Jesus: Our Great High Priest

[0:00] And with that marvelous prayer in our hearts and on our lips, just pause for a moment in quietness as we come to God's Word.

[0:11] Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your Word, which is living, active, and powerful, and which comes with promise that as it goes out, it will not return to you empty.

[0:30] Lord, so the words that we've sung is the prayer of our hearts. We pray that you would touch us and from this moment change us. And so may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer.

[0:51] Amen. Amen. Well, we come this morning, as John's already mentioned, to the fifth of our series in the book of Hebrews. I'm aware that people can preach on the book of Hebrews for a very long time, period of years.

[1:07] And we're cracking through it fairly quickly. Part 5 brings us up to the end of chapter 4 and the beginning of chapter 5. Just a quick review as we dig in to orient ourselves.

[1:22] This letter of Hebrews is an anonymous letter written, it seems, to a group of Jewish Christians who are now in danger of losing their faith. In fact, they think they have lost something in becoming Christians.

[1:36] And the burden of the letter to the Hebrew Christians is to urge them to understand they haven't lost something. They're in danger of losing something for the thing that they have gained.

[1:49] And what have they gained? In a word, it's Jesus. And so the first two chapters are all about Jesus. The first chapter, that Jesus is the Son of God, the exact representation of the divine being, fully God, in fact.

[2:09] And as the writer moves into chapter 2, he demonstrates that this one who is the exact representation of God is also fully human. In fact, one who is our brother, and he is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters.

[2:28] So fully God and fully man. Having set out who the Son of God is, the writer then talks a bit about who the people of God are in chapters 3 and 4, and takes them back in time to the experience of the Israelites in the Exodus, the ones who left Egypt with Moses to enter the promised land in chapter 3, but the ones who, even who entered it in chapter 4 under Joshua, didn't find rest, which still remains.

[3:03] And the passage last week, as John brought it to us, finished on a bit of an ominous note, as we'll see in just a moment. But it's that well-known set of verses.

[3:15] The Word of God is alive and active. It pierces the soul. It reveals all. Nothing is hidden from it. And that just strikes a note that something heavy is coming.

[3:30] In fact, something heavy is coming. But the passage that we're at this morning just presses the pause button briefly as the writer sets out the argument in a very compressed way, which is going to sustain the next chapters of the letter right through to the end of Hebrews chapter 10.

[3:51] So when we get a few weeks down the line to Hebrews 10, maybe we'll hear an echo of things we've heard already. In fact, as we come to this passage today, we're already hearing echoes of things we've heard before, a very carefully unfolded argument by this writer.

[4:08] Well, last week, John noted that there was a key word that ran through the passage in chapter 4 about, what, eight or so times. The word rest just kept coming up again and again.

[4:21] And as we read our passage this morning, something similar happens, something that crops up five times. In fact, I'd say five and a half times. You can work out which the half is as we read it.

[4:35] So let's read together. Hebrews chapter 4, beginning at verse 14 through to chapter 5, verse 10. So we pick it up at the end of chapter 4 with this sense that the people who left Egypt didn't enter the promised land, and the people who entered the promised land didn't really find rest.

[4:59] Nothing in creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account. Boom, boom, boom.

[5:12] But just before the hammer falls, we have this. Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.

[5:27] For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way just as we are, yet was without sin.

[5:41] Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Every high priest is selected from among men and is appointed to represent them in matters related to God to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.

[6:04] He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray since he himself is subject to weakness. This is why he has to offer sacrifices for his own sins as well as for the sins of the people.

[6:21] No one takes this honor upon himself. He must be called by God just as Aaron was. So Christ also did not take upon himself the glory of becoming a high priest.

[6:36] But God said to him, You are my son. Today I have become your father. And he says in another place, You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.

[6:50] During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death. And he was heard because of his reverent submission.

[7:05] Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered. And once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him and was designated by God to be a high priest in the order of Melchizedek.

[7:28] There's our passage. And it has, I'm guessing, some unfamiliar things in it as well as some quite familiar things. I wonder if you picked out today's key term.

[7:41] High priest. Did you pick out the half? A priest. Well, I'll hold a sharp crew this morning. This is really building my confidence. Yes, this is all about the high priest.

[7:54] Now, why a high priest? Why a priest? And we need to spend some of our time this morning just thinking about what it is that makes this the thing that the writer goes to in order to encourage these Christians as they face this temptation to turn away.

