Christ our Sacrifice, and Christ our High Priest  | Hebrews

Hebrews 4:14-5:6

I am going to read to you from Hebrews 4. It seems to be several weeks since we last looked into the book of Hebrews, but I am going to read from Chapter 4 and into Chapter 5.

And I am going to read some verses that I am not going to specifically speak from; they introduce to us a theme, an idea, that I will be speaking about that comes up right through the letter, or most of the way through the book of Hebrews.

And it is the issue of the high priesthood of Christ. Now that may not sound very exciting to you, initially. You might say, “Oh, what is this going to be about?”

But I want you to stick with me. We need to do a bit of thinking this morning as well, and I trust that you will go home today excited, reassured by the fact that there is Someone standing on our behalf, working on our behalf in the heavens before God the Father. And we will explain what I mean by that in these minutes.

Let me read you then Hebrews 4:14:

“Since, therefore, 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.

“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 he was without sin.

“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.

“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.

“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. But God said to him,

‘You are my Son: today I have become your Father.’

“And in another place, he says,

‘You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.’”

And we will look a bit more at Melchizedek later, but we will stop at that point.

More than two months ago now I made a purchase online that has never arrived. I telephoned the very reputable company and they said, “We do apologize. We have had many more orders than we had anticipated, but you will get it by the end of next month.” (That was last month, and I still haven’t received it.)

The purchase has been made and I know that because I checked my credit card account and I have already paid for it about a month or six weeks ago. So, it is purchased, but it has not yet been delivered.

Now here is a question: when is it mine? Is it mine when it is purchased? Or is it mine when it has been delivered?

Those are two aspects, really, of ownership. Legally, it is already mine. I have already paid; the card has been processed. But experientially it is not yet mine.

And there are things in the Christian life that are ours in Christ, purchased in full by the Lord Jesus Christ. We sing about them on Sundays, we claim them, we affirm them, we believe them, and yet back at home on Mondays and Tuesdays and Wednesdays and Thursdays and Fridays and Saturdays, we have very little or no experience of them.

Theologically, doctrinally, biblically, we say, “This is what I have in Christ. Here it is – this verse, that verse.”

But experientially this has never been delivered into our souls and become part of our life.

And there are two aspects of the work of Jesus Christ I want to talk to you about that permeate through Hebrews, not just in one section, but that permeates through Hebrews, much of Hebrews.

Two aspects of the work of Jesus Christ: one is about purchase and the other is about delivery. One takes place – or took place – on earth; the other takes place from heaven.

On earth Christ was our sacrifice who purchased our salvation. As Revelation 5:9 says, looking at Christ the Lamb, it speaks of the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world,

“…and with your blood, you purchased men” (and women) “for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.”

That is a past tense statement. “You have purchased people from every tribe, tongue, color.” We here this morning have been purchased by the blood of the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ.

That was His work on earth. Having completed it, He ascended then to His Father.

But now He has a work from heaven where Christ, our great high priest, is representing us before God, is interceding for us to His Father, is speaking on our behalf. And there are all kinds of verses that say this (I am just putting them together) and is our advocate. He is administering what it is that He purchased.

Now if we merge these two into one and say, well, for Christ to have purchased it is to have delivered it, we will get confused. We will either begin to pretend things are real in our lives that are not, or we will have the theology that sounds absolutely right but is totally removed from the way that we are able to live our lives.

So let me look at these two things separately and then merge them together.

First of all, let’s talk about the purchase. This is the work of Jesus Christ on earth. It is His work as our sacrifice, as our substitute in dealing with our sin before God.

Hebrews 10:10 for instance says,

“We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”

That, of course, is what happened on the cross when He was crucified as our substitute, sacrificed on our behalf.

And this phrase “once for all” that is used there is another theme of the work of Jesus in the book of Hebrews. In Hebrews 7:27 he says,

“He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself.”

Hebrews 9:12 says,

“He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption.”

Hebrews 9:26:

“But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgement, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people.”

Notice the recurring idea there. It is once for all. It is once. We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. There is a beautiful finality about the work of Jesus Christ.

