Good afternoon everyone. I repeat the welcome that Johnny gave at the beginning.
Particularly delighted to have you with us if you're a visitor to the church here.
We're about halfway through our studies in the book of Hebrews
and I was quite amused when the first commentator picked up to try and help me
with the passage we're looking at today said this,
we have now reached the part of the letter which modern readers sometimes find a little difficult.
So it's all been very, very straightforward and easy to understand up till now
and it's becoming maybe a little more tricky.
Obviously the book of Hebrews, all of it has challenges for us.
But perhaps the section we're coming into now for a 21st century Western audience
is particularly difficult because it relates back to things that we maybe don't understand very easily
and some of the arguments that the writer uses are ones which we wouldn't necessarily think of ourselves.
So we've got quite a long and quite complex passage today.
So it would be a good beginning if we just gave ourselves a little bit of context for it.
And I was thinking how could we very briefly sum up the book of Hebrews?
And I got it down to four words.
These are my four words.
Jesus is worth it.
Now you may or may not think that's a good description.
It really all depends on what do I mean by it.
What is Jesus worth?
Jesus is worth the highest place in our thoughts and in our hearts.
The writer of the Hebrews has emphasised to us that Jesus is greater than the prophets,
he's greater than the angels, he's greater than Moses, he's greater than Joshua,
he's greater than Aaron and the priests, and so on.
Jesus is the one who deserves the highest place in our thoughts and in our hearts.
And that is very much what the writer to Hebrews is trying to get across to us,
and will be again in today's passage.
But there's another sense in which he's saying Jesus is worth it.
And in that case, it is the problems that we experience in our lives.
In particular, the writer's book of Hebrews was writing to people who are going through
times of difficulty, of persecution, because they were Christians.
And some of them were saying, well, is it worth it?
And periodically throughout the book, the writer emphasises, yes, it is worth it.
Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus.
He is worth it.
Whatever you face in this world is nothing compared to knowing Jesus.
Jesus is worth it.
And again, in the passage we're looking at today, that is largely what he's trying to address.
So people were saying we're going through these times of great difficulty.
Can we really trust God's promises to us?
And the writer says, yes, you can trust God's promises.
They're foreboding Jesus, and Jesus is worth it.
People were also saying, you've talked about Jesus as a high priest.
But we know our Jewish history and religion, and the priests all come from the tribe of Levi.
And Jesus didn't come from the tribe of Levi.
So how can he be a high priest?
And again, the writer addresses that, and he says, actually, Jesus is greater than the high priest.
Jesus is worth it.
Now we come today from all sorts of backgrounds, I suspect.
For some of us, we may come saying Jesus is worth it.
He's worth the highest place in my heart and in my mind.
And I really love him, and I want to give my life to him.
Great, you have some of the testimonies earlier on of people really committed to doing God's will in their lives.
Other people might be saying, well, I'm not sure if Jesus is worth it.
I find it difficult to be a Christian.
In our country, we don't tend to get persecuted in the way some of our brothers and sisters in other countries do.
But it can still be quite difficult to live as a Christian.
I was quite shocked this week at some of the responses to the announcement that Dan Walker was going to be hosting breakfast television.
Dan Walker is a fairly well-known sports presenter at the moment.
He's also a very fine Christian.
And there were several articles written during the week that said, in effect, Dan Walker is a creationist.
Therefore, we can't trust him to read the news.
It wasn't much more than that they were saying.
Now, most of us probably don't get that, but in our own particular place of work,
or the people we associate with, or at university, or whatever,
if we stick our head above the parapet,
sometimes people will mock us, or will try to put us down for our faith.
And it can be difficult.
We need to be convinced Jesus is worth it.
And sometimes in other things in life, if we go through times of illness,
or of bereavement, or of family heartaches,
again, people might say, well, is it really worth it?
And the writer of Hebrews today is saying to us, yes, it's worth it.
Jesus is worth anything that you can give for him.
So what's the passage about?
Just a very high-level overview, and then we'll get into it.