[8:11] Well, the passage clearly divides into three chunks, three paragraphs, and we'll take them in turn, starting first with the end of chapter 4, the verses that Neil read to us before our prayer together, in which we think about the high priest and prayer.

[8:31] Second, in verses 1 through 5 of chapter 5, we think of 1 through 4, rather, the high priest and the people. And thirdly, the rest of chapter 5, the high priest and perfection.

[8:44] So the high priest in relation to each of these three focuses, prayer, people, and perfection. So we begin with the high priest and prayer.

[8:57] Well, as we've noted already, the previous section ended on this ominous note, something you're going to have to give account. And there's a clear note of warning there. This aspect of God's word as being something living, powerful, active.

[9:13] There is more that's going to strike fear to come. But first, there's this note of encouragement. Quite appropriate that it was read before our prayers, because it is an invitation to prayer, an encouragement.

[9:29] And in fact, in one sense, if we're used to a sort of standard sermon pattern where we get our stuff, and then at the end you get the application, well, this passage has the application front-loaded.

[9:43] It's here in these first few verses that we get some instructions, some encouragement about what we are to do. The book of Hebrews does have some clear commands.

[9:55] The first one comes in chapter 3, as we've seen already. Consider Jesus. And there's several more commands in chapter 3. And then they sort of disappear.

[10:06] Sort of, they do disappear. The next time we see commands is in chapter 7, in fact, and then through the rest of the letter. So here, the instructions we have don't come by way of command.

[10:20] They come by way of encouragement. Now, I hope you've picked up that language of how the writer to the Hebrews is together with these people in this. And so there's two specific instructions he gives.

[10:34] Let us hold firmly and let us approach the throne of grace. Let us do this. We have a great high priest.

[10:44] Let us hold firmly. We have a priest who is able to empathize with our weakness, and so on. We're in this together. But it's not just about believers being in this together.

[10:59] Christians are those who have this, as the writer introduces him here, great high priest. I mean, a high priest is pretty great.

[11:10] But you don't normally say the great high priest. It's built into the high priest bit. The word's a little bit like our word archbishop, in fact. Bishop, yeah, that's okay. Archbishop.

[11:21] That's pretty special. And it's one word. Same in Greek. Priest is one word. But here we have an archpriest. Archierus. And that's what we have in mind.

[11:32] But this is a great high priest. And these verses are just amazing. As you pause and ponder them, we have in them the whole of the argument of the opening part of the book, in fact.

[11:52] Here we have Jesus, who is the Son of God, the exact representation of the divine image, who's passed through the heavens. He's ascended to the heavens. It's pretty special for a high priest.

[12:04] But he's not only the one who, like chapter 1 of Hebrews, is the Son of God and divine, but he is the one who sympathizes with us in our weaknesses, who's been tempted in every way as we are.

[12:19] He's one of us too. There's Hebrews chapter 2. And there's an encouragement then to heed this, to hold it, and to approach, which is essentially what we have in chapters 3 and 4.

[12:33] And in fact, we've heard something of these words before. There was a trailer for this already in the end of Hebrews chapter 2. For this reason, the writer says, he, that's Jesus, had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest.

[12:56] That's the first time we see it in the letter. In service to God, that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

[13:11] So no ordinary high priest. And the two specific pieces of encouragement or exhortation, a little bit like coach, come on, let's do it, come in these two injunctions, specific pieces of encouragement that the writer has given.

[13:33] And we'll just take a moment to reflect on each of those. First, let us, because we have someone who's ascended into the heavens as our high priest, let's hold firmly to the faith we profess.

[13:49] Well, hold firmly here is a pretty strong word. It's the sort of word you'd use if you want to lay hold of something, seize it. It's a word that could be used in context of arrest, to take someone under custody.

[14:03] And as one of the older commentators puts it, we have in this encouragement to hold on something that gives an indication of danger as well as an incitement to effort.

[14:21] word. That note we heard as we went from the living and active word, and we'll all have to give account, there's still some urgency in the air.

[14:33] As this writer says, hold on. It's not just a sort of calm. All right then, everybody, you know, like taking your primary two class on an outing.

[14:44] Hold on to the room. It's not, well, you do want them to hold on tightly, don't you? You don't want everyone going astray. But this is cling on. You're at risk.

