Amen. Boy, Steve, I don't know if you can hear it from up here, but that was the best singing I've heard in like a year and a half. That was amazing. Great job, everyone. One of my greatest joys as a pastor, truly, is to sit in the front and just sometimes I stop singing and I just listen to the body that I get to be a part of praise our God together. And it's just a really sweet and special thing. Thank you for being here this morning. Thank you for joining us online or listening throughout the week. If that's your habit, we are grateful for all of that. This is the third part in our series in the book of Hebrews called Greater. When we're moving through the book of Hebrews, we're looking at the comparisons that the author makes between Jesus and some of the figures and facets of the Jewish faith. You'll remember that he writes this letter to Hellenistic Jews, which are Jewish people who grew up outside of Israel in a Greek-dominated culture, probably grew up as practicing Jews, and then converted to Christianity somewhere as adults subsequent to the death and resurrection of Christ and are now trying to work out their new faith. Not only are they trying to work out their new faith, but they're being oppressed by the Roman government violently and physically, and then they're being rejected by their culture. So they're being persecuted from without and from within. And so the author writes this letter to compel them to persevere in their faith, to hang in there in the face of persecution, to hang in there in the face of isolation and stay true to Jesus, their Savior. And again, he does this by making different comparisons over the course of the letter. And so this morning, we arrive at the comparison of Jesus to a high priest, and he makes the point that Jesus is our great high priest. And as I broach the subject of high priest, and we think about Jesus being our high priest, we may feel about that news a little bit like I felt in December of 2008. December of 2008, it was the first year of our marriage. We got married in that July, and Jen's family decided it was high time that we go to Rome, Italy. They had been planning this trip for a while. Now I've married into the family, so my poor father-in-law has to pay my way to Rome as well, and I get to go and schlub all the bags all over Italy, all over the place, wherever we're going. That was my role. While we're there, we're staying in, we rented an apartment, I guess, like it was Airbnb Rome, I guess. And we're staying in this apartment, and it's a couple blocks away from the Vatican City, from St. Peter's Basilica, St. Peter's Square, and all that stuff. And we happened to be there on Christmas Day. And I knew that on Christmas Day, the Pope was going to come out, who was Pope Benedict at the time, and give a papal address. And so I thought it would be a really fun experience. When am I going to be in Rome on Christmas again, a couple blocks away from the Vatican? So I get up that morning, get dressed, and go to St. Peter's Square for the papal address. And it is packed with, I think it was a couple hundred thousand people. It was amazing to see flags from different countries all over the place. I worm my way up towards the front, and Pope Benedict comes out, and he gives his address. And I remember being incredibly impressed with him because he gave the address seven or eight different times in seven or eight languages. And he did it flawlessly. And I don't think he was reading off of anything. It was a really, really impressive thing. And for me, I didn't grow up Catholic. I have no Catholic background. I knew less about Catholicism then than I do now. And I only know a little bit more now than I did then. So it was all just kind of a new experience for me. And I remember at the end of the address, somehow or another, I learned this. I don't know if I heard him say it. I don't know if I read it on the screen where it was giving us the closed captioning of it, but at the end of his address, he offered all of those in attendance. He gave us, I got to see if I can get this right, a verbal plenary indulgence for non-mortal sins in 2008 for that year, which is great news. I was thrilled to have this. Now, I don't want to be disrespectful to Catholicism because for some people that was very meaningful. And what an indulgence is, it basically meant that the Pope forgave me of all of my non-mortal sins in 2008. I don't know what the difference is between mortal and non-mortal sins. It seems like we should try to invest our sinning in the non-mortal kind. I really don't know. But for those sins, I do not have to pay my penance in purgatory. I'm not going to be punished for those in purgatory. And as I received that news, I thought, well, that's great. But I don't really believe in purgatory. And I don't want to be disrespectful to the Pope, but I don't need your forgiveness for my sins. Jesus offers me that. So like I'm all squared away here on the verbal plenary indulgences for non-moral sins. But thank you. I'm good. And I think that that's a little bit how we as 21st century Christians receive the news that we have a great high priest. Oh, I have a high priest. Well, that's great, but like I'm a Christian, I'm all squared away here. I have direct access to God. I don't need an intercessor. Because we might understand a priest to be someone that we go to the priest, and then the priest goes to God on our behalf. And you might be enough of a biblical scholar to kind of start to piece this together from the Jewish perspective, where the Jewish people, they grew up with a high priest. You would go to your priest, and your priest would go to the high priest, and the high priest would make sacrifices on your account. You didn't go directly to God. You went to the high priest, and was your conduit to God, right? And then we know because we're Christians, we act like we have direct access to God. We can pray. We can go to God whenever we want to. I can go into the very throne room of God. I don't need a high priest. I can go directly to God myself. So that's cool that Jesus is the great high priest. It's neat that it's explained like that, but that's probably more for the Hebrew audience than it is for me, because as a Christian, I know I can go directly to God. Except for here's the thing. No, you can't. You cannot go directly to God. I'm going to tell you why in a little bit. But what I want us to understand as we begin this discussion of Jesus as our high priest is that we absolutely need a high priest. We need a high priest. We need someone to go to God on our behalf because we cannot go into the perfect throne room and the perfect presence of Creator God Almighty on our own. We cannot do that. We would be consumed by His glory in an instant. So we have to have a high priest. We need one of those. Before I tell you why we need a high priest, why we need someone to intercede to God for us. I want to tell you about your high priest, because there's some things unpacked in Hebrews. Really, the end of chapter 4 to the end of chapter 7, so close to three and a half chapters, the author invests in this comparison of Jesus as a high priest and explaining to us just the very nature and importance and grandeur of our high priest. And he introduces this idea to us in this way. If you have a Bible, turn to Hebrews. We're going to be in chapter 4, and then we're going to be in chapter, I think, 5, and then we're going to spend the rest of the time in chapter 7, and there's lots to read along with today. But if you have a Bible, turn to Hebrews chapter 4. This is how the author introduces to us the idea of our high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God. Let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who, in every respect, has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then, with confidence, draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in the time of need. There's a couple ideas there, and it's important that we understand them. There's the idea of because of Jesus, we can draw near the throne of God with boldness. We can go to God with boldness. This idea that we've inherited as Christians that we go directly to God, he says that we can do this. So we go directly to God with boldness, and we're going to talk about how we do that in a little bit. So to kind of put a pin in that idea, and we're going to circle back to it later. But he also says that we don't have a high priest who cannot sympathize with us. It's important that we remember that Jesus walked this earth, that Jesus was human, that Jesus faced the same temptations