So three sections we're going to look at,
and each case we'll read the passage and then talk a little bit about it.
In the first section, the writer's talking about an enduring promise.
Promises made thousands of years ago to Abraham, and he says it's still relevant today.
And we can trust the promise because it comes from God.
In the second section, he's talking about an exceptional priesthood.
We have this guy, Melchizedek, who really only appears twice in the Old Testament,
but the writer of Hebrews makes quite a lot of them.
And his priesthood is exceptional, exceptional in the sense that it's different from other priesthoods,
also exceptional in the sense that it's better, that it's the best, exceptionally good.
And then finally at the end, the writer talks about an effective provision.
And he talks about what Jesus has done and how that is sufficient to meet all our needs.
It's an enduring promise, an exceptional priesthood, and an effective provision.
So let's read now the first part of that from Hebrews chapter 6 from verse 13.
And it'll come up on the screen if you don't want to follow in your Bible.
Look at our Bible 100.
Hebrews 6 verse 13, and it says,
When God made his promise to Abraham,
since there was no one greater for him to swear by,
he swore by himself,
saying, I will surely bless you and give you many descendants.
And so after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised.
Men swear by someone greater than themselves.
And the oath confirms what is said and puts an end to all argument.
But God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the ears of what was promised.
He confirmed it with an oath.
God did this so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie,
we who have pled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged.
We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.
It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain,
where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf.
He has become a high priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.
So in this passage, we're introduced again to Abraham.
And in particular, to the promise that God made to Abraham.
Now, the particular verse he refers back to is in Genesis chapter 22.
It's in the passage where Abraham is asked to offer up Isaac, his son, as a sacrifice.
And at the last minute, God provides a ram instead for the sacrifice.
But the writer extends it more generally to Abraham's life and to the fact that God promised that he would have a descendant who were greater than the stars in the sky,
greater than the sands in the seashore.
And yet, Abraham at that point was childless.
And for many years, Abraham had to live on the promise of God.
When he got way past the age where he was likely to have children, his wife Sarah was likely to have children,
he had to rely on the promise of God and the fact that God would keep his promise.
And Abraham in that is seen as an example to us, as someone whom we can follow.
And the writer of the Hebrews says, as we look at that,
then there are a number of things that we can learn about God's promise.
And there's three pictures in particular I want to just look at very briefly.
The first picture for us is one you would find in a courtroom.
So if you're called to give evidence in a courtroom, you're asked either to affirm or if you're happy to swear on the Bible
and to say, I swear by a mighty God that the evidence I give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
And in a court of law, and it's been the same down through the centuries, obviously the same in the first century as well,
if you swore by the name of God and said, I swear by God that what I'm saying is true,
then that gave it some extra credibility.
You were swearing by someone, not just by saying, I'm saying this is right,
you're saying, I swear by God that this is right, and I'm going to tell the truth because of that.
Now God doesn't need to swear by himself in that kind of sense because he is absolutely trustworthy.
But Abraham says when God wanted to be really, really emphasizing the certainty of his promise,
he chose to swear by his own name because there's no one who has a greater name than God.
And he wanted us to be absolutely certain that he will keep his promise.
When he swore to Abraham in Genesis 22, and he swore by himself,
he wanted Abraham to be absolutely certain that God would keep his promises.
And that's a great thing for us to learn today.
We can be absolutely certain that God will keep his promises.
When we might fail, when we might promise something and it might or might not happen,
depending on how we feel or if we remember or whatever,
God will keep his promises, not necessarily we'll see the answer immediately.
Abraham had to wait for it, but we can be confident in God that he is utterly reliable.
Now bring us to the second picture.
The second picture is a picture of an anchor.
Now we have a kind of funny mixed metaphor towards the end of this passage.
We've got an anchor that seems to be thrown behind a curtain.
I think we don't want to take too much of that.
We'll take the two separately and look at them.
So what the writer of the Hebrews says is we,
if we're going through difficult times in our lives,
we need to have this anchor, which is the hope that we have in the Lord Jesus.
