I invite you to turn with me to Hebrews. Hebrews chapter five this evening, verses seven through 10. We have been seeing that God's throne is a throne of grace because Jesus is our great high priest. This evening, we have been God's providence, quite a juxtaposition.
If you've been tracking the last couple of morning services, we've seen the Mount of Transfiguration and the glory of the divinity of Jesus really shining forth from him. This passage tonight is in many ways the polar opposite. It's in part a description of the humanity and suffering of Christ, even a reference to the other mountain, as we mentioned this morning, the Mount of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane experience of our Lord Jesus. As the writer continues to help us see why Jesus is qualified to be our great high priest.
And so that's our subject tonight. We'll see his tear-filled prayers, his reverent piety, his saving perfection and so forth. Let me invite you to give your attention to God's holy and inspired word from Hebrews chapter 5, verses 7 through 10. In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death.
And he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God, a high priest, after the order of Melchizedek. Amen.
Let's pray together. Our Father, we ask that you would teach us this evening, that you would, by the Spirit, through your word, lift Jesus before our eyes, comfort, and courage, our hearts. In his name, we pray. Amen.
A bit of review, because this passage extends the argument of the author over the last few weeks is what we've been noticing. He's showing us why Jesus is qualified to be our high priest. And what we've said, of course, is that we need a high priest. We need to be convinced that we need one, and that God provides us the high priest we need.
The writer has been saying, and we've been saying, what a priest does is he represents us before God. He acts on hour and a half before God. He's a priest is someone who does the work of offering sacrifices of a tournament to God, which are acceptable to God on our behalf. Someone through whom then we can come to God, someone who brings us safely to God.
And someone very importantly who is approved by God to do those things on our behalf. We can't do that for ourselves, and not any old Joe off the street can do that for us either. You have to show up in the presence of the holy God with the proper credentials in order to be acceptable, or you'll get booted out the door, or worse, really. And so what we've seen the author arguing is that Jesus has the right to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.
And so far we've seen four or five things. And we'll add three more tonight about why Jesus is qualified to bring us safely to God. We've seen, for instance, back at chapter five, verse one, that a high priest needs to be human. An angel won't do.
And the first high priest, Aaron, was chosen from among men. And the high priest that came after him were from the tribe of Levi, men set apart from among the other tribes of Israel. And so likewise, Jesus became a man to be taken from among men to represent us. It's mankind who needs to be restored.
And so it's by one of mankind. We need our representative. Then we've also seen that the great high priest must be appointed by God, chosen by God, verse four, selected by him. The author has said, no one takes this honor for themselves, but only when called by God.
And then verse five, we saw Jesus didn't exalt himself, but was appointed by God. And he was appointed by God as we saw it in verse six, and we just heard it verse 10. He was designated by God, a high priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek. And the writer will have much more to say about Melchizedek in chapter seven.
But his point is this, though Jesus is from the line of David, the family of David, of the tribe of Judah, which is the kingly tribe, and not the tribe of Levi, which is the priestly tribe, yet he's not illegitimate. He's not ineligible. Why? Because God had already shown to Abraham before Israel was ever a nation, that there was actually another order of priests that are acceptable before him.
There was a man named Melchizedek, the king of Salem and priest of God most high. And Jesus the writer says has become a priest after the order of Melchizedek, not after the order of Aaron. So he's qualified. And then we saw the work of a priest, end of verse one.
His work is to offer gift and sacrifices for sin. For instance, on the day of atonement, to bring the blood of the slain animal into the most holy place in the temple, to the mercy seat of God. That blood, of course, being a substitute in death for the worshiper who deserves to die. And because death is the judgment due for sin, the blood spoke.
A death has occurred to satisfy God's divine justice and of our judgment. Though, of course, that Old Testament sacrifice wasn't entirely sufficient. It pointed to something that is sufficient. That is, it had to be repeated year after year after year because it didn't actually take away sins.
The blood of bulls and goats can't be an adequate substitute for the guilt of humanity. It was instead a constant reminder that our sins haven't been sufficiently dealt with until the true high priest offers the proper sacrifice, even himself, on our behalf. So the Old Testament, year by year, day of atonement, and sacrifices, it was, those were things were more like a bottle of medicine that you'd have in your medicine cabinet. Every time you opened that door to your medicine cabinet, well, you're given a little measure of hope that there might be a remedy, but actually it reminds you that you haven't been made perfectly well yet.
