He offered up Himself.

[29:49] This is a better high priest. You know, it's not often that I try to go through 28 verses of Scripture in a Sunday. It's not often that we'll try to take that much and actually this is one of those passages that probably could have taken three or four weeks easily to cover that.

[30:08] There's enough depth, there's enough theological truth to go into this in a much deeper manner. But the reason I wanted us to look at the entire chapter in one week was because I hope that it's able to point us to seeing Jesus more clearly.

[30:25] Melchizedek is a fascinating person in the Bible and it would benefit all of us to spend more time thinking about Him. It would benefit all of us to start thinking about the theological truths of what it means for Him to be a high priest and a king and to be appointed that have no beginning or end.

[30:43] It would benefit all of us to spend more time thinking about His connection to and foreshadowing of Jesus. The fact that He was a priestly king, the fact that He was appointed, all of those things.

[30:55] But ultimately, I believe the author is using all of this to help us see Jesus more clearly. I believe what the author is trying to do is trying to open up our minds to see Jesus for who He truly is.

[31:11] To wrap our minds around the goodness and the greatness of who Christ is. That yes, He is a king. He's a king of righteousness. He's a king of peace. He is a high priest who is able to make perfect on the sacrifice with His own life.

[31:27] He's a high priest forever. He constantly lives to make intercession for us. He's trying to do all of that to help us to see that Jesus is a better Savior.

[31:38] He's the only Savior. He's better than anything and everything in this world and He's worth giving our lives to. A hope that clearly points to Jesus as the guarantor of a better covenant.

[31:50] A hope that shows us Jesus and Jesus alone can save to the other most those who come to Him. A hope that gives us the wonderful assurance that we have a Savior who never ceases to make intercession for us.

[32:03] And so today it is my hope and prayer that we see Jesus as the only one with authority to save. And our only hope in this life and the life to come is by placing our faith and our trust in Him.

[32:19] Some of us here today just need to be reminded that Jesus saves in the greatest way possible. And that as a child of the King He never looks at you with disgust or disappointment but He looks at you as His child.

[32:37] Let that be what drives you to live for Him to serve Him to be obedient to Him possibly by changing the way that you interact with those who are closest to you. Maybe by the way that you use the resources that God has blessed you with maybe by serving Him in a different capacity whether that means changing a vocation and going into the ministry maybe that means deciding and praying about where God wants to lead you and your family to serve Him.

[33:05] Maybe it means being obedient to Him by joining this church. Maybe it means being obedient to Him by following through with believers' baptism. That's been a prayer of mine over the last little while and over the last three weeks in the 11 o'clock service we've gotten to see five baptisms and two more that are going to take place next Sunday.

[33:24] Many of those or about half of those are children half of those are adults who at one point in their life were baptized but they realized that at that moment in their life they didn't realize what they were doing they were being baptized because their friends were because they felt pressure to.

[33:43] But now that they've given their life to Jesus they want to follow through with that baptism. Hopefully this passage as we see Jesus more clearly it causes us to have more faith and trust in Him to serve Him in greater ways.

[33:58] But others in here may need to see and believe Jesus for the first time. And so I want to ask you are you ready to come to the Father through faith in Christ? Are you ready to give your life to Jesus?

[34:11] Are you ready to follow Him? Are you ready to say Lord there is no hope on my own I'm placing my faith and my trust in You because You and You alone can save.

[34:22] Father thank You so very much for this passage Lord a passage that causes us to jump into some deep waters to think more clearly about who You are and so Lord I pray that You have helped us to see You more clearly.

[34:39] Lord that we wouldn't become too lazy to understand these truths that are in Your Word but Lord that we would take the time that we would dive into Your Word to see You more clearly for who You are.

[34:50] and so Lord I pray that as we see You more clearly that You would give us the boldness to live for You. Help us to see You clearly so that we can live for You in greater ways whether that's changing how we interact with our families by changing how we devote our time and our resources to things maybe by changing where we live or what we do or how we use the resources that You've given to us.

[35:21] Lord give us a bold faith to live for You to serve You with everything that we have and Lord I pray that if there's someone here today that has never given their life to You that's never placed their faith and their trust in You that You would help them to see You more clearly so that they can realize that You and You alone have the power to save.

[35:51] Lord thank You for this passage thank You for what it teaches us about You and help us to live for You in greater ways. We ask all this in Jesus name Amen. I want to invite you to stand we're going to sing a song of invitation and if God is speaking I want you to respond as we stand together and sing.