Now in the Bible, hope is not just something we think might happen and might not happen.
The hope is something that God has promised us that we know is going to happen.
It's not got the uncertainty that there normally would be when we talk about hope.
And the writer of the Hebrews says this hope that we have in Jesus
and this reliance that we have in God's promise,
it should be like an anchor in our lives.
It's quite interesting that in modern business speak,
people talk about life anchors.
You occasionally go on courses, people talk about what are your life anchors.
Well, for the Christian, our life anchor is our hope in Jesus,
our knowledge that we know him, that he has saved us from our sins,
and that one day we will go to be with him.
That is what keeps us going through times of trouble.
That is what helps us to understand that Jesus is worth it.
And then the third picture is of the curtain.
It enters the inner sanctuaries,
it's the hope that's been talked about behind the curtain,
where our forerunner Jesus has entered on our behalf.
So we're back into the pictures of the Jewish religion.
In the temple and previous to that,
in the tabernacle, there was a curtain,
there was a veil that only the high priest could go through,
and only once a year.
It was where he went to make the sacrifice for atonement for the people.
It was where he went to be in the very presence of God.
With the death of the Lord Jesus, that curtain was torn in two,
and the writer says, we have access freely into God's presence.
But what he's thinking about particularly here is that Jesus is the one who's gone before us
into the very presence of God, into heaven, if you like.
Jesus has gone there as our forerunner,
and if we know him, if our trust is in him,
we will go to be with him.
He has entered on our behalf,
and we will one day go to be with him.
So that's why we can have confidence in God.
That is why Jesus is worth it.
God's word is reliable.
The hope that we have is an anchor for our souls
in the difficulties of life.
And whatever we face, we know there is someone who has gone before us,
that the Lord Jesus is there preparing our place,
and one day we will go to be with him.
Right, so that's the first part of the passage.
Let's move on to chapter 7 now,
and we're going to think about Melchizedek.
So chapter 7, reading from verse 1.
It says,
This Melchizedek was king of Salem and priest of God Most High.
He met Abraham returning from the defeat of the kings and blessed him,
and Abraham gave him a tenth of everything.
First his name, that's Melchizedek's name,
means king of righteousness.
Then also king of Salem means king of peace.
Without father or mother, without genealogy,
without beginning of days or end of life,
like the Son of God, he remains a priest forever.
Just think how great he was.
Even the patriarch Abraham gave him a tenth of the plunder.
Now the law requires the descendants of Levi,
who become priests, to collect a tenth from the people,
that is, their brothers,
even though their brothers are descended from Abraham.
This man, however, did not trace his descent from Levi.
Yet he collected a tenth from Abraham
and blessed him who had the promises.
And without doubt,
the lesser person is blessed by the greater.
In the one case, the tenth is collected by men who die,
but in the other case,
by him who is declared to be living.
One might even say that Levi, who collects the tenth,
paid the tenth through Abraham.
Because when Melchizedek met Abraham,
Levi was still in the body of his ancestor.
If perfection could have been attained through the Levitical priesthood,
from the basis of the law that was given to the people,
why was there still need for another priest to come,
one in the order of Melchizedek,
not in the order of Aaron?
For when there is a change of the priesthood,
there must also be a change of the law.
He of whom these things are said belonged to a different tribe,
and no one from that tribe has ever served at the altar.
For it is clear that our Lord descended from Judah,
and in regard to that tribe,
Moses said nothing about priests.
And what we have said is even more clear
if another priest like Melchizedek appears,
one who has become a priest,
not on the basis of a regulation as to his ancestry,
but on the basis of the power of an indestructible life.
For it is declared,
you are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.
So we have this guy, Melchizedek,
who's referred to repeatedly in this passage
by the writer to the Hebrews.
Melchizedek is only mentioned in two places in the Old Testament.
He's mentioned in the book of Genesis,
and then he's referred to briefly in Psalm 110.
In the book of Genesis,
it comes about when Abraham has been at battle.