That's why you still have the medicine in your cabinet. But Jesus comes along and does all things well. He offers the one final sacrifice. And then we also have seen that it's very important that our great high priest be sympathetic with sinners.
We need a merciful high priest who understands what it is to be truly human, truly tempted, truly to live in a world of sin and misery who can come alongside us and care for us. He can, verse two, a high priest that is, can deal gently with the ignorant and the way words that he himself has beset with weakness. We saw that was a qualification. Aaron couldn't stand on his high course, looking down on the rest of the people, he was beset with weakness.
And of course, sinful weakness. So he had to offer a sacrifice first for himself and then for the people. Jesus doesn't share the weakness of our fallenness, but he does share the weakness of our humanity. And he is not less sympathetic, but he is more sympathetic than Aaron or any sinful man of the high priest who at all could ever be.
Jesus is a better high priest. He knows more thoroughly the totality of the human experience of weakness and frailty and temptation, but did not, as it were, sit on a high horse far above and looking down, no, he humbled himself and became obedient to death and even death on a cross, far more humble than any other. And so he knows what it's like to be human, to be weak, to be frail, to be tempted to suffer. He sympathizes.
He's qualified. These are all some of the things that have been laid before us, to give us confidence that we can come boldly to God because we have this high priest, and that God cares for us. There's mercy and help for us in time of need. And all that, by way of review.
Now the author adds, we might say, three more things. Or I'll summarize it that way. His tier filled prayers, verse 7, his reverent piety, verses 7 and 8, and his saving perfection, verses 9 and 10. Why can we be confident that Jesus is qualified?
First, his tier filled prayers, verse 7, in the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death. The writer is, of course, saying that Jesus was a man of prayer. And as we read the Gospels, we learn that Jesus often withdrew to quiet and desolate places in order to pray. It was a Christian minister I once read of, who, whenever he was faced with a problem or a decision and some difficulty, he would say, I must go talk to Father about this.
And he met his heavenly Father. And he was much like our Savior in that, always talking to the heavenly Father. But that is what prayer is. And Jesus was also not only a man of prayer, but a man of tears, and a man of heartache, the writer says.
He wept as we know at the grave of his dear friend Lazarus. And he wept for his sisters Mary and Martha who were grieving. He isn't cold-hearted about these things. He weep.
And he understands those who weep over the loss of loved ones. He also wept over Jerusalem because of their hard hearts. And because the Romans were eventually going to destroy Jerusalem and tear apart the temple and destroy the old priesthood. And because of the hard-heartedness of the people, he wept over them.
No wonder that the Apostle Paul, much like his Savior, could write in Romans, I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh, such was his anguish and care for his kinsmen. Like our Savior Jesus, he wept in the Garden of Gethsemane. And no doubt, the author has this in mind.
For it was in that garden on the night in which he was about to be betrayed, the night before his crucifixion, that he went to that garden to pour out his soul to his Father. We read of that in Matthew 26 and other gospels. He said to his disciples that as Jesus did, sit here while I go over there and pray. And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zabbity, that's James and John, just like on the Mount of Transfiguration, he that as Jesus began to be sorrowful and troubled.
And then he said to them, my soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch with me. And going a little farther, he fell on his face and prayed, saying, my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.
What cup did Jesus ask to pass from him? Well, Isaiah describes it in Isaiah 51, 22. Thus says, your Lord, the Lord, your God, who pleads the cause of his people, quote, behold, I have taken from your hand the cup of staggering the bowl of my wrath. You shall drink no more.
Jesus knows he's going to drink the cup of God's wrath upon the cross for sinners, for on the cross our sins will be accounted to him and he will be judged by God in our place. And he's in great anguish. His soul is sorrowful. To the point of death, it's merely killing him to contemplate what he will experience, even before he drinks that cup.
If there's any other way, he says to the Father, for us to be saved. Well, then let's do that. My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but your will.
And then he prayed a second time. My Father, if this came out pass unless I drink it, your will be done. And Luke 22 tells us, and there appeared to him in angel from heaven, strengthening him. Why would you need that, except because you're in great weakness?
