One Like Us Hebrews 4: 14 5:10 First Presbyterian Church September 6, 2015 Baton Rouge, Louisiana Derek McCollum The other night Joy and I were watching an episode of Modern Family. In this episode, the whole family had taken a trip to somewhere on the European coast they were on a beach. That beach, being a European beach, was also a top optional beach, and the two pre-teen boys in the family were getting a little excited. One of them, being driven by more hormones than brains, begins to head out into the ocean where he sees a pretty woman. He yells confidently back to the other boy, who is still on the beach, saying, Stay there and be cool don t do anything stupid. Just then, a huge wave crashes over him, sending him sprawling in the water. The wave also seems to have taken his swim shorts. So here he is, waist deep in the ocean with no shorts on. About that time a beautiful and topless woman comes up to him and asks if he needs help. He says, I ve lost my suit. And then she says, Oh, I ll help you find it, and puts on goggles and begins to look under the water for his suit. Guys, this may closely resemble a nightmare you have had in the past! This is an illustration of nearness and transparency. Exposure and nearness. But not in the way anyone would want it to be! In fact, it is exposure and nearness that leads not to confidence but to deep insecurity and fear. No one would ever want to be in such a situation. But the Bible says that Christians can experience both exposure and nearness to God and that it can come with confidence rather than fear. Last week we saw from Hebrews 4:11-13 that the beginning of coming into God s rest is being exposed before the Lord. Well, here in the rest of the chapter, we learn that we can stand exposed before the Lord and we can do so with confidence rather than fear. So how does that happen? That s what we are going to focus on today. Here is the big answer: we can be near, exposed, and confident before God because we have a Priest who is one of us. Let s dig into that
First we need to talk about the concept of a priest. That concept was introduced in chapter two of Hebrews and it will become very important over the coming chapters. The priest in Israel held a very important function. In the Old Testament, after God has rescued Israel from slavery in Egypt, after he had brought them safely through the Red Sea, he brought them to Mt. Sinai where he met with Moses and told him a couple of very important things. First, he said, I m going to take you and give you the land I promised Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Secondly, I m going to come with you. I am actually going to dwell with you give you my very presence. You ll not only get a land to dwell in and a place in which you might fulfill your mission on earth, but you ll get me! How can a holy God, creator of the Universe and Lord and judge of all things, come and live with a sinful, frail and broken people? Well, the book of Leviticus is the answer to that question. Leviticus describes how God and mankind are going to function, and especially how sin is to be dealt with. And one very key component of the structure for how sin is to be dealt with is a person called a priest. The priest is the mediator between God and man. He s the go-between. When sin is to be dealt with, it s the priest who offers the sacrifices that deal with the sin. The priest is the one who stands between man and God and provides the atonement (the substitute) that is needed. The Bible says that as we stand before a holy God, we stand with shame we are stained, tainted, not right. And what we need is someone to take that shame away, to cleanse that shame and present us as holy, right, perfect before God. To stand in our place and offer sacrifices for us. That was the priest s job. And among the priesthood there was one man with a very special job. He was the High Priest. This was Aaron, Moses brother, to begin with. He was the only one among all the people who could make some very particular sacrifices. The Tabernacle, which was the place that God dwelled and the place where sacrifices and offerings were made, had some different rooms. And those rooms worked in a progressive function, becoming progressively more and more exclusive. The wider area around the Tabernacle could be accessed by anyone, but there were rooms that only the priests could go into. And there was one room, call the Holy of Holies, which only the High Priest could enter. It was where the ark of the covenant was kept and where the presence of God dwelled. Remember, sinful humans coming into contact with the presence of God is dangerous, so in order to come near, there
