If you have a Bible, let me invite you to turn with me to Hebrews chapter 7 this evening verses 1 to 3 Here the writer turns again to the subject of priests. That's where he ended in verse 20 speaking of Jesus He lets you know pass through the curtain into the most holy place of the true heavenly temple and he appeared there It appears there as a forerunner on our behalf Jesus has gone ahead of us into the very throne room of God and he had the writer had said that he's become a high priest forever After the order of Melchizedek that's where he ended at verse 20 So he's mentioned the Belchizedek again, and now he's going to write about Christ as a priest in the Melchizedekian order of priesthood I had to work in the word Melchizedekian somewhere and I thought well, let's just start out that way So he's gonna have much to say about this order of priesthood here this discussion of Christ as a priest Will interest you for a couple of reasons and so before we read the passage Let me just orient this to why this is important to think about first if you understand that God says You can only approach him and enjoy his acceptance if you are holy that is if you are perfectly holy Then we begin to see the perfection of his holiness and our imperfection Then we realize well we need a way into his presence that isn't grounded on ourselves That is it rooted in who we are because we would be turned away and worse But God has provided away through a priest who brings us to God and With Israel it's had begun to understand that if they hadn't already certainly at Mount Sinai when they heard the Ten Commandments proclaimed and they all stepped back away from the mountain and they said you know Moses Why don't you go up and talk to God on our behalf? Because they knew they were guilty and they needed Moses to mediate for them and over time that mediation His mediation particularly the priestly aspect of it became the priest we Office in the Old Testament and so what kind of priest do we need? Well, we need the best kind of priest we need the best priests there is and and so the whole chapter that here explains why it's better to have Jesus To be our great high priest then it then it is to have Aaron or Levi or the Levites and part of explaining that is explaining Melchizedek That's why Jesus is a better priest and then also this will be of interest to us if we're a listening and growing Christian That is if you remember back in chapter 5 at the very end in verse 11 He had chastised his heroes for being dull of hearing and being immature in Christ Because they needed milk and not solid food and solid food is for the mature and what he wanted to give them was solid food About Christ being designated by God as a priest after the order of my kisadek chapter 5 verse 10 And he said about this we have much to say and it's hard to explain since you've become dull of hearing And so he says well you need milk and not solid food because you're immature and not maturing but now Well, he gives them the solid food they need and he doesn't hide it from them He tells them the hard things he wants them to hear the difficult things things that are wonderful about Christ Being a priest after the order of my kisadek and so that's our subject tonight who is about kisadek How does he point us to Jesus and after that long introduction?
Let me invite you to hear guys word from Hebrews chapter 7 verses 1 to 3 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 tenth part of everything He is first by translation of his name king of righteousness And then 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 Amen, let's pray together Father in heaven enlightened our eyes we ask in the knowledge of Christ and grant that we would know the hope to which we have been called in Christ May we see him in Jesus name amen So who is this Melchizedek and how does he point us to Jesus? Well Melchizedek is a type of Christ that is a type a type is an Old Testament person place or thing that foreshadows or prefigures a New Testament person place or thing and the writers saying that Melchizedek is an Old Testament priest who prefigured and foreshadowed Christ as our true and everlasting Priest the Old Testament then the writer is telling us actually had two lines of priesthood and well or two orders of priesthood Both are from God that both serve their purpose and one line is greater and better than the other and the order of Melchizedek is actually greater and better than the order of Aaron and the Levites Melchizedek is a greater priest than Aaron and Melchizedek resembles Jesus and so Jesus is also greater than Aaron and why is he saying all this? Well Jewish Christians his first audience would have been tempted in many ways to To leave Christ and go back to being merely Jewish as their friends and neighbors said guys you've got this wrong or there's nothing new there That's worth pursuing come on back to the temple come on back to Joseph our priest currently don't leave him for Jesus and so on But but the writer saying well if you reject Christ as your priest and reembrace the Old Testament Jewish priests with their animal sacrifices And he'll have more to say about that well those things ultimately are effective now that the priests are the sacrifices The sacrifices had to be constantly repeated they were meant to find fulfillment in the one offering of Christ And so don't leave Christ to go back to the sons of Levi and miss the better priest who has the better sacrifice And so to win his heroes to his point of view he has to instruct them You know sometimes the most important application