Abraham's nephew, Lot,
had made a very foolish decision to go and live in Sodom,
and there had been a bit of a war,
and he'd been taken away as a captive,
and Abraham went and rescued him,
defeated those who were the enemies,
brought back the plunder,
and came back in triumph.
And this man, Melchizedek,
came out to meet Abraham,
and Abraham gave him a tenth of everything he had.
And Melchizedek is described as both a king and a priest.
And the writer to the Hebrews,
almost as an aside,
makes mention of the fact that his name,
Melchizedek, means king of righteousness,
and the place he came from, Salem, means peace,
so he's also king of peace.
And clearly that fits very well with our thoughts of the Lord Jesus.
But we know really nothing of Melchizedek for certain
beyond what we read in Genesis,
and that very brief reference in Psalms.
And that means he's become a bit of a person of mystery,
and people wonder, well, who really was Melchizedek?
And there are two views, I think, main of that.
And I'm going to use a current analogy
to kind of hopefully help us understand.
This character on the screen now,
many of you will recognize, is the Stig.
So the Stig is best known as being the racing driver
who's appeared on Top Gear and various other programs.
He's a man of mystery.
No one, in theory at least, knows who he is.
He appears, he drives very fast,
and he goes away again.
But no one doubts that the Stig is a real person.
Behind that mask, there's someone who's got a father and a mother
who lives somewhere in the UK,
and there's someone, if we met in the streets,
he would be a real person we could talk to and interact with.
He just is, kind of, we don't know exactly who he is.
One of the views of Melchizedek is a bit like that.
Well, he's a bit of a mystery figure,
but he's just someone who is in the Old Testament,
and the writer of the Hebrews is using him as an analogy.
He was a real person, a man,
and although it says he didn't have father and mother,
that's just figuratively we don't know who his father and mother was.
He didn't have the normal human parents and human descendants,
but he's a bit of a mystery,
and he's used because of that as an example
by the writer to the Hebrews.
Perhaps in support of that,
I was interested, I've been reading Alec Mottier's latest book,
which is really excellent.
I really recommend it to you,
The Christian's Pocket Guide to Loving the Old Testament.
And what Alec Mottier suggests
is that when Joshua conquered the land of Israel,
that the king in Jerusalem at that time
was someone called Adonai Zedek.
And Alec Mottier says,
well, maybe there's been a Zedek dynasty
of priest kings in Jerusalem,
because Adonai Zedek means much the same as Melchizedek.
And maybe when the reference is made to Psalm 110,
to being a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek,
in the first instance,
it is thinking of David,
who's made his throne in Jerusalem,
being the king in Jerusalem,
as being the kind of successor to Melchizedek.
In other words,
Melchizedek was a real man
who had descendants,
and whose descendants were kings in Jerusalem.
So that's one view.
Second view,
there's James Judi Dench.
Actually, if you look a bit closely,
it's not James Judi Dench.
It's Tracy Ellman dressed up
to look like James Judi Dench.
She's got the appearance of being
a very well-known actress,
but actually it's just someone who's playing her.
And the second view of Melchizedek
is actually he wasn't just a normal man
who happened to come across Abraham's pathway.
Melchizedek was some heavenly being.
Among the Dead Sea Scrolls,
there's something called the Melchizedek Scroll.
And that seems to suggest
that Melchizedek was an angel
who fought a battle against evil,
who had some involvement in the atonement and so on,
that he was a heavenly being.
Perhaps more relevantly to many of us,
there are a lot of people
who feel that Melchizedek
was actually a pre-incarnation appearance
of the Lord Jesus.
Although it says he was like Jesus,
actually this was Jesus appearing
before he came into this world.
Actually, that is not the main point.
Whatever view you take of Melchizedek,
that is not the main point.
It's very interesting,
but it's not what the writer is trying to tell us.
It doesn't really matter to our understanding
of the passage who Melchizedek is.
Because the writer to Hebrews
makes really two main points about Melchizedek.