could only be one person, and that person had to go through a long ritual signifying his cleansing before coming before God s holiness. In fact, the High Priest would have to make a special offering to cover his own sin before he went into the holy of holies. Even with all of that, the High Priest would wear bells on his garments so that people could hear if he had stopped moving or not to know if he was still alive. This Priest was the representative for his people. He was the go-between between people and God. The people needed that they needed someone to make intercession for them because they could not come to God exposed on their own and have any hope of confidence before him. You and I need that as well. We know deep down that we need something to cover our shame. We know it because we re always looking for something to cover it we do that with our talents or our ability to attract people to us, or our wealth or our power or we push people away because we don t want them to get too close to that shame. We need an intercessor a priest. And that s what the writer of Hebrews says we have in Jesus. He is the great High Priest for us. All that was exhibited in the priesthood in the Old Testament has found its fulfillment in Jesus. He is the perfectly qualified High Priest who can act on our behalf and bring us into God s presence. Look at what the writer says about Jesus s qualifications first, he says that Jesus doesn t need to offer sacrifice for his own sin because he s sinless that s in verse 15. He s been tempted in every way but he s without sin. That word translated tempted can mean either tempted or tested. Tempting is an effort to bring down; testing is an effort to bring up to qualify. Jesus has experienced both. He s been tempted to sin and he s overcome it. And he s been tested to see if he s worthy and he s passed the test. He is the perfectly qualified High Priest. We also learn that he s perfectly chosen by God. That s what verse 5 says. Christ did not exalt himself to become a High Priest but was appointed by God. Appointed by God to take the role of perfect High Priest. And then we have this quote from Psalm 2 in the next verse that reminds us that not only was Jesus appointed priest but also he s the chosen King and even God s very son. Following that, we have an allusion to Jesus priesthood that belongs to this mysterious order of Melchizedek. All of this is to say that there is only one who is uniquely suited
and qualified and chosen to be the High Priest who can bring us near to God, present us to him as blameless and have the kind of access to God that only he can. Jesus is the only one. If we re to stand exposed before the Lord, we need a priest. If we are to stand with confidence before our maker and judge, we need someone who takes our place. Now, I know at this point, some of you are saying, that s all well and good, but I m just not sure what I think about the idea of someone standing in my place. I mean, isn t God supposed to just love me and forget all the bad stuff? I mean, I thought this whole Christian thing was about relationship, and all this talk of priesthood sounds not only archaic but kind of impersonal. Well, here s the deal if God just forgot about all our sins, that wouldn t make him very just, would it? He wouldn t be much of a just God if he just indiscriminately forgot about some sins and not others. In order for us to be able to have a relationship with him, he must do something about sin. And that s why we need a mediator. But it s by no means impersonal. Here s the second big theme we are talking about this morning we need a priest to go on our behalf, but we also need that priest to be one who can empathize with us. We need someone who is not only someone we can identify with but someone who has actually experienced our lives. If we are going to be able to draw near to God, we need Jesus to draw near to us first. And that s exactly what he s done. Take a look at verse 15 for we do not have a High Priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. That double negative is hard to understand at first, but here s what it means: we have a High Priest who can sympathize with our weakness because he s been tempted just like we have. He can identify with us. He, as verse 2 says, deals gently with us because he shares our experience. We need to slow down a bit here and define this a little better. Our English translations say that Jesus is able to sympathize with our weakness. But that Greek word actually means something a little different. It means that Jesus actually experiences with us. He suffers with us. He is able to identify with us because he has shared with us in our humanity and in our temptation and in our suffering. In
fact, I think the better idea to have in mind here is not sympathy but empathy. And there s a difference. Sympathy is the ability to understand a little better what someone else is going through but it s removed from their situation. Let me give an example. I heard on NPR the other morning a story about Autism, and especially how there was so little public information about autism until really the late 80 s. In fact, it wasn t really until 1988 when the movie Rain Man came out (which is about an Autistic adult) that awareness really grew. And there were stories of parents who would say that when they were in public with their autistic child they would always draw condescending looks from the people around them. But literally weeks after Rain Man was released, people would come and say, Oh, is your son Autistic? Like Rain Man? That s sympathy. It s gaining a little understanding and having the ability to be sorry for someone