[14:55] Hang on. And what are they to hold on to? Well, the NIV slightly unpacks it for us already. Let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.

[15:07] What it simply says is let's hold fast, as some of the older translations put it, our confession. Let's hold fast our profession. That is something that we say.

[15:19] There's something about our speech here. And what is this? Is it confession in the sense of what we did together at the beginning of our service? We confess our sins.

[15:30] No, it's not quite that in the book of Hebrews. Or is confession the other thing that we sometimes say as a set of doctrines or beliefs, you know, like the Westminster Confession or the Belgic Confession or whatever confession that might be that summarizes our beliefs.

[15:48] And it's not quite the way Hebrews uses the term either. What our writer has in mind, and we know this because he uses the term repeatedly throughout the letter, is Jesus himself.

[16:05] He is the one that we confess and profess. And the clearest place we see this comes actually towards the end of the letter in Hebrews 13.

[16:20] Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips that openly profess, it's the same word as we have here, his name, that is, the name of Jesus.

[16:36] And it's quite striking that the thing then that they have to cling to desperately is a profession, a statement. It's the speaking of the name of Jesus that, in fact, is part of their worship and then infuses and orients the whole of their lives.

[16:56] So that's the first encouragement to hold firmly the faith we profess that our confession, that confession being Jesus himself. But the second thing is what we've done already this morning in verse 16.

[17:11] Let us approach God's throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Well, if the encouragement to hold fast comes off the back of noting that Jesus is the one who's passed through the heavens, this encouragement here to approach with confidence comes off the back of noting that he's just like us, again like Hebrews chapters one and two.

[17:38] he's been tempted it says in every way as we are. Well, what's in mind with this temptation? And I don't think it's so much to do with the temptation to sin, to do wrong, although in a sense that it is about that.

[17:56] There's something else that's worrying these Jewish believers. Their fear seems to be that their sin is separating them from God and they have no priest.

[18:10] They've got no priest, they've got no sacrifice. They've got no sacrifice, they've got no forgiveness. And if they've got no forgiveness, they're separated from God.

[18:25] If that's the temptation and the temptation is to avoid somehow the salvation that's offered in Jesus and to return to some other kind of salvation, the words of the writer here are a bit interesting because we don't leave speech behind.

[18:41] If we were writing this, we might go on to sacrifice now that Jesus laid down his life for us. It's not, in fact, where the writer goes. The writer invites us, encourages us, exhorts us, urges us to approach with confidence.

[19:00] And if our previous exhortation had this hint of danger in it, this word has a strong sense of courage to come boldly into God's presence, to find grace to help us in our time of need.

[19:19] I mean, it's interesting that the ancient Jewish writers applied this kind of boldness to Abraham. Now, you remember the father Abraham, the old patriarch.

[19:30] Mark, for instance, in Genesis 15, one of the times when the Lord comes and speaks to Abraham and says, I'm your very great reward. And Abraham says, that's fine, but I don't have any offspring.

[19:47] And he's received that promise. He would have offspring. So what's it about? Or at the time before, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, where Abraham intercedes for the righteous of the city.

[20:00] And ancient Jewish commentators had a sense that this is what it is to come boldly into God's presence, reverently, deferently, knowing the promise of God.

[20:13] And even if we come in our perplexity about how that promise is going to be realized in our lives and situations. And so this writer says, because we have this kind of high priest who knows what it is to be tempted, we come boldly, with courage into God's presence, to his throne of grace, so that we may find help in our time of need.

[20:42] So there's a reverent prayer in response to Jesus' high priesthood and what he has done, and the fear that will be separated from God, in fact, melts away in responding to what Jesus has done and approaching boldly.

[21:02] Well, that's the high priest and prayer. But as we move into the letter, we come to the high priest and the people.

[21:17] Having set out that this is who Jesus is, trailed it in chapter two, now starting to unpack it at the end of chapter four, chapter five, our writer stops and says, right, okay, we know what a high priest is like.

[21:33] This is what a high priest is. And we have to, at this point, try to imagine ourselves into the, if we can, lives, minds, orientation, world of first century Jewish Christians whose lives and yearning for God have brought them to Christ, the one who has fulfilled the promises and worship of the Old Testament, but now they're missing something.

[22:05] So, some of these longings come out in these verses in chapter five, verses one to four. And we might ask ourselves, why a priest?