Now he makes them in great detail,
and we've not got time to go into the detail
this afternoon,
but two main points he makes
about Melchizedek
and his exceptional priesthood.
The first thing he says
is that Melchizedek and the Lord Jesus
as the one of the order of Melchizedek
has a better qualification
to be a high priest
even than the descendants of Aaron.
And I love, I think,
it's verse 16 of the passage
where it says,
Melchizedek became a priest
not on the basis of regulation
as to his ancestry,
but on the basis of the power
of an indestructible life.
Very true of the Lord Jesus,
the power of an indestructible life.
So the priests in Israel
were all from the tribe of Levi,
the high priest.
They would be descended,
all of them, from Aaron.
The way he became a high priest
was not by deciding,
I'm going to set my life aside
to serve God
and you could come from anywhere
and do that,
as would be the case now.
Rather, to be a priest,
you had to be from the tribe of Levi.
That was the rule.
The Levites didn't have
any territory of their own,
but the other Israelites
gave 10% of everything they had
and that was largely to support
the Levites who were set apart
as being particularly God's people,
God's representatives,
and among them, the priests.
And so quite legitimately,
someone reading Hebrews saying,
Jesus is seen as the great high priest,
they could say,
well, how can that be?
Because he's not from the tribe of Levi,
born in the tribe of Judah.
And so the writer here is saying,
doesn't matter who's born
from the tribe of Judah
because his priesthood
isn't the priesthood of Aaron,
it's the priesthood of Melchizedek.
And that's not based on
who your father and your grandfather
and so on,
going back up to Aaron was.
That is based on the character
of the person.
And Jesus has a better qualification
to be the high priest
because he is the one
who is eternal
and indestructible,
as the writer says.
He is the one who is God's son.
And that is the callback
to Melchizedek.
Yes, you can be a priest
without being from the tribe of Levi
because Melchizedek was a priest
without being from the tribe of Levi.
And Jesus is from his lineage
rather than from the lineage of Aaron.
He has a better qualification
than the normal priests
for what he does.
And then the second thing
the writer says
is he has a higher status.
Now to really understand that,
we have to realize
that ancestry was really,
really important to the Jews.
And you look back
and you saw who your ancestors were.
And that was something
that gave you
whatever status you had.
And the writer here says
this man Melchizedek
had a higher status
than the priests
of the Old Testament,
the priests of the Aaronic priesthood
because Abraham
gave him a tenth of his possessions
and he blessed Abraham.
And Abraham was the ancestor
of all the priests of Israel.
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob,
Levi,
and then the priests
were descended
down that line.
And so the writer says
that because Melchizedek
blessed Abraham,
he was greater than Abraham.
Because Abraham gave him a tithe,
that was also a sign
that Melchizedek was greater
than Abraham.
And because all the priests
are descended from Abraham
and therefore can't be superior
to him,
then Melchizedek's priesthood
is superior to Aaron's priesthood.
And Jesus is a priest
after the order of Melchizedek.
I hope that's made
a little bit of sense.
It is a long
and quite complicated passage,
but I do want to spend
some time on the end
of chapter 7,
so we'll leave it there
for Melchizedek
and we'll move on.
Let's read the following verses
of this chapter.
So after Hebrews 7,
verse 18,
the former regulation
is set aside
because it was weak
and useless,
for the law
made nothing perfect
and a better hope
is introduced
by which we draw
near to God.
And it was not
without an oath.
See, we're back again
where we were in chapter 6.
It was not without an oath.
Others became priests
without any oath,
but he became a priest
with an oath
when God said to him,
the Lord has sworn
and will not change his mind.
You are a priest forever.
Because of this oath,
Jesus has become
the guarantee
of a better covenant.
Now, there have been
many of those priests
since death prevented them
from continuing in office.
But because Jesus
lives forever,
he has a permanent priesthood.
Therefore, he's able
to save completely
those who come to God
through him
because he always lives
to intercede for them.
Such a high priest
meets our need.
One who is holy,
blameless, pure,
set apart from sinners,
exalted above the heavens.