that we do. We see him in Matthew in the desert after fasting for 40 days being tempted by Satan himself. He's tempted with his desires, with his appetite for bread. He's tempted with the desire for authority. He's tempted with his ego. And we see that Jesus was tempted as he moved through life in much the same way as we are all tempted as we move through life. And so as a result, we understand that there's no temptation that we face that Jesus has not dealt with. It's not as if Jesus didn't have to manage and master his own propensity to lust in his own heart. It's not that Jesus didn't have to manage and master his own ego, his own greed, his own selfishness. When we feel fatigued and people need more and more and more from us, moms, moms, I think, are chief among this. Moms, they never get to go through their day without somebody needing something, right? Jesus felt that fatigue. He knew what it was to perform miracles, to serve and serve and serve and give, and then to go off to a quiet place, the bathroom, and have someone knock on the door, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Yes, what? He knew what it was not to lose his mind with that, right? He knew what it was to be tempted by his ego. He knew what it was to have people say things to him and have it within him to crush that person. Have it within them to verbally spar with this person in such a way that they would never speak again. And he bit his tongue. He knew what that was. There is no temptation that we face that Jesus did not walk through himself. Because of that, we have a high priest that empathizes and sympathizes with us. I think we tend to think of Jesus on the throne judging us, looking down on us, being disappointed in the things that we do, and that's not it at all. Jesus sympathizes with us. He looks at us and he says, I've been there. I understand why you made that choice. Don't make it again. It's not good for you. He offers us his sympathy. That's a really, really powerful thing. But this isn't all that the author says about Jesus as our high priest. He actually compares telling you, is the most mysterious, fascinating figure in the Bible to me. I have my whole life since I encountered him, since I read this verse, I was probably in high school and I encountered this verse and my first thought is, the order of Melchizedek, who is that? Because here's the thing, there's an order of priests in the Old Testament, the descendants of Aaron. When God sent Moses to Egypt and said, free my people, he sent him with his brother Aaron. And Moses was the civil authority and Aaron was the spiritual authority. And through the tribe of the Levites that follow from, that come from the line of Aaron are named all the priests and high priests throughout the ages. So you would expect for Jesus to be named high priest in the order of Aaron, because that's the order of priests that have moved throughout the Old Testament. But that's not what the author says. He says he is the high priest, not in the order of Aaron, and we're going to see why in a minute, but in the order of Melchizedek. And if you're paying attention, you're saying, no, what now? Why? Well, let me tell you why. Hebrews chapter 7, verses 1 through 3, we're told a little bit more about this figure. He writes this, 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 10th part of everything. He is first by translation of his name, king of righteousness. And then he is having neither beginning of days nor end of life. Oh, wait, I'm sorry. And then he is also king of Salem. That is king of peace. He is without father or mother no genealogy? He has no father or mother? He resembles Christ. He continues as priest forever. Who is this dude? And why don't we know more about him? He only shows up three places in the Bible. We see him in Genesis 14. This is what he's referring to. And I love how flippant the Bible is. Like that's an unimportant detail. Abraham was returning from the slaughter of the king. So don't worry about that or the slaughter or anything, but let's pay attention to this. I just love the Bible. It's not much for detail sometimes. But in Genesis 14, Abraham has a nephew named Lot who's dumb and gets himself in trouble. And Abraham goes to rescue him. And on the way back, he encounters this king named Melchizedek. His name literally means king of righteousness. He is the king of a city called Salem that would later become Jerusalem, the first king of Jerusalem that we see in Scripture. And when Abraham encounters him, he gives him a tenth of everything that he owns. All his riches, all his wealth, all his livestock, everything that he owns, he gives Melchizedek a tenth of it. This, incidentally, is where we get the idea of the tithe. That's where the tithe started. Tithe just means tenth. And in the New Testament, people disagree on whether or not we're supposed to tithe, but no one disagrees on whether or not we're supposed to be generous. And generally, we take that 10% rule as this is the starting point. And as God grows your heart for generosity and your ability to be generous, we do all that we can. But we trace the tithe back to this incredible interaction that Abraham has with Melchizedek in Genesis chapter 14. And it's incredibly interesting that Abraham felt compelled to tithe to Melchizedek and acknowledge him as a priest. Because to this point in Scripture, all we know of is that God revealed himself to Abraham. We don't know that God has been revealing himself to other people, but clearly, somehow Melchizedek knew who God was, served God, and was this king and priest. And to the Jewish mind, for Abraham to be subservient to him, you would expect Melchizedek to tithe to Abraham to the Jewish mind. But instead, Abraham tithes to Melchizedek, acknowledging a superiority there, which would have shocked the Jewish audience. And in Melchizedek, we see, this is fascinating to me, the unification of civic and spiritual authority. In Melchizedek, we see this man who is a king. He is a civil authority. He is in charge of the military. He is governing over a group of people, and yet he is also the spiritual authority over this people. And this is not a unification that we see again in the Old Testament. From Melchizedek, we see Moses take the civil authority, and we see Aaron take the spiritual authority, and we watch those threads run through, we see those streams run through the Old Testament. But we do not see in God's Israel a reunification of the civil and spiritual authority. Actually, from here, he's only mentioned one more time in the Old Testament. David mentions him. We don't see him again. He shows up in Genesis chapter 14. Abraham pays him a tithe. He offers Abraham a blessing. Off he goes. It's this mysterious king of righteousness who's a unification of civil and spiritual authority. And then we don't see him again. And then out of nowhere in Psalm 110, David refers to him again. It's a messianic prophecy, which means David is talking about the Messiah that is to come, who we know as Jesus. And he says in this prophecy that he will be priest forever in the order of Melchizedek. And you're going, what? Why don't we know more about this guy? Why haven't they written more about him? Why didn't God include him more? And to those questions, we have no answers. But here's what's fascinating to me, and it's amazing to me that God allows David to be a part of Melchizedek's story. Because what we have in the Old Testament, if we're paying attention, and this week as I was researching this is the first time I realized it, and I thought I loved it. In the Old Testament, we see this stream of the civil authority of kingship. We see this stream of this reign of who would become David. And in 2 Samuel chapter 7, God promises David that his throne will go on for all of eternity, that his reign will persist through eternity. And we know that Jesus is the continuation of David's reign, that when he returns to earth, he's going to sit on the throne of David. And so Jesus is the continuance of David's reign for all eternity. But what we may not know is that another stream running through the Old Testament is the stream of the priesthood of Melchizedek that is also going to continue for all of eternity. But it's running parallel to this stream of Aaronic priests, priests through the line of Aaron. And it seems like Jesus is going to come back and fulfill that priesthood, and he's not. This is what I want you to know about your high priest, because I think it's amazing. Your high priest, Jesus, is the continuance of the reign of David and of the priesthood of Melchizedek