[22:17] Why a high priest? What's good about a high priest that might be something of my yearning or even a temptation for me? And here we get something of the context in that.

[22:30] Of course, it's very brief, but it just hits the sort of top checklist of things that this is what we want in a high priest. priest. A little bit of background.

[22:42] The Old Testament has essentially three intermediary figures, three individuals who, by nature of their role or their office, stood in some way between God and the people, and the well-known tree of prophet, priest, and king.

[23:00] Of course, the prophet, if you can imagine it this way, is one who, with God at his back, speaks God's words to the people. The priest turns around, stands and serves before God, bringing the people safely into God's presence.

[23:19] And the king, in some way, stands between at the very connecting point of God and people, making possible, in some ways, that connection between God and people.

[23:32] And the letter to the Hebrews has something to say about each of those three kinds of intermediaries. One who comes between and manages the connection between. But by far the way, looming largest of all by far, is the priest, which mightn't be the one most of us go to.

[23:50] Perhaps for some, it would be. For others, I don't think so. But essentially, what does a priest do? There's a number of things. If you look through the different passages in the Old Testament that teach about the priesthood, but I'd say, at bottom, fundamentally, what a priest does is this.

[24:12] A priest brings the people safely into the presence of God because, frankly, the presence of God, the Holy God, is a scary place to be.

[24:25] And if you show up there improperly, arriving, impure, not fit to be in that presence, it's not good.

[24:40] And that's what the priest does. The priest is that one who is able to bring the people safely and rightly fit into God's presence. And we see some of this as Aaron becomes the first great high priest of Israel.

[24:56] So in Leviticus 9 and 10, we see some of this story. Moses says to Aaron, come to the altar and sacrifice your sin offering and your burnt offering and make atonement for yourself and the people.

[25:11] For yourself and the people. Yourself and the people. Sacrifice the offering that is for the people.

[25:22] Make atonement for them as the Lord has commanded. That's what the priest is there to do, to bring the people safely into the presence of God.

[25:35] Because what happens if you or I or somebody else tries to pull this off? Well, a few chapters later in Leviticus, this is what happens.

[25:46] This is the warning. Any Israelite or foreigner residing among them who offers a burnt offering or a sacrifice and does not bring it to the entrance of the tent of the meeting where the priest waits, to sacrifice it to the Lord, must be cut off from the people of Israel.

[26:06] It's a bit of an irony, isn't it? That's your yearning. You want to be in God's presence. You bring your offering. Can't be bothered waiting for the priest. But no, don't do that. Because if you approach God improperly, you're cut off.

[26:23] And the very thing you might have wanted is the thing you've lost. Well, if we trace the story of the priesthood through the Old Testament, it's not a pretty tale. Very quickly in Leviticus 10, already after the appointment, it all goes very wrong.

[26:40] Aaron's sons died, killed because they brought unholy fire into the Lord's presence. And again and again, whether it's the sons of Eli, whether it's the sons of Samuel, whether it's priests during the times of the kings of Israel, who led the kings astray and were complicit in their idolatrous worship, right through to the last book of the Old Testament, as we know it, Malachi, where the priests who had a covenant with Levi have trashed it and not maintained the people as holy.

[27:14] well, sort of picking on priests to say that because frankly, prophets and kings don't come off much better, nor do any of us, frankly.

[27:26] But it's, I think, interesting and certainly to our writers' credit that none of that is mentioned here in these first few verses. What we have here is a thumbnail sketch of the best high priest you could imagine.

[27:41] every high priest selected from among the people, appointed as Aaron was to represent the people in matters related to God. It's important to remember that the priest serves the God on behalf of the people, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins just as we've seen.

[28:00] He's able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and going astray since he himself is subject to weakness, so he offers sacrifices for sins, his own as well as the sins of the people.

[28:15] And no one takes this honor in himself, but receives it when called by God, just as Aaron was. And this is such a carefully crafted appeal to these Christians.

[28:29] Chapter 3, Moses. Jesus better than Moses. Chapter 4, Joshua. You know what? Jesus' rest better than Joshua's rest.

[28:39] Chapter 5, Aaron. The three great figures of the Exodus and conquest periods. But you know what? Three for three, Jesus is better again.

[28:52] And here we, in a sense, have your dream come true priest, the best priest you could imagine. But here's the irony. For these Jewish believers, looking to this priest would prevent them from looking to Jesus.