in a little better way. But it s not empathy. Empathy is different. Because sympathy really says, I don t share any of your experience, but now that I know your experience, I can at least be sorry for you. But Empathy is actually the ability to take another s perspective. To feel not for people, but with people. There s a woman named Brene Brown, a professor at the University of Houston. She s spent most of her career studying shame, vulnerability, and empathy. And she has some wonderful things to say about how empathy works. Here s how she describes it If one person is feeling sadness and saying, I m stuck, down in this dark and overwhelming place, sympathy looks down into that place and says, I m sorry but look on the bright side, here s all the stuff to be happy about. Empathy, however, says, Hey I know what it s like down here. You aren t alone. I m with you. Empathy doesn t look down and offer some suggestions, it actually climbs down with the other person and identifies and shares the experience. Dr. Brown says that the two most powerful words in the world are me too. Have you ever felt that? Have you known the power of those words? Have you had someone identify with you? Empathy, she says, is not always trying to paint the silver lining on. Empathy never starts with the words at least. I had a miscarriage well, at least you know you can get pregnant now. I m having a really hard time in my marriage right now well, at least you have great children. I really hate my job well, at least you have a job. Empathy doesn t do that. Because empathy isn t looking down offering
suggestions, it is down with you. Empathetic people have the ability to enter into another s experience, feel their pain or joy and relate deeply to them. To be able to say, I know what it s like. You re not alone in this. Here is the beautiful truth of the Gospel: Jesus, our High Priest shares our experience. He is able to look at us and say, I know what that s like. You aren t alone in this. He hurts with us. He suffers with us. He experiences with us. He is one of us. For this original audience, they needed someone who could empathize. Are you subject to persecution? Jesus was too. Could you be arrested? Jesus was. Could you be killed? Jesus was. They needed to hear Jesus say, me too. We need to hear that also. Jesus knows what it s like to feel, to hurt, to long, to be anxious, to feel discouragement, to rejoice, to mourn, to feel lost and afraid. Our High Priest is one of us, able to experience with us not just look down and paint a silver lining on everything. So here we have it we need a priest, but we need one who shares our experience. That is what we have in Jesus. We need someone to go before us to intercede for us to the Father. We need it because we are dirty as we go on our own. We need a priest who can present us clean. But we also need someone who is like us. We need someone who enters our shame, not just looks down on it. We need someone who is perfectly qualified as High Priest and who can perfectly and fully empathize with us. And now we ve come back to where we started because we have this perfect and empathetic High Priest, we can actually draw near to God with confidence. Exposed, near, and confident. All made possible because we have a High Priest who can empathize with us. So let s make some quick applications what do we do in light of this truth? Well, here s two quick implications: 1. Knowing that we have access to God that we can draw near to him in confidence should be a call for us to approach him in prayer. We have access to the father, so let s take advantage of that. And I love the language that is used
here Let us with confidence draw near to the throne of grace That word confidence could be translated bold frankness. We can approach God in prayer in real and true transparency. In bold frankness. Here s what I m feeling today, Lord. Here s what s going on. Think of it like good dinner conversation at the table of a tight knit family. There s sharing of what went on during the day, what made you sad and what made you happy. There s intimacy and there s boldness, confidence, the willingness to open yourself in even scary ways before those whom you know love you deeply. So here s a recommendation. As you go about your week, carve our time to pray and make it real. Don t be afraid to be honest, bold, and confident. 2. This is also a call to trust. A qualified and empathetic priest is someone we can trust. We are all those who come to each other and to God with something that we think is going to cover our shame whether it be our performance or our wits, or whatever. That act the act of offering something other than Jesus to cover us is actually an act of distrust. As you go about this week, pay attention to the little ways you put something other than Jesus as the mediator between you and God or you and another person. And then ask the Lord to increase your trust in him so that you might cling to him alone. We DO stand before the Lord exposed. But because we have a perfectly qualified and empathetic High Priest who stands before us, we can draw near to God in confidence! Let us live in that confidence today.