of the Bible is something we must do Something we're commanded to do something where we should stop doing we're forbidden right some some new activity some new way of life Sometimes that's the most important application of a passage of scripture But sometimes the most important application of the Bible is something we must know Something that we need to understand We simply need to know it first before we can act on it second And this is one of those passages that's aimed at our understanding You need to know why Melchizedek resembles the Son of God and how that shows us that Christ is the best priest And you need to know this of course because you need a big priest to handle your big problems We need a big priest to handle our big sins our big cares and concerns all of our large spiritual needs and And the writer saying and you have that big and better priest in Jesus So he points us to five ways Melchizedek resembles Jesus But first we better remember the story of Melchizedek and then see those resemblances So that's that's the outline I know it took a while to get there We're gonna see the story of Melchizedek from the Old Testament that he's referring to and then the five ways He says Melchizedek resembles Jesus first notice verse one for this Melchizedek. That's what he's describing end of verse six He says resembling the Son of God.
I think if I've got that reference correct No, maybe end of pardon me Yeah, end of verse three resembling the Son of God so Melchizedek Thank you Melchizedek appears in only four verses in the entire Old Testament three of them are in Genesis chapter 14 And then one of them is a later reference in Psalm 110 And and so the writer here saying you know you really need to know your own Testament You need to know your stories of the Old Testament even stories of of people you need to know the people when you need to know the Psalms Because they point you to Jesus like this Melchizedek does and sometimes even really minor or seemingly minor and obscure Individuals in the Old Testament are actually very important in understanding Jesus So you may not have noticed this before Jesus came how important Melchizedek is but Jesus having now come it becomes clear He's very important and so that's an important principle of interpretation the Old Testament is about Jesus It's Christian literature if Jewish Christians in the days of the apostles then needed to learn again the meaning of the Old Testament How much more do we and so he reminds us of the time of Abraham in Genesis chapter 14? You may want to turn there or just listen into the story Genesis chapter 14 I'll pick up the reading at verse 8 and it's the story of a of a battle between kings and Abraham Gets sucked into it verse 8 Then the king of Sodom the king of Gomorrah the king of Admah the king of Zeboim and the king of Bela that is Oar went out And they joined in the battle of Sirene with Kedalaymar king of Alom title king of Goim Amfra fell king of Shinaar and Ariak king of Elisar four kings against five Now the Valley of Sidim was full of the two men pits and as the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fell or fled some fell into them And the rest fled to the hill country and the writer goes on So the enemy verse 11 that is King Kedalaymar and the kings of the east The enemy took all the possessions of Sodom and Gomorrah and all their provisions and went their way They also took Lot the son of Abraham's brother who was dwelling in Sodom and his possessions and went their way So pause there Abraham's nephew Lot gets swept up in the battle becomes the spoils of war to the victorious king So he gets taken away Abraham then hears about this and at verse 14 We read when Abram heard that his kinsmen had been taken captive He led forth his trained men born in his house 318 of them and went in pursuit as far as Dan and he divided his forces against them by 19 and his servants and defeated them And pursued them to Hobon north of Damascus and then he brought back all the possessions and also brought back his kinsmen lot with his possessions and the women and the people Pause there Abraham springs into action and rescues the lutes and the captives and then what happens? Verse 17 after his return for the defeat of Kedalaymar and the kings who were with him the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley of Shaveh that is the king's Valley and Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine He was priests of God most high So two kings come out to meet Abram on his return to congratulate him one is the king of Sodom The other is the king of Salem. We might say this one is the king of wickedness and the other is the king of righteousness The king of Sodom the king of wickedness wanted to manipulate and control Abram You can read about this in verses 21 to 24 It's beyond the scope of today Abraham though refuses to have anything to do with him refuses to take anything from him But notice this other king the king of Salem this mysterious Melchizedek who came out to bless Abraham verse 18 and Genesis 14 Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine for each of God most high and he blessed Abram and said blessed be Abram by God most high Possessor of heaven and earth and blessed be God most high who has delivered your enemies into your hand and Abram gave him a tenth of Everything well, that's the story and that's all that we have except for one verse in Psalm 110 That's all that we have about this mysterious Melchizedek and now the writer of Hebrews is going to highlight five Highlight five ways Melchizedek resembles Jesus.