and the reunification of civic and spiritual authority for all eternity. That's big, so I'm going to say it again. Your high priest, Jesus, who intercedes on your behalf, is the continuance of the reign of David and the priesthood of Melchizedek and the reunification of civic and spiritual authority for all eternity. Do you understand that there's these two streams running through the Old Testament that seem like they're parallel, that seem like they don't have anything to do with each other, the reign of David and the priesthood of Melchizedek. And then in the person of Christ, those streams converge and they conclude and they are completed that the whole Old Testament is these streams running and pointing to Christ and culminating in him, that that's your high priest, the one to whom the entire Old Testament points to and culminates in. He is the completion of these two things. He is the continuance of the reign of David and the priesthood of Melchizedek. For all of eternity, they were just simply foreshadowing for Jesus, who came to die on the cross for you and to be your high priest for your sins. And he is the reunification of the civil and spiritual authority. And in Revelation, in the new heaven and the new earth, when God sits on his throne, he sits on the throne of David and continues as our king and our priest forevermore. Melchizedek is a setup for that. And Jesus is the completion of it. When I sit in that truth, I cannot help but be awed at my Savior. He is so much more than a man who came to die on a cross. He is so much more than simply the Son of God. He is the convergence and the completion of all of the Old Testament, and the promise and the hope of the New Testament, and then the completion of everything at the end of time. Jesus is a pretty big deal, and that's your high priest. And not only is he the continuation of the reign of David and the reunification of civic and spiritual authority and the continuation of the priesthood of Melchizedek, but your high priest is the perfection and completion of the earthly priesthood. He is the perfection and the completion of the Aaronic line of priests that they had in the Old Testament. And we see that in these verses here. I've grouped some together, Hebrews chapter 7, verses 11, 18, and 19. I'll kind of jump around, but this is what the author writes. Now, if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood, for under it the people received the law, what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek, rather than one named after the order of Aaron? For on the one hand, a former commandment is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness, for the law made nothing perfect. But on the other hand, a better hope is introduced through which we draw near to God. I know that's a little confusing, so here's what's going on in that passage. The Hebrews followed the priesthood of Aaron, and the descendants of him were priests. And these priests were messed up dudes. They were human just like me and you. They were pastors. And the best that a pastor can do is be human. I mean, your pastor may or may not have snapped at his sweet daughter on a road trip this weekend when she asked one too many times if we were in a new state yet. I mean, that could have happened. We are fallible, gross humans. And the author of Hebrews points out, that's who your high priests were. They were men who sinned and first had to offer a sacrifice for themselves before they could even get to your business. And now we have a high priest that doesn't need to sacrifice for himself. They were men who lived and then they died. This high priest does not do that. The priesthood of Aaron, the Aaronic priesthood existed much like the law did to simply show you your inability to earn your way into heaven. And it said, why would we need another priesthood unless the one that you acknowledge, the line of Aaron, was fallible and ultimately showed you that it couldn't bring you to salvation. We actually needed a priest in the order of Melchizedek to be perfect and to be complete, which is what Jesus was. So he's the perfection and the completion of the priesthood that already existed. So that's who your high priest is. He is the one on whom the entire Old Testament converges and is personified in. He is the completion of the line of priests that we see run through the Old Testament. Both streams. He's a pretty big deal. But I said at the beginning that we actually need this high priest. It's not just nice that we have them. We're not just awed at the majesty of Jesus and who he is. We actually, we need him. And we're told why in chapter 7, verse 25. Verse 25 starts out consequently, is the first word there. And it starts out consequently, which means because of everything that I just said, because of everything I just said from starting in chapter 4, verse 14, moving through chapter 5, 6, through all of 7, now as a conclusion to by dying on the cross and by raising from the dead. And that in that, in what we celebrate here in a few weeks at Easter, Jesus' death on the cross on Good Friday and then his subsequent resurrection from the dead, that Jesus conquered death, he conquered sin, he conquered the grave, he conquered hell, and on our behalf, now we are saved if we simply place our faith in him on the cross. And that is true. However, Hebrews chapter 7 verse 25 tells us that unless he goes to God and intercedes on our behalf, unless he goes to God and sits at the right hand of the throne and prays for you in your salvation, that that work of salvation is not complete. So what we understand is your very salvation relies on the prayers of your high priest. Your very eternity, your spot in heaven. We sang a few minutes ago, I'm a child of God. I'm free indeed. In my father's house, there's a place for me. That is all true. But it's not true if Jesus doesn't go to the throne of God and intercede for us. The salvific work of Christ was not completed on the cross or rising out of the grave. It is completed as he goes to God and sits at his right hand and says, I got them. When they talk to you, I covered them in my righteousness. I love them. I died for them. God, they're good. At your worst moment, Jesus looks at you and he prays for you and he says, Father, they're good. Forgive them. They know not what they do. And if our faith just rests in what Jesus did on the cross and that he rose from the grave and we don't acknowledge that we have a high priest in heaven who's praying to God on our behalf, who is interceding for us, that our understanding of what's working for our salvation falls short. Our very eternity relies on the prayers of our high priest. How arrogant and ignorant is it of us to say that I don't need a high priest, I can go directly to God. No, you can't. You get to go to God because your high priest, Jesus Christ, sits at the right hand of him and allows you to do so. That's why in chapter 4, verses 14 through 16, he says it's because of our high priest that we go boldly into the throne room of God. Because if he's not there going, he's good, she's good, let her in, let her speak. Then we are dashed in the glory, we are consumed in the glory of God. We cannot hope to stand in the throne room of God. And maybe I'm just speaking about myself here, but sometimes we just arrogantly think or claim or feel that I don't need any of that, I don't need a high priest, I can go directly to God. Yes, you do, you need a high priest more than anyone. But your high priest is Jesus. He died for you. Hebrews says he was perfected in that suffering. He conquered death by raising from the grave for you. And then he goes to Father to complete your work of salvation, and he intercedes on your behalf once you place your faith in him. That's your high priest. That's what he does for you. Do you understand that that's why we pray in Jesus' name? That when you pray and you end your prayer because you heard your parents or some other person as you were growing up in their prayers in Jesus' name or the Bible study that you went to, they said in Jesus' name, and so you just started saying in Jesus' name. Do you understand that this is why we do it? Because if we pray in our name, then God's not hearing our prayers. If we pray in our name, in the name of Nate, I pray. Shut up. No. In Jesus' name, we pray. It's an acknowledgement. Whether you understand it or not, it's acknowledgement at the end of your prayers. God, I'm asking for these blessings. I'm thanking you for these things. I'm confessing my sins. I'm asking for intercession here. I'm presenting all of my prayers and