It wasn’t half done, it wasn’t 95% or 99%; it was once for all, done.

That’s why Jesus could cry from the cross, “It is finished!” It is over. It is done. And never again will Jesus Christ pay for sin.

In fact, Hebrews 9:25 emphasizes that.

“Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own.

“Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.”

Now I am making the point because it is very important to understand this, that it is a once for all finality to the work of Jesus Christ. Never again does He have to die for our sin; there is no sin you have ever committed not covered by the death of Jesus Christ as your substitute.

Now to understand the book of Hebrews, we must realize it is running along the story of the Israelites in their wilderness years when God rescued them from Egypt to take them to Canaan.

Last time we talked about the fact that Canaan is a land of rest and so on, but also during those years the tabernacle was established in the wilderness, the priesthood was established, the sacrifices were put in place that had to be participated in if sin was going to be atoned for.

If you read through the book of Leviticus, which you probably don’t read very often because it’s one of the hardest books in the Bible to read – incidentally, by the way as just an aside, there are more words of God speaking directly in the book of Leviticus than any other book in the Bible.

Some people have red-letter books, you know, where, Bibles, where Jesus’ words are in red, in the Gospels in particular. If you were to have a kind of green-letter Bible and the words of God were in green, Leviticus would be almost an entirely green book, and yet we don’t read it because it’s too complex for us.

But we have to understand what was taking place in those wilderness years in people’s approach to God, people’s ability to get right with God in order then to understand what Christ did in one fell swoop to deal with everything that was being done by the sacrificial system established in the tabernacle.

And they had daily sacrifices every morning, every evening, weekly sacrifices, they had monthly sacrifices on the first day of the month, they had annual festivals usually lasting four, five, six, seven, eight days and many sacrifices taking place.

In fact, in Numbers 28 and 29, I counted - if this is right - that the priests offered 1274 animals in sacrifice every year. Those are the obligatory ones and there were voluntary sacrifices as well in advance.

So, the priests were standing up to their elbows in blood, which was being offered to God to cover their sins.

Within that there were five main offerings they had to participate in. (You can read all this in Leviticus.) And we will put them to you in the order in which they become experiential to us.

The first was the guilt offering, which had to do with our actual sins.

And just imagine - I think this is the best way to explain this – just imagine I was sitting outside the tabernacle one day and I see a man coming, bringing a young lamb. And I watch him as he brings it to the priest who is standing at the entrance to the tabernacle, where there is a big altar.

And the priest examines the lamb to make sure there is no fault, there is no blemish. And then he takes the lamb, finding it has no blemish, and he kills it and pours it on the altar.

And as that man leaves, suppose I say to him, “Excuse me, why did that lamb have to die?”

And he would say, “Well, you know, to my embarrassment, I have been doing something that I know is wrong and I know it has separated me from God. I know I am guilty and I want to be forgiven. And so, I brought this young female lamb to offer as a guilt offering to God.”

And so, I say, “You mean that that poor little lamb had to die because of your sin?”

He would say, “Yes, I am very ashamed to say so, but it’s true because without the shedding of blood, there is no remission for sin. But now I have been forgiven. I have offered my guilt offering to deal with my sins.”

And so off he goes.

The next day I am sitting outside the tabernacle again and I see this same man coming, this time leading a goat. And he comes up to the tabernacle and I say to him, “Excuse me, you were here yesterday.”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“And you offered a lamb to deal with your sins yesterday.”

He’d say, “Yes, I did.”

“Have you been committing more sins today?”

And he would say, “Well no, this is not about more sins. This is about the same sins, really. Because I realize that my sins or things I do are an expression of what I am, that my problem isn’t just my sins; it’s my sin, it’s myself, it’s my nature. And so, I am going to bring this goat to the priest and I am going to lay my hands on it identifying it with myself, and saying, ‘not just my sins have been paid for but I myself, symbolized by laying on of my hands, has to die.’”

And so, the goat is slain.

The next day I am sitting in the same place. And I see the same man coming again. This time he is bringing a sheep – not a young lamb now; it’s a sheep.

And I say to him, “Have you committed another sin?”