[29:07] priests. The religion, in a sense, was getting in the way. So anxious to have a priest, they're in danger of losing a savior.

[29:20] I think there's something here to give us pause just before we move to the last paragraph, the last chunk of our passage. Is there something about our religion that gets in the way?

[29:31] It's certainly the case that priests are good things. They're commanded things you couldn't do without them, but they're not the ultimate thing. They weren't the thing that mattered. They were the thing that pointed towards the one who mattered, pointed towards Christ.

[29:47] And I wonder if sometimes in our own religious lives, we have that sense that we too look to good things, but that are not ultimate things.

[29:59] Whether it's, you know, good music and fine singing, it lifts my spirit, I'm fine. It's proper rituals and liturgy. If we just get that right, we'll be fine.

[30:12] If we're under good teaching, you know, we'll be fine. If I can participate in outreach and social action or engage atheists on Facebook in the name of Jesus, you know, I'll be fine.

[30:27] But all of those good things are not ultimate things. They're not the thing. They're the things that sometimes attract our attention, though. C.S. Lewis, in his fascinating little book, The Great Divorce, through the mouth of George MacDonald, the Scottish fantasist of the 19th century, says, There have been men before now who got so interested in proving the existence of God that they came to care nothing for God himself, as if the good Lord had nothing to do but to exist.

[31:03] There have been some so occupied in spreading Christianity that they never gave a thought to Christ. So there's a warning here as we look at these Christians yearning for a high priest, yearning for something external to make them okay when they needed to guard their hearts and their minds, see what was inside.

[31:28] Like the priesthood, all these good things can displace the response to Jesus and what he calls us to, what the gospel calls us to.

[31:39] We'll see more about that in just a moment. But if we've seen something of the high priest and prayer, the high priest and the people, finally we come to the high priest and perfection.

[31:54] The writer to the Hebrews demonstrates that the people's high priest, the one selected from them to offer sacrifices for them, greater than the angels, greater than Moses, is also greater than Aaron.

[32:09] And in these last few verses of the chapter, of our passage, verses 5 through 10, we see a little bit about how Jesus' high priesthood, it's like Aaron's, it's recognizable.

[32:24] They're cousins, if you like, not the same. There's something different about Jesus' high priesthood. And what is that?

[32:35] Well, we see it, first of all, in these two quotations that were given. We see how the writer of the Hebrews is constantly appealing to Old Testament scriptures to make his point.

[32:48] Christ didn't take on himself the glory of becoming a high priest, as Aaron didn't arrogate the role to himself. But God said to him, quoting Psalm 2, you are my son, today I've become your father.

[33:04] Which is interesting. It's not really about the priesthood. And we've heard this before. We heard this already right at the beginning of chapter 1, quoting Psalm 2.

[33:15] What it shows us is that there is a priest who isn't of the line of Aaron. This isn't one of Aaron's later sons. This is the son of God. And the next passage we have quoted, he says in another place, this is Psalm 110, you are a priest, there's our half, a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.

[33:41] Melchizedek, strange name, which we'll come to hear more of in weeks to come, picked up again in verse 10. And again in chapter 7, so if our first quote points us back in the book, our next quote points us forward in the book.

[34:01] And in both of us, they show we don't have a priest who's like Aaron. We have a priest who's quite different, in a different order. And then as the writer goes on to unpack what Jesus' high priesthood is like, he doesn't mention sacrifices at all.

[34:17] There is a little bit of strain in this passage between the place of prayer and the place of sacrifice. As I mentioned already, we'll hear lots more about sacrifice in the chapters to come.

[34:30] But that's not where he goes at this point. This ideal priest, in Jesus' life on earth, offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and was heard.

[34:49] This high priest, his prayers were heard because of his referent submission. Well, we don't have set out here what seems to be going on in the mind of our writer.

[35:03] There's an echo here of Psalm 22. Now, we know Psalm 22, probably one of the most famous texts in the Bible of all. But we know the beginning.

[35:14] My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The words that were on Jesus' lips as he died on the cross. We don't have those words echoed here.

[35:26] We have the end of that psalm echoed. For he, because as in Psalm 22, the psalmist is heard and has delivered, then his word of praise goes up.

[35:40] He has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one. He has not hidden his face from him, but has listened. He has heard his cry for help.