petitions to you in the name of my high priest who died for me and sits at your right hand and prays for me. In Jesus' name we pray. Because of his completed work of salvation by sitting at the right hand of the Father and praying for us. Now I don't know about you, but as this washed over me this week, I couldn't help but be awed at my high priest, at pulling these threads from the Bible and seeing how they all work to converge on the person of Christ, and be humbled by my arrogance in the past to think that I get to go directly to God without acknowledging my utter need for a high priest in Christ. But I do hope wherever you were in that spectrum that we will never again go to God without acknowledging that it is because of the death and resurrection and prayers of our high priest that we are able to do that. I hope that this sermon in particular this week helps us paint a more full and rich picture of the person of Jesus in our life whom we come to and whom we worship and who we submit ourselves to. I hope it enlargens our hearts with gratitude and even with awe as we consider Jesus our high priest in the order of Melchizedek. And because we can pray in Jesus's name, I want to invite us to do that now and then we're going to participate in communion. Well, there's one more thing about Jesus and Melchizedek that I'm excited to share with you. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for hearing our prayers in the name of your Son, Jesus. Thank you for praying for us. Thank you for interceding for us. I pray that you would enlarge our hearts with gratitude and faith as we revel in all that you are. Jesus, we can't wait to see your face, to see you sit on the throne of David as our king and our high priest. May we have a fresh gratitude for our salvation, God. May anyone who is listening to me now, who doesn't know you, who has not received the gift of salvation, would they please by faith receive the gift of their high priest, Jesus, whom they so desperately need? Would you please make us daily aware of our need for him? Thank you for your servant Melchizedek and how you used him. Enlarge and enliven our hearts to you, Father. And it's in Jesus' name, our high priest, that we pray. Amen. Right now, we're going to take a minute and observe communion together. So if you're watching at home and you're able to grab some of the elements, we hope that you will do that. Here we have these packets just by way of review. The very top flimsy layer reveals a stale wafer, and then under that is the juice. Again, this is the COVID-friendly version of communion. Nobody likes it, but it is nice to be able to share in it together. This represents the bread and the wine from the last supper that Jesus had with the disciples. Jesus is about to be arrested, and he starts this tradition with his disciples, and he offers them bread, and he says, whenever this is my body that is broken for you, do this in remembrance of me. And then he pours the wine, and he said, this is my blood that is spilled for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And so it became a tradition with the followers of Christ that when they would gather to consume this bread and wine and to do it in remembrance of Jesus and this tradition that he started. And we see in Acts chapter 2 that this was a defining trait of the early church. They would gather in one another's homes and they would break bread and they would share wine and they would pray together and they would remember their Savior. And the reason that we're doing it this week is back in Genesis 14, when Abraham offers a tenth of all that he owns to this king of Salem, Melchizedek. Melchizedek, in return, offers Abraham a blessing. Do you know what that blessing was? It was a blessing of bread and wine. Just another way that the life of Melchizedek tips its cap and points an arrow to Jesus. Another way that our Savior is foreshadowed in the Bible. So as we focus on this mystery of Melchizedek, let us acknowledge together that he offered Abraham the peace and blessing of communion thousands of years before Jesus came to define it so that when we participate in communion today, we don't just go back to Jesus and the disciples, we go back to the very foundations of our faith with Abraham and Melchizedek and participate in this millennia-old tradition as we focus on our Savior together. So I'm going to be quiet for a minute and pray on my own. As I do that, I would invite you to pray too. Go into the throne room of God, ushered there by your high priest. Ask God to unveil in your heart anything that is there that shouldn't be there. Ask him to create in you a renewed sense of gratitude for him. And be awed by the fact that you are participating in a tradition that goes far back beyond Christ, all the way back to the very beginnings of our faith. Let's pray for a minute. I'll say amen and then we'll take the elements together. Amen. Jesus took the bread and he broke it for the disciples. And he said, this is my body that's broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And he poured the wine. And he said, this is my blood. This is poured out for you. Whenever you drink of this wine, do it in remembrance of me.
Amen. Boy, Steve, I don't know if you can hear it from up here, but that was the best singing I've heard in like a year and a half. That was amazing. Great job, everyone. One of my greatest joys as a pastor, truly, is to sit in the front and just sometimes I stop singing and I just listen to the body that I get to be a part of praise our God together. And it's just a really sweet and special thing. Thank you for being here this morning. Thank you for joining us online or listening throughout the week. If that's your habit, we are grateful for all of that. This is the third part in our series in the book of Hebrews called Greater. When we're moving through the book of Hebrews, we're looking at the comparisons that the author makes between Jesus and some of the figures and facets of the Jewish faith. You'll remember that he writes this letter to Hellenistic Jews, which are Jewish people who grew up outside of Israel in a Greek-dominated culture, probably grew up as practicing Jews, and then converted to Christianity somewhere as adults subsequent to the death and resurrection of Christ and are now trying to work out their new faith. Not only are they trying to work out their new faith, but they're being oppressed by the Roman government violently and physically, and then they're being rejected by their culture. So they're being persecuted from without and from within. And so the author writes this letter to compel them to persevere in their faith, to hang in there in the face of persecution, to hang in there in the face of isolation and stay true to Jesus, their Savior. And again, he does this by making different comparisons over the course of the letter. And so this morning, we arrive at the comparison of Jesus to a high priest, and he makes the point that Jesus is our great high priest. And as I broach the subject of high priest, and we think about Jesus being our high priest, we may feel about that news a little bit like I felt in December of 2008. December of 2008, it was the first year of our marriage. We got married in that July, and Jen's family decided it was high time that we go to Rome, Italy. They had been planning this trip for a while. Now I've married into the family, so my poor father-in-law has to pay my way to Rome as well, and I get to go and schlub all the bags all over Italy, all over the place, wherever we're going. That was my role. While we're there, we're staying in, we rented an apartment, I guess, like it was Airbnb Rome, I guess. And we're staying in this apartment, and it's a couple blocks away from the Vatican City, from St. Peter's Basilica, St. Peter's Square, and all that stuff. And we happened to be there on Christmas Day. And I knew that on Christmas Day, the Pope was going to come out, who was Pope Benedict at the time, and give a papal address. And so I thought it would be a really fun experience. When am I going to be in Rome on Christmas again, a couple blocks away from the Vatican? So I get up that morning, get dressed, and go to St. Peter's Square for the papal address. And it is packed with, I think it was a couple hundred thousand people. It was amazing to see flags from different countries all over the place. I worm my way up towards the front, and Pope Benedict comes out, and he gives his address. And I remember being incredibly impressed with him because he gave the address seven or eight different times in seven or eight