And he says, “No, this is not about another sin; this is about the same sin I have already dealt with in the last two days. But I have realized, you know, getting rid of my sins is one thing; dealing with the sin principle within me is another thing. But you know it’s not all about just getting cleaned up; it’s about being in fellowship with God, being united with Him.

“And so what I am bringing here is my fellowship offering. This fellowship offering is about the fact if I just have my sins forgiven, I am going to go back and do them all again. I have got to be united with God and brought into union with Him.

“And so this fellowship offering is about communion with God, about intimacy with God. So, I don’t just come out of my sin; I also come into God in a significant, meaningful way where I am united with Him. That’s why it is called the fellowship offering.”

So, the man offers his offering and then he goes home.

The next day I am sitting outside the tabernacle and here comes the man walking alone this time. But there is a beautiful aroma coming from him; he is carrying some cakes that he has just baked. They were made according to a particular recipe. They were made without yeast and they were made with oil.

And I say to the man, what in the world are you doing now?

He said, “Well, you know, these cakes; these represent the work of my hands. We have had to plow the field and sow the seed and reap the harvest and grind the corn and make it into these cakes.

“And I am bringing this to offer to God; it is called my grain offering” (that was the fourth of the offerings) “because it is saying to God, ‘It is not just letting You into my spiritual life that is the issue, dealing with my sin and my union with Christ.’ I am bringing my work life, the work of my hands, that artificial divide we create between the secular and the spiritual, and bringing them together and saying, ‘God, not only do You have access to my heart and my soul and my life; You have access to my business, You have access to my work, You have access to my profession; You have access to every part of my life.’ And so, I am bringing this grain offering.”

Those of you who know the Old Testament symbolisms, without yeast is important; yeast is a picture of sin. You bring it; you clean out the sin that is part of your business life. You come with integrity and you deal with those things.

And mixed with oil – oil is a picture of the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit is not just for Sundays; He is for my whole life, my whole work life.

And so, this man offers his grain offering to God. And then he goes home again.

The next day I am sitting by the tabernacle, the fifth day now. And here comes this man. This time he is leading a big, strong, healthy bullock.

And I say, “Wow, you must have committed a very big sin since I last saw you. What is this all about?”

He said, “No, it’s all connected to the same sin. You see, I have realized there is more than just my sins being forgiven, my sin nature being dealt with, my fellowship with God, my bringing my work life.

“I realize there is something more than that. It is that everything I am and everything I have and every dream that I have and every hope that I have and every penny that I have is God’s. And this is the burnt offering where this bull will be slain, its blood shed. But it will be burned up. There will be no eating of any of its meat” - which they did with some of the other offerings – they could take parts of the meat and they could eat them, but this one, nobody would eat anything; this is going to go up in smoke.

And the smoke is going to go up as a sweet-smelling savor to God. And it is saying, “God, everything I have; I am dead to it now. It is all Yours.”

That is the comprehensive nature of the Levitical system of sacrifice and you will recognize that to be the nature of the Christian life.

We come to Christ and our sins are forgiven, but we have got to deal with that old nature. “I am crucified with Christ”; that’s dealing with that.

I need to come then into fellowship with Him and know that it is not just being brought out of my sins, being brought into union, fellowship, friendship, intimacy with God.

It means all of my life is brought under His authority – my work, my family, my education, my money, my vacations; everything I do is brought to Him and saying, “along with the spiritual side of my life, this part of my life is equally Yours.”

And then in a burnt offering everything is given up and I die to it myself. It is no longer mine; it has been given over to Him entirely.

And this was done by the priest day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. In Hebrews 10:11 it says,

“Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sin.”

A bit later he says, “year after year.”

I mean it’s tedious reading, isn’t it? You know, day after day, again and again, year after year. But then now Jesus Christ, Hebrews 9:26,

“…has appeared once for all…to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.”

So, Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many. We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus once and for all. There is this beautiful finality to what he is saying here, to what Jesus Christ now, on our behalf, has accomplished for us, because these things under the Old Covenant were only a shadow.

Hebrews 10:1 says,

“The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming – not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship.”