And being an agony, Luke tells us, he prayed more earnestly. And his sweat became like great drops of blood falling to the ground. So he prayed, and he prayed to him who was able to save him from death. The writer Hebrews says, now either that prayer was answered with a no.
And so he died on the cross. In other words, God said, my will be done. Or it was answered with a yes. In this way, God saved him through death and out of death by resurrection from the dead.
I tentatively hold the latter view. But we know that Jesus drank the cup to the drags of the wrath of God and got everything we deserve. And then God raised him. Now, just like then of these tear-filled prayers of our Savior in the garden, none would pray with him.
This I was getting to stay awake. He prayed, and then he woke them and told them to watch and pray. And then he prayed again, and they fell asleep. And then he woke them and told them to watch and pray.
And then he prayed, and they fell asleep. And so again, and again, he was overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death, praying, and they were sleeping. That is, no one was interceding for him while he interceded on our behalf. And it's like that for you and I.
We wealth we know our own prayer life, how quickly we're humble. We fail to pray for the things on God's heart that we should pray about. We fail to pray for his kingdom to come and his will to be done. And when we do pray, we often only pray for ourselves.
And yet we barely even know how to pray for ourselves so that, well, frankly, I think sometimes we're better at describing how we need to be prayed for than we are at actually praying for what we need. But the writer of Hebrews is reassuring us. Fear not, he's saying. When you're not awake and praying, Jesus is like he was in the garden.
He was praying to receive what we deserve and for the strength to receive it. And even now he'll go on to say the writer, well, he always lives to intercede for us so that if we're too weak to pray, he prays for us. We're unsure of what to pray for. He knows exactly how to intercede for us.
And so you see why he's such a gracious, merciful, great high priest. You can come boldly to God through him, for he intercedes faithfully with God for you. And he was qualified by his tear-filled prayers. He's also qualified by his reverent piety, verses 7 and 8.
It's in his attitude and his actions, notice end of verse 7. He was heard because of his reverence. So Jesus never just went through the motion and said, he prayed. He never daydreamed while he prayed.
He didn't mouth the words when his heart wasn't really at it, all the things. Well, I think you and I so easily do. He didn't sing praise to God, a form of prayer. Halfheartedly, he didn't listen to the word of God with disinterest.
Jesus indicted the Pharisees when he quoted Isaiah to them, this people draw near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips while their hearts are far from me. And while we don't like to think of it this way, isn't there a Pharisee in us? Aren't our words often one thing and our hearts also far? But Jesus isn't a Pharisee.
And of course, because there's a Pharisee in all of us, Aaron had to offer sacrifices for his own sins and then for the people. But Jesus never had to. He was heard because of his reverence, it says. And so, as my old pastor put it, with our prayers, the Lord hears us because of the merits of Christ.
The Lord hears us because of his grace. We're not heard because we deserve it. We're heard because of the grace of God. But here we are also told that Christ's intercession is heard because of his godliness.
That is God the Father hears his Son because his Son does deserve to be heard. And so, Liggin went on to say this, I want you to understand how strong that makes the intercession of Christ. When Christ comes to the Father, it is not the same kind of intercession as our intercession. It is the intercession, so to speak, of demand.
That is, Christ deserves to be heard. For the Father did not hear the Son's, for the Father not to hear the Son's plea, would be to go against justice. Because the Son has earned the right to be heard through his obedience, through his godliness, through his piety. We're always received by grace.
But he from the heart was heard because of his reference. And so, of course, in our own praying, we come to God, not in our own name, but we are encouraged to come to God in the name of Christ. That is to say, we come to God, and we don't ask to be heard because of our righteousness or our works or our obedience or our reverence. We come to God and ask to be heard on account of the obedience and righteousness and reverence of Christ himself, the perfection of Christ.
And listen, there's no formula here for how you talk to God, and I'm not arguing that every time you pray, you ought to close with in Jesus name as if it's some, you know, rub the value of the genie, magic formula to get your prayer heard. But we ought to be conscious of, and at some point it ought to manifest on our lips, that Father, we're bringing our concerns to you, not in our own name but his. We hope to be heard not because of us but because of him. And so the writer here, a speech of his reverent piety, and not only in his attitude, but his actions noticed verse eight.
Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. So that it's not that Jesus, don't misunderstand the writer here, it's not that Jesus wasn't obedient, but then learned to become obedient. It doesn't mean that he learned to stop being disobedient. He was never disobedient, or else he never had to have a sacrifice for his own sin.