[35:51] So for these Jewish Christians, another echo of the psalms in saying what this high priest is like. And it's on this basis that then Jesus is the one who is made perfect.

[36:05] Not just an ideal high priest, the sort of best high priest you could think of, like the best car you could think of, or the best kitchen, or the best whatever it might be. It's the perfect high priest.

[36:19] He has been perfected. And we might find that language of being perfected a bit awkward. I thought Jesus was perfect. Well, it's true Jesus was perfect, but this is very much in the mode of the way Paul put it in Philippians.

[36:33] that he became obedient to death, and therefore God has exalted him. The same thing at work here in the reflection from the writer to the Hebrews.

[36:48] Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered, and made perfect, became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.

[36:58] And although we started with application, and what we have set out now is this reflection on Jesus the great high priest, there is implicit here something still by way of application.

[37:16] We're not only those who are to hold fast, cling our confession, not only ones who are to approach with confidence and courage the throne of grace.

[37:29] But if we have Jesus as our high priest, we find in him the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.

[37:41] There is a following. I've loved the hymns and songs that we've been singing this morning. My chains fell off. My was free.

[37:52] I rose, went forth, and followed thee. It's just what the writer to the Hebrews has in mind here. We don't come to Jesus the high priest and say, right, done, tick, I've got the perfect high priest.

[38:11] If Jesus is my high priest, there's something magnetic and compelling that reorients and reshapes my life to be a follower of his.

[38:25] And it was something these Christians knew something about. They knew what it was to suffer for the name of Jesus. But it's something that they were in danger of forgetting. Much, perhaps, as we are.

[38:41] Well, as we come to an end, a little story. Many years I've carried in my memory banks the vivid image of a billboard I used to see around Toronto.

[38:55] I could have described it to you. In the early 1980s, which is just a little while ago now. As I was reflecting on this passage today, that billboard, that is pretty effective advertising, isn't it, kept coming back to mind.

[39:11] Well, this is the internet age, isn't it? So I got help from Mr. Google to see if I could find it. And I did.

[39:23] Here it is. Dare to be a priest like me. Those billboards, this picture is a bit sepia tone.

[39:34] They were in color, were dotted around Toronto. And what I like to think of as a teenage, I won't go there, years. They were erected by somebody named Father Sean O'Sullivan, who at the time was director of vocations for the Catholic Church in that diocese, the Archdiocese of Toronto.

[39:56] The billboard was a huge success. Just dial 977-1100. You could be a priest today. The phone rang off the hook.

[40:08] They were inundated. And this is the image that kept coming to mind as I was thinking about the high priest in our passage. And I thought, Father Sean, close, but not quite.

[40:24] There is a sense, of course, in which we're called to be like Christ. But if there's anything that our passage is telling us about, it's that there is one unique, great high priest who is Jesus, who we absolutely must have in our lives.

[40:41] So the slogan needs a tweak. Dare to have a priest like me. That's the simple one-point sermon from today's passage.

[40:54] What that means in terms of prayer and sacrifice, we'll be spending weeks working out. But dare to have a priest like me. Let's pray.

[41:08] Just in the quiet of this moment, we've seen a high priest who is perfect, who's gone into the heavens and yet has suffered temptations in every way as we have.

[41:21] So let's take a moment to do what we've been encouraged to do, to approach the throne of grace with confidence. Perhaps there are some here this morning who really have gone astray.

[41:37] As the law of the priests in the Old Testament put it, you've sinned with a high hand. Come to Jesus. Have a priest like him. Come to the throne of grace for help in a time of need.

[41:53] Perhaps you've been living a life of comfort, simply ignoring the things on the inside in favor of the things on the outside. There's a law for that too. It's called sins of ignorance.

[42:04] They needed a sacrifice. They needed a priest. Lord, if we're comfortable, disturb us and bring us on our knees boldly to your throne of grace.

[42:19] Perhaps there are some here who've had a longing for God, for the one who made them, but not found a way to have fellowship and communion with that God.

[42:32] Well, there is only one great high priest to make that possible. Perhaps this morning you need to come to him, find in the Lord Jesus Christ, the great high priest, who is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters.

[42:53] So we thank you, our Heavenly Father, for a priest like Jesus. Thank you that he is our great high priest. Help us now to be those who find in him the source of salvation and those who follow him in obedience.

[43:08] For your great namesake we pray. Amen.