So let's highlight those. Let me give them to you as we go first Melchizedek king of Salem verse one priest of the most high God. He is king and priest He's a king and he's a priest priest of God most high So four times in Hebrews chapter 7 verses 1 and 2 it tells us the man was a king and yet He's a king who's also a priest he has a royal priesthood and this of course was something that totally foreign to the Levitical priesthood in Israel this was never a combination Israel's priests were never to be kings and the kings were never to be priests and this was enforced by the fact that the kings came from the tribe of Judah and the priests came from the the tribe of Levi the son of Aaron and you couldn't be from both Tribes at once and so it divided the kingship from priesthood So important is that distinction in the Old Testament that and that would be maintained that we learned in second Chronicles chapter 26 of King Usiah's chastisement for usurping the authority and duties of a priest His eye was a very successful king and his fame spread far Chronicle says for he was marvelously helped helped by God of course till he was strong But when he was strong the writer says he grew proud to his destruction for he was unfaithful to the Lord As God and how was he unfaithful? He entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense which it was a priestly responsibility a Priestly duty that only priests had authority to do so as king in his pride He tried to take on the prerogatives of a priest and God Disciplined him for it the writer of chronicle says he was struck with leprosy to the day of his death and being a leper He lived in a separate house and was excluded from the house of the Lord God kicked him out of the temple Perpetently and so he was disciplined for his sin the king has no right to take on the priestly authority and duty or vice versa and We in our own Generation maybe can understand at least one of the ideas behind this is that God divided their authorities and their duties So that one bad person wouldn't mess up multiple sides of the life of the people of God Kind of like why we have three branches of government here in the US to divide the executive and the legislative and the judicial branches of our government But in any case while no one tells me king could be a priest or a priest could be a king yet Yeah, here he is this obscure Melchizedek who is both and he's worthy of being both and he resembles Jesus the writer says Who himself is king and priest being of course king of kings as well as our great high priest And and so this idea of priest and king in fulfillment of the prophets is foretold It's prefigured by Melchizedek.