The shadow means there is something more that is yet to come, that is the real thing. And of course this is the work accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ. When He died on the cross and cried out, “It is finished,” simultaneously something happened in the temple.

The curtain which divided the Holy of Holies, which is where once a year the high priest went with all that had been invested in sacrifice and blood prior to that in the previous year; he took it in and sprinkled the Ark of the Covenant with it. And the sin of the nation was forgiven and cleansed.

But now when Jesus said, “It is finished,” the curtain was torn from top to the bottom and from that moment every priest was out of a job, every blood sacrifice was now only cruelty to animals, nothing more. It no longer had any validity because He once and for all, “It is finished.”

That’s why for those of us who may not yet be Christians, the Gospel is not spelled DO – do this, do that, do more; that brings us into bondage, it brings us into a place where we are never really sure, never really satisfied; it is about what I do.

It has become spelled DONE – done, over.

And this priest, Hebrews 10:12 says when he had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, sat down at the right hand of the Father. It was over.

It was over as far as Him having purchased by His blood all that is to be available to us. It was not over as far as delivery is concerned because for our sin and our salvation to have been dealt with, for our salvation to have been purchased, then there must come delivery.

And if the purchase was on earth through the cross, once, the delivery now is from Christ our great high priest who is operating from heaven.

To have purchased is not in itself to have delivered and made effective because Christ has died once for all but there are many people still in their sin.

If you said, no, the delivery is automatic once it is purchased, then we would have to be Universalist in our approach – everybody’s sin is already dealt with and covered. Potentially so; experientially it is not so.

And so, this is the role of Jesus as the high priest. There are two offices in the Scripture that stand in the Old Testament, that stand between God and humanity. If God is this side and humanity is that side, the two offices are the prophet and the priest.

And the priest [prophet] stands and he speaks to the people on behalf of God. So, his message is, “Thus says the Lord.” Not, “I have got a good idea” - “I am speaking to you on behalf of God.”

The priest is the reverse order. He speaks to God on behalf of the people. So, he brings to God all the needs, all the sins, all the failings of the people and brings them to God and gives it to God for Him to deal with.

That was the role of the priest in contrast to the prophet, but now Jesus Christ, as our priest, is the one who is standing before the Father. He is interceding for us, meaning He is speaking on our behalf, applying before the Father the effectiveness of what He has already purchased in bringing cleansing and forgiveness.

And to do this, this priesthood is not the same priesthood as they had in the tabernacle, which was the priesthood of Aaron. And Aaron’s problem was he had to offer a sacrifice for his own sins first every time.

“You come to me with this sin in my life. I’ve done that as well. Just hold on; let me go and offer my own sacrifice.” That’s what he had to do all the time.

But instead, there is a new priesthood, there is a change of law and change of priesthood, and the new priesthood is in the order of Melchizedek (whatever that means). But for instance, in Hebrews 7:11,

“If perfection could have been attained through the Levitical priesthood (for on the basis of it the law was given to the people), why was there still need for another priest to come – one in the order of Melchizedek, and not in the order of Aaron?

“For when there is a change of the priesthood, there must also be a change of the law.”

Now let me talk just for a few minutes we have left about this man Melchizedek and why Jesus is a priest in the order of Melchizedek. He is an extremely mysterious figure who appears once in one verse in the book of Genesis 14:18. He is referred to in Psalm 110; he is referred to eight times in the book of Hebrews.

It is the book of Hebrews that has given him his significance. If he wasn’t in the book of Hebrews, we probably wouldn’t even notice him back there in Genesis.

And his story is not especially exciting. It is not the kind of story you teach Sunday school kids. It’s not like David and Goliath or Moses and the Red Sea or Daniel in the den of lions. It’s nothing as exciting as that.

So, it’s the kind of story that we don’t really know too much about. But in the book of Hebrews, it is clearly significant, this man Melchizedek.

But there’s a back story to him arriving on the scene in Genesis 14. The back story is this: that there was a coalition of four kings fighting a coalition of five kings – these were kings of cities really, so it’s like the mayor rather than kings as we tend to think of that.