Unlike the other high priests,
he does not need
to offer sacrifices
day after day,
first for his own sins
and then for the sins
of the people.
He sacrificed for their sins
once for all
when he offered himself.
For the law appoints
as high priests
men who are weak,
but the oath
which came after the law
appointed the Son
who has been made
perfect forever.
What the righteous
Hebrews is doing now,
he's moving on.
He said Jesus
is a greater high priest
than the high priests
under the Jewish tradition,
but he's saying
in particular
he's greater
because what he has achieved
is very much greater
than anything
that they could ever
achieve.
And so we have
a number of comparisons
between the high priest
from the tribe of Levi,
the descendants of Aaron,
and our great high priest,
the Lord Jesus.
And the writer points out
a number of things.
He says,
first of all,
under the tradition of Aaron,
there were many high priests.
You were appointed high priest,
you did that job for a while,
and then you died.
And then someone else
took over as high priest.
Ashton,
by the time of Jesus,
it seems that the high priest
was more of a rotation,
more of a yearly thing,
but in principle,
the high priest served
for a while,
then they died,
and someone took over
as high priest
because they were just
men like us.
They were ordinary,
normal,
human beings.
But the writer says
when it comes to Jesus,
you only need
one high priest
because Jesus
is alive
forever.
It's this idea again
of this indestructible
life.
Jesus is the only
high priest we need
because he isn't
a mortal man.
Yes, he came,
he lived as a man,
he lived among us,
lived a perfect life,
but he is God,
the Son of God,
he is eternal.
And where the high priest
could only serve
for a while,
Jesus can serve
forever.
Second thing he says
about the high priests,
again,
they were just people
like us.
They were sinners.
They did things
that were wrong,
and when they came
to God,
the first thing
they had to do
was to make sacrifice
for their own sins,
for all the things
that they'd done wrong
before they could
really make sacrifices
for the sins
of the people.
The sacrifice they made
were for both
their sins
and for the people's sins.
But our high priest,
he is perfect.
Some great wording
in this passage.
He is holy,
blameless,
pure,
set apart from sinners,
exalted above the heavens.
There was no need
for Jesus
to make a sacrifice
for himself
because he was
absolutely sinless.
He was the only person
who's ever lived
in this world
who never did
anything wrong.
And because of that,
he didn't need
to make sacrifice
for his own sins,
but he was able
to sacrifice
just for the sins
of others,
for our sins.
Third thing
the writer says,
the sacrifices
that were made
in the Old Testament
under the Old Testament
order
had to be made
regularly.
He talks about daily,
the Day of Atonement,
the big sacrifice
was once a year,
but every day
if you went to the temple,
there would be people
there making sacrifices.
They had to be made
again and again
because they weren't
long-term effective.
They were a repeated thing
that had to be made
to keep the people
right with God,
but they were something
that could never
really free them
from the bondage
to sin
and to the law.
But Jesus
made one sacrifice
forever.
He didn't need
to go and repeat
that sacrifice
again and again
because the one sacrifice
he made,
the sacrifice of himself,
was sufficient
to cover all our sins
if we trust in him
and sufficient
to bring us
forgiveness
and a relationship
with God.
That brings us
to the final contrast
in the passage
that the priests
offered sacrifice
of animals,
the Lord Jesus
offered the sacrifice
of himself.
He didn't need
sacrifice.
Sacrifice of animals
could have been
ineffective
from that point
of view.
The effective sacrifice
before God
was the sacrifice,
the willing sacrifice
of his son,
taking my place
on the cross,
dying my death
so that I could
be forgiven,
so that I could
know God
and have real hope
for the future.
And the sacrifice
of Jesus
is so much greater
than all the other
sacrifices.
It's a once-for-all
sacrifice
and is a sacrifice
of the one
who is absolutely
perfect
and sinless
who gave himself
for our sins.
And that is why
Jesus is worth it.
Worth the greatest
praise that we can
give him
because he gave
himself for us.
He died
for our sins.
I've done pretty well
gone,
but let's just draw
a couple of conclusions
to take away with us.