languages. And he did it flawlessly. And I don't think he was reading off of anything. It was a really, really impressive thing. And for me, I didn't grow up Catholic. I have no Catholic background. I knew less about Catholicism then than I do now. And I only know a little bit more now than I did then. So it was all just kind of a new experience for me. And I remember at the end of the address, somehow or another, I learned this. I don't know if I heard him say it. I don't know if I read it on the screen where it was giving us the closed captioning of it, but at the end of his address, he offered all of those in attendance. He gave us, I got to see if I can get this right, a verbal plenary indulgence for non-mortal sins in 2008 for that year, which is great news. I was thrilled to have this. Now, I don't want to be disrespectful to Catholicism because for some people that was very meaningful. And what an indulgence is, it basically meant that the Pope forgave me of all of my non-mortal sins in 2008. I don't know what the difference is between mortal and non-mortal sins. It seems like we should try to invest our sinning in the non-mortal kind. I really don't know. But for those sins, I do not have to pay my penance in purgatory. I'm not going to be punished for those in purgatory. And as I received that news, I thought, well, that's great. But I don't really believe in purgatory. And I don't want to be disrespectful to the Pope, but I don't need your forgiveness for my sins. Jesus offers me that. So like I'm all squared away here on the verbal plenary indulgences for non-moral sins. But thank you. I'm good. And I think that that's a little bit how we as 21st century Christians receive the news that we have a great high priest. Oh, I have a high priest. Well, that's great, but like I'm a Christian, I'm all squared away here. I have direct access to God. I don't need an intercessor. Because we might understand a priest to be someone that we go to the priest, and then the priest goes to God on our behalf. And you might be enough of a biblical scholar to kind of start to piece this together from the Jewish perspective, where the Jewish people, they grew up with a high priest. You would go to your priest, and your priest would go to the high priest, and the high priest would make sacrifices on your account. You didn't go directly to God. You went to the high priest, and was your conduit to God, right? And then we know because we're Christians, we act like we have direct access to God. We can pray. We can go to God whenever we want to. I can go into the very throne room of God. I don't need a high priest. I can go directly to God myself. So that's cool that Jesus is the great high priest. It's neat that it's explained like that, but that's probably more for the Hebrew audience than it is for me, because as a Christian, I know I can go directly to God. Except for here's the thing. No, you can't. You cannot go directly to God. I'm going to tell you why in a little bit. But what I want us to understand as we begin this discussion of Jesus as our high priest is that we absolutely need a high priest. We need a high priest. We need someone to go to God on our behalf because we cannot go into the perfect throne room and the perfect presence of Creator God Almighty on our own. We cannot do that. We would be consumed by His glory in an instant. So we have to have a high priest. We need one of those. Before I tell you why we need a high priest, why we need someone to intercede to God for us. I want to tell you about your high priest, because there's some things unpacked in Hebrews. Really, the end of chapter 4 to the end of chapter 7, so close to three and a half chapters, the author invests in this comparison of Jesus as a high priest and explaining to us just the very nature and importance and grandeur of our high priest. And he introduces this idea to us in this way. If you have a Bible, turn to Hebrews. We're going to be in chapter 4, and then we're going to be in chapter, I think, 5, and then we're going to spend the rest of the time in chapter 7, and there's lots to read along with today. But if you have a Bible, turn to Hebrews chapter 4. This is how the author introduces to us the idea of our high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God. Let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who, in every respect, has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then, with confidence, draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in the time of need. There's a couple ideas there, and it's important that we understand them. There's the idea of because of Jesus, we can draw near the throne of God with boldness. We can go to God with boldness. This idea that we've inherited as Christians that we go directly to God, he says that we can do this. So we go directly to God with boldness, and we're going to talk about how we do that in a little bit. So to kind of put a pin in that idea, and we're going to circle back to it later. But he also says that we don't have a high priest who cannot sympathize with us. It's important that we remember that Jesus walked this earth, that Jesus was human, that Jesus faced the same temptations that we do. We see him in Matthew in the desert after fasting for 40 days being tempted by Satan himself. He's tempted with his desires, with his appetite for bread. He's tempted with the desire for authority. He's tempted with his ego. And we see that Jesus was tempted as he moved through life in much the same way as we are all tempted as we move through life. And so as a result, we understand that there's no temptation that we face that Jesus has not dealt with. It's not as if Jesus didn't have to manage and master his own propensity to lust in his own heart. It's not that Jesus didn't have to manage and master his own ego, his own greed, his own selfishness. When we feel fatigued and people need more and more and more from us, moms, moms, I think, are chief among this. Moms, they never get to go through their day without somebody needing something, right? Jesus felt that fatigue. He knew what it was to perform miracles, to serve and serve and serve and give, and then to go off to a quiet place, the bathroom, and have someone knock on the door, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Yes, what? He knew what it was not to lose his mind with that, right? He knew what it was to be tempted by his ego. He knew what it was to have people say things to him and have it within him to crush that person. Have it within them to verbally spar with this person in such a way that they would never speak again. And he bit his tongue. He knew what that was. There is no temptation that we face that Jesus did not walk through himself. Because of that, we have a high priest that empathizes and sympathizes with us. I think we tend to think of Jesus on the throne judging us, looking down on us, being disappointed in the things that we do, and that's not it at all. Jesus sympathizes with us. He looks at us and he says, I've been there. I understand why you made that choice. Don't make it again. It's not good for you. He offers us his sympathy. That's a really, really powerful thing. But this isn't all that the author says about Jesus as our high priest. He actually compares telling you, is the most mysterious, fascinating figure in the Bible to me. I have my whole life since I encountered him, since I read this verse, I was probably in high school and I encountered this verse and my first thought is, the order of Melchizedek, who is that? Because here's the thing, there's an order of priests in the Old Testament, the descendants of Aaron. When God sent Moses to Egypt and said, free my people, he sent him with his brother Aaron. And Moses was the civil authority and Aaron was the spiritual authority. And through the tribe of the Levites that follow from, that come from the line of Aaron are named all the priests and high priests throughout the ages. So you would expect for Jesus to be named high priest in the order of Aaron, because that's the order of priests that have moved throughout the Old Testament. But that's not what the author says. He says he is the high priest, not in the order of Aaron, and we're going to see why in a minute, but in the order of Melchizedek. And if you're paying attention, you're saying, no, what now? Why? Well, let me tell you why. Hebrews chapter 7, verses 1 through 3, we're told a little bit more about this figure. He writes this, 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 10th part of everything. He is first by translation of his name, king