It's also foretold in the prophets Zechariah chapter 6 Zechariah chapter 6 verses 12 and 13 says thus says the Lord behold the man whose name is the branch for he shall branch out From his place and he shall build the temple of the Lord It is he who shall build the temple of the Lord and shall bear royal honor and shall sit and rule on his throne And he shall be a priest on his throne and the Council of peace shall be between both So is that God through Zechariah prophesied the coming of the true king building the true temple of God a king on his throne Serving in a priestly capacity. This is our Jesus a king in priest Foreshadowed in Melchizedek prophesied in Zechariah now notice secondly Melchizedek resembles Jesus because he is king of righteousness middle verse 2 he is First by translation of his name king of righteousness And that's a translation of Melchizedek itself that was named means Melchizedek means Righteous he's king of righteousness and so is Jesus is the point and and this is so helpful for us one of the things Our politics exposes is our longing for a good leader one We one we wish that we could just trust implicitly because of his stellar character one who will only love what is good Only say what is good and true and only do what is good and true and right? You know and none of us have known a leader well who perfectly does that of course either in church or state except Jesus and And this is why I always try to remember though I sometimes forget when I'm having political conversations with friends But but to my political friends on the left and to my political friends on the right I do want to remind us that what holds us together at redeemer is not our agreement on political leaders or every political position But we do have a better king who has a better kingdom than all the kingdoms of this world King Jesus is our rallying point here at redeemer You may you may strongly disagree with one another if you have Conversations about culture and politics and such but our rally to rallying point our point of unity isn't that stuff the stuff of the world Jesus is our rallying point and he can be so because he is the king of righteousness and his rule is always right So that's the second way Melchizedek resembles Jesus is king of righteousness Notice Melchizedek thirdly also resembles Jesus because he's the king of peace Middle of verse 2 he is again first by translation of his name King of righteousness And then he is also king of Salem that is king of peace Salem here is is almost universally understood to be Jerusalem meaning the city of Salem and the word Salem is from the same root as the word Shalom the word for peace or wholeness And so you see that even in the name Salem Shalom. There's a you can see it in English There's a there's a some resemblance there So Jerusalem means city of Salem city of peace and no kiss it is its king So he's both king of righteousness and king of peace and there is an important relationship between these things of course you can't have peace with another person if you don't have a right relationship or righteousness between you I mean if you break the righteousness if you offend the relationship you disturb the peace And the scripture says that in our relation with God if we are not righteous then we're not at peace with God not by nature But if we've offended him he is rightly against us But if you are righteous then you are at peace with God and he is at peace with you and he's for you Which of course makes the question that how can transgressors like us who are right and righteous ever be truly at peace in a lasting peace with God and of course It's the glory of the gospel that this can be not by our efforts but by the efforts of Christ not by our works But by receiving from God a gift even the gift of righteousness Which is found in Jesus Jesus then is all our righteousness and so he can be also our peace Jeremiah 23 And God promised in verses 5 and 6 behold the days are coming to clear the Lord when I will raise up for David a Righteous branch and he shall reign as king and deal wisely and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land in his days Judah will be saved and Israel will jolt securely and this is the name by which he will be called the Lord is Our righteousness and Jesus came great David's greater son and he is our Righteousness and therefore he puts us at peace with God and God at peace with us The Apostle Paul said it like this in Romans chapter 5 1 therefore having been justified by faith We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ We have not we hope to have or someday we'll have but we have peace with God and it's established By Jesus because we have been justified in Jesus.
We have been pardoned and accepted as righteous before God in Jesus And so Jesus is the King of righteousness, but he's also the King of peace There's a fourth way Melchizedek resembles Jesus and it's in this that his priesthood wasn't hereditary Notice how the author puts in verse 3 of Melchizedek he is without father or mother or genealogy And that's interesting because the authors actually make you get argument from silence That is he's building an argument on what the Bible doesn't tell us Not just not just on what it does tell us the point here is that the point about They're not being parents of Melchizedek is not that Melchizedek is some kind of created angel and doesn't have human parents No angel has ever been a priest Hebrews 5 1 already made that point clear that every priest is chosen from among men and appointed act on behalf of men in relation to God Melchizedek then couldn't be an angel and it's not that Melchizedek is really some kind of pre-incarnate manifestation of Christ Though some people argue that but but here's why it's not the case because the author says he resembles the son of God It's not that he is the son of God and it would make no sense to say that the son of God resembles the son of God No Melchizedek resembles the son of God and the point is we're not told in the Bible who his father or his brother are We're not given any kind of genealogy Which is extremely unusual and especially in the book of Genesis Genesis you meet all kinds of Significant characters and you're usually immediately told where they come from who's their family? Who's their father their grandfather their great-grandfather? There's usually a likely genealogy and there's nothing with regard to Melchizedek the absence of A statement about this wasn't an oversight on the part of the Holy Spirit when he inspired the Bible. He wasn't in a rush He didn't scratch his head and say well I just can't give him too much information We don't have time for that or they don't have time to read all that actually it was purposefully done by the Holy Spirit that we have no genealogy Of Melchizedek in order to make this contrast that the writer of Hebrews makes for as we noted the priests All come from one tribe the tribe of Levi they all descend from Moses brother Aaron through his son Levi And that was a necessary qualification to be from that family.