But what it means is that with each new trial he experienced, each new difficulty in suffering, the pain of it all, is that he obeyed. And so when he prayed not my will, but yours be done, that was a prayer that he would become obedient to the point of death even death on a cross, which he fully embraced and did not reject. And so think of it here. When we face difficulty, we, well, if you like me, we whine a little bit, complain a little bit.
Maybe become bitter, if you're careful about that. Our trials are like, well, God's like placing us in a pot and like a pot of gold that's heated, such that the gold drops to the bottom of the pot, so that it can be refined and all the impurities rise to the top and they get sloughed off. That's got how God uses our trials in our experience. It's purified.
But Jesus trials didn't purify him. He was already pure. But they did show the true purity of his character and faith and it put it on display for all to see. Jesus, for instance, didn't lash out at his persecutors.
He didn't and never did return evil for evil. He didn't in the midst of even going to the cross and to drink the cup of wrath. He didn't turn his back on God while he did so. He didn't say, Father, I don't trust you.
Or in any way he was not unjustly angry with God, which are all the kinds of things that you and I would, and often do in the trials we face. So that Jesus didn't purify him, but in his attitude and action amidst suffering, he learned obedience and he expressed reverent piety. And in enduring suffering with obedience, the result was his saving perfection. That's the last thing, verse 9 and 10.
And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. Now again, don't be so good to say I'm the writer here. He says, Jesus was made perfect. And that's not the perfection of character, which he's always had.
It's not moral perfection as if you ever had imperfection, but perfection in the sense of completion. Jesus said, here I am, I have come to do your will, oh God. And then upon that cross, he said, it is finished. That is he accomplished the will of God.
And so manifested all the obedience that God required of him. And so he becomes the source of eternal salvation for all who trust in him. You don't need to go anywhere else. You don't need another priest.
You don't need another mediator. You have all that you need in this qualified son. I was at a wedding once. And you meet all kinds of folks and sitting at a table next to somebody.
And this woman was very anxious to tell me, I think having found out that I was a, well, I don't remember. I was probably there as the pastor. But in any case, she was very anxious to tell me why it was she had left the Protestantism of her family and her youth to become Roman Catholic. And she said for her, just one anecdote for her, it came down to for her Mary.
She felt that it was really important that Mary understood her woman to woman. Mary was her hero. Now look, we have a high view of Mary in the scripture does too. But Mary never experienced half the trouble, since I'm tations you and I or any woman ever experiences.
She wasn't tempted in every way just as we are yet without sin. Mary didn't fight the devil in the wilderness. Mary didn't obey the father perfectly. Mary didn't drink the cup of God's wrath on behalf of God's people.
No, Mary needed her son to do all of that, to say her too. Just as we do. Jesus did all these things, deserted by his closest friends. His intimate companion betrayed him.
His family thought he was nuts. The governors of the nation despised him. The military mocked him. The religious leaders aided him.
The crowds condemned him and his creatures crucified him. And he persevered in obedience in the face of the scorn of mankind and the accusations of the devil and the just wrath of God. There is only one priest who sympathizes like that with you and for you and it's Jesus. He understands you, male or female, better than you understand yourself.
So let me just close by saying, if perchants tonight, you're as yet not a believer in Jesus. Don't think that you have to get your act together before you can come to God. No, in fact, just take the fact that your act is not together and just take it to Jesus, the great high priest who come to God through him. And for the rest of us, the writer notes that Jesus is the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.
Don't misunderstand that language. It's not talking about the perfection of our personal obedience as if we accumulate righteousness. Now, a crowd once asked Jesus, what must we do to be doing the works of God? And Jesus answered them, this is the work of God that you believe in him whom he has sent.
Trust in Jesus, the author is saying, those who trust in him are saved. And for you who then do trust in him, keep coming boldly to the throne of grace to receive mercy and help in time of need, because you are always welcome with this Jesus as your mediator. Let's pray. Father, thanks for that.
Good news, which I confess, it's easier for me to even speak of than to appropriate in the day to day. Turn our hearts to you. Teach us to pour out our hearts like water before you knowing that Jesus always lives to intercede that we're welcome, we're invited. In his name we pray, amen.
Amen, let's stay together and sing.