of righteousness. And then he is having neither beginning of days nor end of life. Oh, wait, I'm sorry. And then he is also king of Salem. That is king of peace. He is without father or mother no genealogy? He has no father or mother? He resembles Christ. He continues as priest forever. Who is this dude? And why don't we know more about him? He only shows up three places in the Bible. We see him in Genesis 14. This is what he's referring to. And I love how flippant the Bible is. Like that's an unimportant detail. Abraham was returning from the slaughter of the king. So don't worry about that or the slaughter or anything, but let's pay attention to this. I just love the Bible. It's not much for detail sometimes. But in Genesis 14, Abraham has a nephew named Lot who's dumb and gets himself in trouble. And Abraham goes to rescue him. And on the way back, he encounters this king named Melchizedek. His name literally means king of righteousness. He is the king of a city called Salem that would later become Jerusalem, the first king of Jerusalem that we see in Scripture. And when Abraham encounters him, he gives him a tenth of everything that he owns. All his riches, all his wealth, all his livestock, everything that he owns, he gives Melchizedek a tenth of it. This, incidentally, is where we get the idea of the tithe. That's where the tithe started. Tithe just means tenth. And in the New Testament, people disagree on whether or not we're supposed to tithe, but no one disagrees on whether or not we're supposed to be generous. And generally, we take that 10% rule as this is the starting point. And as God grows your heart for generosity and your ability to be generous, we do all that we can. But we trace the tithe back to this incredible interaction that Abraham has with Melchizedek in Genesis chapter 14. And it's incredibly interesting that Abraham felt compelled to tithe to Melchizedek and acknowledge him as a priest. Because to this point in Scripture, all we know of is that God revealed himself to Abraham. We don't know that God has been revealing himself to other people, but clearly, somehow Melchizedek knew who God was, served God, and was this king and priest. And to the Jewish mind, for Abraham to be subservient to him, you would expect Melchizedek to tithe to Abraham to the Jewish mind. But instead, Abraham tithes to Melchizedek, acknowledging a superiority there, which would have shocked the Jewish audience. And in Melchizedek, we see, this is fascinating to me, the unification of civic and spiritual authority. In Melchizedek, we see this man who is a king. He is a civil authority. He is in charge of the military. He is governing over a group of people, and yet he is also the spiritual authority over this people. And this is not a unification that we see again in the Old Testament. From Melchizedek, we see Moses take the civil authority, and we see Aaron take the spiritual authority, and we watch those threads run through, we see those streams run through the Old Testament. But we do not see in God's Israel a reunification of the civil and spiritual authority. Actually, from here, he's only mentioned one more time in the Old Testament. David mentions him. We don't see him again. He shows up in Genesis chapter 14. Abraham pays him a tithe. He offers Abraham a blessing. Off he goes. It's this mysterious king of righteousness who's a unification of civil and spiritual authority. And then we don't see him again. And then out of nowhere in Psalm 110, David refers to him again. It's a messianic prophecy, which means David is talking about the Messiah that is to come, who we know as Jesus. And he says in this prophecy that he will be priest forever in the order of Melchizedek. And you're going, what? Why don't we know more about this guy? Why haven't they written more about him? Why didn't God include him more? And to those questions, we have no answers. But here's what's fascinating to me, and it's amazing to me that God allows David to be a part of Melchizedek's story. Because what we have in the Old Testament, if we're paying attention, and this week as I was researching this is the first time I realized it, and I thought I loved it. In the Old Testament, we see this stream of the civil authority of kingship. We see this stream of this reign of who would become David. And in 2 Samuel chapter 7, God promises David that his throne will go on for all of eternity, that his reign will persist through eternity. And we know that Jesus is the continuation of David's reign, that when he returns to earth, he's going to sit on the throne of David. And so Jesus is the continuance of David's reign for all eternity. But what we may not know is that another stream running through the Old Testament is the stream of the priesthood of Melchizedek that is also going to continue for all of eternity. But it's running parallel to this stream of Aaronic priests, priests through the line of Aaron. And it seems like Jesus is going to come back and fulfill that priesthood, and he's not. This is what I want you to know about your high priest, because I think it's amazing. Your high priest, Jesus, is the continuance of the reign of David and of the priesthood of Melchizedek and the reunification of civic and spiritual authority for all eternity. That's big, so I'm going to say it again. Your high priest, Jesus, who intercedes on your behalf, is the continuance of the reign of David and the priesthood of Melchizedek and the reunification of civic and spiritual authority for all eternity. Do you understand that there's these two streams running through the Old Testament that seem like they're parallel, that seem like they don't have anything to do with each other, the reign of David and the priesthood of Melchizedek. And then in the person of Christ, those streams converge and they conclude and they are completed that the whole Old Testament is these streams running and pointing to Christ and culminating in him, that that's your high priest, the one to whom the entire Old Testament points to and culminates in. He is the completion of these two things. He is the continuance of the reign of David and the priesthood of Melchizedek. For all of eternity, they were just simply foreshadowing for Jesus, who came to die on the cross for you and to be your high priest for your sins. And he is the reunification of the civil and spiritual authority. And in Revelation, in the new heaven and the new earth, when God sits on his throne, he sits on the throne of David and continues as our king and our priest forevermore. Melchizedek is a setup for that. And Jesus is the completion of it. When I sit in that truth, I cannot help but be awed at my Savior. He is so much more than a man who came to die on a cross. He is so much more than simply the Son of God. He is the convergence and the completion of all of the Old Testament, and the promise and the hope of the New Testament, and then the completion of everything at the end of time. Jesus is a pretty big deal, and that's your high priest. And not only is he the continuation of the reign of David and the reunification of civic and spiritual authority and the continuation of the priesthood of Melchizedek, but your high priest is the perfection and completion of the earthly priesthood. He is the perfection and the completion of the Aaronic line of priests that they had in the Old Testament. And we see that in these verses here. I've grouped some together, Hebrews chapter 7, verses 11, 18, and 19. I'll kind of jump around, but this is what the author writes. Now, if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood, for under it the people received the law, what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek, rather than one named after the order of Aaron? For on the one hand, a former commandment is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness, for the law made nothing perfect. But on the other hand, a better hope is introduced through which we draw near to God. I know that's a little confusing, so here's what's going on in that passage. The Hebrews followed the priesthood of Aaron, and the descendants of him were priests. And these priests were messed up dudes. They were human just like me and you. They were pastors. And the best that a pastor can do is be human. I mean, your pastor may or may not have snapped at his sweet daughter on a road trip this weekend when she asked one too many times if we were in a new state yet. I mean, that could have happened. We are fallible, gross humans. And the author of Hebrews points out, that's who your high priests were. They were men who