And these four cities on one side and five on the other were fighting against each other, and in the battle, Abraham’s nephew Lot was captured. He was so irate by this he got an army together – it says there were 318 people in his army, so, you know, pretty big army. And he went to fight those who were holding Lot and he fought them, defeated them, and rescued Lot.

And then Genesis 14:17 says this that,

“After Abram returned from defeated Kedorlaomer” (which is the main king), from defeating him and the kings allied with him, the king of Sodom came out to meet him in the valley Shaveh.

Now the king of Sodom came to meet with Abraham. Do you remember the significance of Sodom? Sodom has become a byword for depravity and for wickedness.

And at this point, when the king of Sodom (byword for depravity) meets Abraham (the byword for righteousness – he was made righteous through his faith in Christ), into this meeting steps this third person called Melchizedek in Genesis 14:18.

“Then Melchizedek…”

(We have no idea who he is at this point)

“…king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High, and he blessed Abram, saying,

‘Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth. And blessed be God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hands.’”

Now most Bible scholars will see Melchizedek certainly as a type of Christ or some even as what we call a Christophany, which is a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ. Several times you have that happening in the Old Testament.

Well, I am not going to enter that debate or discussion. I don’t think it really matters as long as when we read Melchizedek, we read Christ – that is who he represents, that is who he is a picture of – Christ.

So here is the king of Sodom, representing all the evil and depravity and wickedness that Sodom was famous for, and here is Abraham, the man who is clothed in the righteousness of God. They are meeting together and into that picture comes Melchizedek, Jesus.

The king of Sodom, who lost the war, said in Genesis 14:21,

“Give me the people,” he says to Abraham “and keep all the goods for yourself.”

That is the same satanic strategy, by the way. “I will give you all the good things you want; I will let you have; I will be the architect even of all the prosperity and materialism that you want, but give me the people.”

And it is into that situation that Melchizedek gives to Abraham bread and wine. Does that ring a bell? Of course, it does. He is a picture of Jesus. What is the bread and the wine? It is of course the body and the blood of the Lord Jesus.

And He brings into that picture the application of the shedding of blood and the broken body of Jesus Christ. He is called the king of righteousness. First his name means the king of righteousness and then also the king of Salem, which means the king of peace. He comes to bring righteousness first and then peace.

And by the way, not the other way around; there is no peace until first we have dealt with the righteousness issue, and then peace.

And so, he offers this to Abraham.

Now why does the writer to the Hebrews bring this up and make an issue of this? I suggest to you this: because having made very, very clear in that book that once for all our sin is dealt with, once for all it is paid for, past, present and future, it is not once for all that you are forgiven, that you are a beneficiary. We need the priest who stands on our behalf.

So, as John writes in 1 John, [1 John 2:1b]

“If anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense - Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.”

Some translations say, “We have an advocate,” we have Someone who stands between us and God.

And if we sin, as we will in the Christian life – don’t just shrug your shoulders and say, “Well, it’s all paid for anyway.” In humility we bring it to the Priest and say, “Please forgive me. I need that forgiveness of my sin, for what has been accomplished to be delivered and to become part of my own experience.”

It has been said that we don’t need to confess our sins. I do not believe that to be what the New Testament is teaching us. If that was true, there is no role for Christ as our priest. If that is true, then when Jesus died and cried, “It is finished” and then rose again to vindicate what He had done, His work is over. But it’s not.

And when John wrote his first letters, first epistle, he wrote it to believers in 1 John 5:13, he says,

“I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.”

“So, I am writing to you who are believers to confirm your faith in Christ.” You may remember when John wrote his gospel before this, he wrote it to create faith in Christ.

“These things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” [John 20:31]

So, he is writing the gospel to create faith in Christ; now he is writing to Christians to confirm their faith in Christ. Why? Because often we are filled with doubt. Often things go wrong in our lives. And sometimes we are guilty of sin and we feel, “am I still connected to God or am I separated from God?”