So we thought
at the beginning
about the promises
that God made
and the first thing
I hope we can take away
is that we can trust
God's promises.
That what God
has said to us
and what God
has done for us
through the Lord Jesus
and the hope
if we're Christians
that we'll go to be
with the Lord
when we leave this earth,
that can be the anchor
for the soul,
that can be the thing
that we can really
depend on.
It's when we come
to times of trouble
that our faith
is really tested
and the genuineness
of our faith
becomes apparent
or otherwise.
One of the really sad things
about the death
of Terry Wogan
a couple of weeks ago
was some of the obituaries
in the paper said
that Wogan
lost his faith
when he lost his daughter
at a young age.
She died
as a child.
At that stage,
Wogan decided
that the Christian faith
he'd been taught
as a child in Ireland
that that wasn't worth anything
and he left it behind.
He felt he'd just
been brainwashed.
I contrast that
with a lady
in the Christian Fellowship
and my work lady
called Mary
who had just been
diagnosed with cancer
for the second time
and Mary sent me a text.
Let me just read it to you.
I know that God
has me by the hand
and won't let me go.
I know that God
is in the midst
of this with me
and I shall not be moved.
I have been proclaiming
that the big C in my life
is Christ.
Cancer
is a small C.
And that is for
those who have their faith
in the Lord Jesus,
those who know
they can utterly depend on them.
That is when our faith
becomes most evident.
When we come to the time
of trial,
when things are difficult
for us
and yet we can say
I have absolute confidence
in Jesus.
I know he won't let me down.
I trust God's promises
completely and absolutely.
I know what Jesus
has done for me
in dying on the cross
and because of that
I know he will always
keep his promises.
He will always
be with me.
We can trust
God's promises.
And the second thing
what we just looked at
is we can rely
on Jesus' sacrifice.
One of the great lessons
of Hebrews
is we can't rely
on ourselves.
That we,
like the priests
we've been talking about,
like all the characters
we've looked at
over the previous chapters.
We are sinful,
we are flawed,
and we can't do it
by ourselves.
And yet we can be
absolutely confident
if our trust is in Jesus.
If we believe
that he died for us,
if we turn to him
as being the only one
who can bring us forgiveness.
We can rely on that
once for all,
perfect,
eternal sacrifice.
We can know
that we have
a future
that is secure,
that we have
a real hope
that can be
an anchor
for us.
I think the challenge
for us today
is do we have
that hope?
Are we relying
on Jesus?
Absolutely.
Is there any element
of me that says
I'm relying on myself,
trying to live a good life,
and do my best,
and God will be okay
with that?
The clear message
of this passage
is God will not be okay
with us trying
to do our best
because our best
is just totally inadequate.
we need to rely
on the one
who is perfect.
We need to rely
on Jesus'
sacrifice for us.
So let's leave
with our thoughts
focused on the cross
of the Lord Jesus
where he went
and where he took
our sins,
and let each of us
examine ourselves
to see whether we
truly are trusting
in him,
whether we are relying
on him,
whether we have
his salvation
and his hope
for the future.
Let's pray together.
Father,
we thank you
for your word.
We thank you
even in the difficult passages
you have so much
to say to us.
We thank you
particularly
if this passage
points us
to your faithfulness,
to the fact
that we can rely
absolutely on you,
and to the fact
that Jesus,
our great high priest,
has offered
his own blood
for us.
He has died
in our place,
and so we can
have forgiveness,
we can have
peace with yourself.
And so we take
for ourselves
the words
that were written
by Isaac Watts
that says,
Jesus,
my great high priest,
offered his blood
and died.
My guilty conscience
seeks no sacrifice
beside.
His powerful blood
did once atone,
and now he pleads
before the throne.
May each of us
have that assurance
in our lives
that Jesus
has sacrificed
and felt for us.
We pray that you
will give us that
and help us
to have our trust
wholly in him.
Thank you for being with us.
We commit ourselves
to you now
in his name.
Amen.