sinned and first had to offer a sacrifice for themselves before they could even get to your business. And now we have a high priest that doesn't need to sacrifice for himself. They were men who lived and then they died. This high priest does not do that. The priesthood of Aaron, the Aaronic priesthood existed much like the law did to simply show you your inability to earn your way into heaven. And it said, why would we need another priesthood unless the one that you acknowledge, the line of Aaron, was fallible and ultimately showed you that it couldn't bring you to salvation. We actually needed a priest in the order of Melchizedek to be perfect and to be complete, which is what Jesus was. So he's the perfection and the completion of the priesthood that already existed. So that's who your high priest is. He is the one on whom the entire Old Testament converges and is personified in. He is the completion of the line of priests that we see run through the Old Testament. Both streams. He's a pretty big deal. But I said at the beginning that we actually need this high priest. It's not just nice that we have them. We're not just awed at the majesty of Jesus and who he is. We actually, we need him. And we're told why in chapter 7, verse 25. Verse 25 starts out consequently, is the first word there. And it starts out consequently, which means because of everything that I just said, because of everything I just said from starting in chapter 4, verse 14, moving through chapter 5, 6, through all of 7, now as a conclusion to by dying on the cross and by raising from the dead. And that in that, in what we celebrate here in a few weeks at Easter, Jesus' death on the cross on Good Friday and then his subsequent resurrection from the dead, that Jesus conquered death, he conquered sin, he conquered the grave, he conquered hell, and on our behalf, now we are saved if we simply place our faith in him on the cross. And that is true. However, Hebrews chapter 7 verse 25 tells us that unless he goes to God and intercedes on our behalf, unless he goes to God and sits at the right hand of the throne and prays for you in your salvation, that that work of salvation is not complete. So what we understand is your very salvation relies on the prayers of your high priest. Your very eternity, your spot in heaven. We sang a few minutes ago, I'm a child of God. I'm free indeed. In my father's house, there's a place for me. That is all true. But it's not true if Jesus doesn't go to the throne of God and intercede for us. The salvific work of Christ was not completed on the cross or rising out of the grave. It is completed as he goes to God and sits at his right hand and says, I got them. When they talk to you, I covered them in my righteousness. I love them. I died for them. God, they're good. At your worst moment, Jesus looks at you and he prays for you and he says, Father, they're good. Forgive them. They know not what they do. And if our faith just rests in what Jesus did on the cross and that he rose from the grave and we don't acknowledge that we have a high priest in heaven who's praying to God on our behalf, who is interceding for us, that our understanding of what's working for our salvation falls short. Our very eternity relies on the prayers of our high priest. How arrogant and ignorant is it of us to say that I don't need a high priest, I can go directly to God. No, you can't. You get to go to God because your high priest, Jesus Christ, sits at the right hand of him and allows you to do so. That's why in chapter 4, verses 14 through 16, he says it's because of our high priest that we go boldly into the throne room of God. Because if he's not there going, he's good, she's good, let her in, let her speak. Then we are dashed in the glory, we are consumed in the glory of God. We cannot hope to stand in the throne room of God. And maybe I'm just speaking about myself here, but sometimes we just arrogantly think or claim or feel that I don't need any of that, I don't need a high priest, I can go directly to God. Yes, you do, you need a high priest more than anyone. But your high priest is Jesus. He died for you. Hebrews says he was perfected in that suffering. He conquered death by raising from the grave for you. And then he goes to Father to complete your work of salvation, and he intercedes on your behalf once you place your faith in him. That's your high priest. That's what he does for you. Do you understand that that's why we pray in Jesus' name? That when you pray and you end your prayer because you heard your parents or some other person as you were growing up in their prayers in Jesus' name or the Bible study that you went to, they said in Jesus' name, and so you just started saying in Jesus' name. Do you understand that this is why we do it? Because if we pray in our name, then God's not hearing our prayers. If we pray in our name, in the name of Nate, I pray. Shut up. No. In Jesus' name, we pray. It's an acknowledgement. Whether you understand it or not, it's acknowledgement at the end of your prayers. God, I'm asking for these blessings. I'm thanking you for these things. I'm confessing my sins. I'm asking for intercession here. I'm presenting all of my prayers and petitions to you in the name of my high priest who died for me and sits at your right hand and prays for me. In Jesus' name we pray. Because of his completed work of salvation by sitting at the right hand of the Father and praying for us. Now I don't know about you, but as this washed over me this week, I couldn't help but be awed at my high priest, at pulling these threads from the Bible and seeing how they all work to converge on the person of Christ, and be humbled by my arrogance in the past to think that I get to go directly to God without acknowledging my utter need for a high priest in Christ. But I do hope wherever you were in that spectrum that we will never again go to God without acknowledging that it is because of the death and resurrection and prayers of our high priest that we are able to do that. I hope that this sermon in particular this week helps us paint a more full and rich picture of the person of Jesus in our life whom we come to and whom we worship and who we submit ourselves to. I hope it enlargens our hearts with gratitude and even with awe as we consider Jesus our high priest in the order of Melchizedek. And because we can pray in Jesus's name, I want to invite us to do that now and then we're going to participate in communion. Well, there's one more thing about Jesus and Melchizedek that I'm excited to share with you. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for hearing our prayers in the name of your Son, Jesus. Thank you for praying for us. Thank you for interceding for us. I pray that you would enlarge our hearts with gratitude and faith as we revel in all that you are. Jesus, we can't wait to see your face, to see you sit on the throne of David as our king and our high priest. May we have a fresh gratitude for our salvation, God. May anyone who is listening to me now, who doesn't know you, who has not received the gift of salvation, would they please by faith receive the gift of their high priest, Jesus, whom they so desperately need? Would you please make us daily aware of our need for him? Thank you for your servant Melchizedek and how you used him. Enlarge and enliven our hearts to you, Father. And it's in Jesus' name, our high priest, that we pray. Amen. Right now, we're going to take a minute and observe communion together. So if you're watching at home and you're able to grab some of the elements, we hope that you will do that. Here we have these packets just by way of review. The very top flimsy layer reveals a stale wafer, and then under that is the juice. Again, this is the COVID-friendly version of communion. Nobody likes it, but it is nice to be able to share in it together. This represents the bread and the wine from the last supper that Jesus had with the disciples. Jesus is about to be arrested, and he starts this tradition with his disciples, and he offers them bread, and he says, whenever this is my body that is broken for you, do this in remembrance of me. And then he pours the wine, and he said, this is my blood that is spilled for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And so it became a tradition with the followers of Christ that when they would gather to consume this bread and wine and to do it in remembrance of Jesus and this tradition that he started. And we see in Acts chapter 2 that this was a defining trait of the early church. They would gather in one another's homes and they would break