You couldn't be a priest unless you had that genealogy Aaron's priesthood was for meditary You had to be part of that family But Melchizedek isn't from Aaron and his priesthood isn't hereditary and neither is Christ's Melchizedek resembles Christ in that regard and then fifthly notice that Melchizedek resembles Jesus as a priest forever I'll pick up at the middle verse 3 having neither of Melchizedek having neither beginning of days or end of life But resembling the Son of God he continues a priest forever So we're not told when he was born and we're not told when he died He suddenly appears out seemingly out of nowhere and just as suddenly he disappears and nothing more is said about him until a thousand years later David mentions him once in Psalm 110 and the idea is that we don't know the beginning of his Priesthood and we don't know the end of his priesthood But we always would know the beginning of the end of the Levitical priesthood I mean the Levites were just playing old men and dying men and they were ordained as priests at the age of 25 And they faced mandatory retirement at the age of 50 and one generation of priests gave way to another generation of priests as each One on to the grave or in a retirement and then the grave and the priesthood then perpetuated as priests and their wives had sons and the sons went into By God's decree the family business so to speak, but of Melchizedek the Bible records no posterity no successor Until Jesus the Bible also know records no death or burial of Melchizedek now It's not that he didn't die or be buried at some point But the scripture the author say the scripture in not giving us any of that Presents the priesthood of Melchizedek as if it never ended Because he never ended it says if in scripture he lives and his priesthood continued and We don't read of the passing of the torch of the priesthood to anyone else until you get to Hebrew 7 So Melchizedek never seems to end suddenly appears we don't know the beginning we see no end and so he resembles Christ who is a priest Forever a priest without end Now think of the about that and then we'll close the author is saying not that Jesus is like this figure who existed thousands of years before Jesus came into the world. I'm sorry get myself confused. He's not saying that Jesus is like this figure who existed thousands of years Well before Jesus came into the world, but the Melchizedek is like Jesus. He's not saying Jesus is like Melchizedek He's saying Melchizedek is like Jesus the Jesus who well as the son of God existed before Melchizedek ever existed So it's not simply that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament foreshadowing It is that but it's now that Melchizedek is the shadow of Someone who existed long before he existed But just as the earthly tabernacle was a shadow of the true reality the heavenly reality the heavenly reality that pre-exists the earthly shadow form of what Moses saw and was told having seen it to go back down and build the shadow earthly representation of it the true reality exists Prior to the shadow, but then the shadow prefigures The true reality and so it is with Melchizedek who resembles Jesus as a pattern of or type of the true reality and so as we wind up We we have a royal priest who is King of righteousness will never do you wrong?
And who as King of peace perfectly represents you before God and stands you in his grace at peace with God and And he does this not on the basis of hereditary rights to being a priest but on the basis of an indestructible life and the perfection of his work and his priestly intercession Goes on forever it never ends So you can you and I we can always trust him the people of God can always trust him in every generation and know that he will Always be our priest as we live on throughout eternity So this is a priest you can trust and this is a priest who can truly bless you. He's the best priest there is And he is yours if you are in Christ and if you're not he is offered to you this evening put your hope in him Let's pray father We bow and in praise of your plan even the wisdom of it and the work of the spirit in giving us the Word of it even ahead of time and then the sword of the writer of Hebrews helping us to understand we praise you for Jesus Jesus we need you and we thank you that you are Our access to God and we thank you that you stand us in grace before God that God might be at peace with us and for us and not against us in Christ So help us to live in that reality and to live in light of it in Jesus name amen Amen, let's stand together and say