Now, says John in this letter,

“If anybody says he has no sin, he is deceiving himself.” [1 John 1:8]

So it’s okay; it’s a fact of life in this life that we are not delivered from our sinful nature, and if we claim to be without sin – and there are those who claim that, there are Christians who teach that; I have heard Christians teach and say, “I am not a sinner anymore; I am a saint, and then they qualify, “I am a saint who sins.”

Well, you are a sinner! Let’s not play games with words. I stand before you this morning. I am a sinner. I know that full well. And if I say I am not, I am deceiving only myself; I am not deceiving my wife, that’s for sure!

So, he says, “If I claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves. The truth is not in us. We are kidding ourselves.”

Verse 10: [1 John 1:10]

“If we claim we have not sinned, we make God out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.”

But sandwiched between those two verses is the wonderful,

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

Let me ask the question: why is He faithful and just when He forgives us of our sin?

Because it is paid for, it has been – every sin you have ever committed has been dealt with. But you become the recipient of that when we confess our sin. And when we do, He is faithful, He is just. He said, “Look, it’s been paid for – I paid for it – it’s yours.”

When I phone that company again, I should probably talk with a slightly louder voice and say, “It’s now two and a half months. You told me I would get it last month.”

What am I asking them to be? I am asking them to be faithful and just and give me what’s mine because possession has already been brought about; delivery has not yet been brought about.

And if you and I are not living in that humble intimacy with God where we are on our knees, where we are bringing to Him our failures, we are bringing to Him our sins, we are bringing to Him all our need, and our High Priest is interceding for us, He is acting on our behalf, He is advocating for us, He is saying to the Father, “Father, this is paid for. Deliver it.”

And that is how we grow in our intimacy with God. And so, this high priest in the order of Melchizedek appears on the scene once. He has no past. He has no father or mother, it says. He has no genealogy. It says he has no end of date – he doesn’t die.

So, you know, whether that is saying there is nothing mentioned about his beginning or his end, or it may be saying that this in actual fact an incarnation of Christ and certainly at least, it is a symbol of Christ. You read Melchizedek; you read Christ.

And he says to Abraham in the middle of this situation, where the king of Sodom is trying to suck him away, “Take this bread and eat it. Take this wine and drink it.”

We interpret that in the New Testament, “This is My body broken for you; this is My blood shed for you.” You come and you are restored and reconciled to a Holy God.

You may be included in what Christ purchased on the cross – you are included, every one of us.

But we not only need to be the recipients. If you are not a Christian here this morning, you need to come and say, “Lord Jesus Christ, You died for me. It is done. It is over. It is finished. But please make that real in my experience. Make it operative in my life.”

And those of us who are Christians need to recognize that sin does continue in our Christian lives. We do fail. And we come again and we say, “Lord Jesus, I confess to You my sin and I thank You that You are faithful, You are just, You are obligated to forgive me. You are just because it is paid for on the cross.”

And we receive and enjoy that liberty of freedom that we have with Him.

And the last verse was the first verse we read in Hebrews 4:15:

“We don’t 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.

“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.”

And he is writing to Christian believers and he is saying to them, “Let’s approach that throne of grace and receive mercy and receive grace to help us, to equip us, to enable us to live.”

Let’s pray together and ask God to make this real in our lives.

We want to thank You, Lord Jesus Christ, that there is no debt outstanding in heaven for our sin. Incredible as it seems, Your blood was enough. The perfect sacrifice of that perfect man, whose perfect blood was poured out on our behalf, is the grounds on which we today can be forgiven and cleansed and reconciled to You and brought into fellowship with You, that the whole of our lives is given over to You.

And yet we acknowledge we are not always the recipients of its delivery into our hearts. For those of us here this morning, Lord Jesus, who doubt that You love me enough to apply this to me, we pray that we will see it has nothing to do with us; it is to do with You, Your love, Your grace, Your kindness, which does not discriminate.

And we are to be recipients. We pray You will deliver us from allowing sin to build up in our lives and cause us then to fall. But to come every day in acknowledgement of our need, being honest about our failure, confessing our sin and knowing that our Great High Priest has the authority to say to the Father, “Forgive them, they are cleansed,” because He has paid for it.

Help us, we pray, to grow in You.