bread and they would share wine and they would pray together and they would remember their Savior. And the reason that we're doing it this week is back in Genesis 14, when Abraham offers a tenth of all that he owns to this king of Salem, Melchizedek. Melchizedek, in return, offers Abraham a blessing. Do you know what that blessing was? It was a blessing of bread and wine. Just another way that the life of Melchizedek tips its cap and points an arrow to Jesus. Another way that our Savior is foreshadowed in the Bible. So as we focus on this mystery of Melchizedek, let us acknowledge together that he offered Abraham the peace and blessing of communion thousands of years before Jesus came to define it so that when we participate in communion today, we don't just go back to Jesus and the disciples, we go back to the very foundations of our faith with Abraham and Melchizedek and participate in this millennia-old tradition as we focus on our Savior together. So I'm going to be quiet for a minute and pray on my own. As I do that, I would invite you to pray too. Go into the throne room of God, ushered there by your high priest. Ask God to unveil in your heart anything that is there that shouldn't be there. Ask him to create in you a renewed sense of gratitude for him. And be awed by the fact that you are participating in a tradition that goes far back beyond Christ, all the way back to the very beginnings of our faith. Let's pray for a minute. I'll say amen and then we'll take the elements together. Amen. Jesus took the bread and he broke it for the disciples. And he said, this is my body that's broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And he poured the wine. And he said, this is my blood. This is poured out for you. Whenever you drink of this wine, do it in remembrance of me.
Amen. Boy, Steve, I don't know if you can hear it from up here, but that was the best singing I've heard in like a year and a half. That was amazing. Great job, everyone. One of my greatest joys as a pastor, truly, is to sit in the front and just sometimes I stop singing and I just listen to the body that I get to be a part of praise our God together. And it's just a really sweet and special thing. Thank you for being here this morning. Thank you for joining us online or listening throughout the week. If that's your habit, we are grateful for all of that. This is the third part in our series in the book of Hebrews called Greater. When we're moving through the book of Hebrews, we're looking at the comparisons that the author makes between Jesus and some of the figures and facets of the Jewish faith. You'll remember that he writes this letter to Hellenistic Jews, which are Jewish people who grew up outside of Israel in a Greek-dominated culture, probably grew up as practicing Jews, and then converted to Christianity somewhere as adults subsequent to the death and resurrection of Christ and are now trying to work out their new faith. Not only are they trying to work out their new faith, but they're being oppressed by the Roman government violently and physically, and then they're being rejected by their culture. So they're being persecuted from without and from within. And so the author writes this letter to compel them to persevere in their faith, to hang in there in the face of persecution, to hang in there in the face of isolation and stay true to Jesus, their Savior. And again, he does this by making different comparisons over the course of the letter. And so this morning, we arrive at the comparison of Jesus to a high priest, and he makes the point that Jesus is our great high priest. And as I broach the subject of high priest, and we think about Jesus being our high priest, we may feel about that news a little bit like I felt in December of 2008. December of 2008, it was the first year of our marriage. We got married in that July, and Jen's family decided it was high time that we go to Rome, Italy. They had been planning this trip for a while. Now I've married into the family, so my poor father-in-law has to pay my way to Rome as well, and I get to go and schlub all the bags all over Italy, all over the place, wherever we're going. That was my role. While we're there, we're staying in, we rented an apartment, I guess, like it was Airbnb Rome, I guess. And we're staying in this apartment, and it's a couple blocks away from the Vatican City, from St. Peter's Basilica, St. Peter's Square, and all that stuff. And we happened to be there on Christmas Day. And I knew that on Christmas Day, the Pope was going to come out, who was Pope Benedict at the time, and give a papal address. And so I thought it would be a really fun experience. When am I going to be in Rome on Christmas again, a couple blocks away from the Vatican? So I get up that morning, get dressed, and go to St. Peter's Square for the papal address. And it is packed with, I think it was a couple hundred thousand people. It was amazing to see flags from different countries all over the place. I worm my way up towards the front, and Pope Benedict comes out, and he gives his address. And I remember being incredibly impressed with him because he gave the address seven or eight different times in seven or eight languages. And he did it flawlessly. And I don't think he was reading off of anything. It was a really, really impressive thing. And for me, I didn't grow up Catholic. I have no Catholic background. I knew less about Catholicism then than I do now. And I only know a little bit more now than I did then. So it was all just kind of a new experience for me. And I remember at the end of the address, somehow or another, I learned this. I don't know if I heard him say it. I don't know if I read it on the screen where it was giving us the closed captioning of it, but at the end of his address, he offered all of those in attendance. He gave us, I got to see if I can get this right, a verbal plenary indulgence for non-mortal sins in 2008 for that year, which is great news. I was thrilled to have this. Now, I don't want to be disrespectful to Catholicism because for some people that was very meaningful. And what an indulgence is, it basically meant that the Pope forgave me of all of my non-mortal sins in 2008. I don't know what the difference is between mortal and non-mortal sins. It seems like we should try to invest our sinning in the non-mortal kind. I really don't know. But for those sins, I do not have to pay my penance in purgatory. I'm not going to be punished for those in purgatory. And as I received that news, I thought, well, that's great. But I don't really believe in purgatory. And I don't want to be disrespectful to the Pope, but I don't need your forgiveness for my sins. Jesus offers me that. So like I'm all squared away here on the verbal plenary indulgences for non-moral sins. But thank you. I'm good. And I think that that's a little bit how we as 21st century Christians receive the news that we have a great high priest. Oh, I have a high priest. Well, that's great, but like I'm a Christian, I'm all squared away here. I have direct access to God. I don't need an intercessor. Because we might understand a priest to be someone that we go to the priest, and then the priest goes to God on our behalf. And you might be enough of a biblical scholar to kind of start to piece this together from the Jewish perspective, where the Jewish people, they grew up with a high priest. You would go to your priest, and your priest would go to the high priest, and the high priest would make sacrifices on your account. You didn't go directly to God. You went to the high priest, and was your conduit to God, right? And then we know because we're Christians, we act like we have direct access to God. We can pray. We can go to God whenever we want to. I can go into the very throne room of God. I don't need a high priest. I can go directly to God myself. So that's cool that Jesus is the great high priest. It's neat that it's explained like that, but that's probably more for the Hebrew audience than it is for me, because as a Christian, I know I can go directly to God. Except for here's the thing. No, you can't. You cannot go directly to God. I'm going to tell you why in a little bit. But what I want us to understand as we begin this discussion of Jesus as our high priest is that we absolutely need a high priest. We need a high priest. We need someone to go to God on our behalf because we cannot go into the perfect throne room and the perfect presence of Creator God Almighty on our own. We cannot do that. We would be consumed by His glory in an instant. So we have to have a high priest. We need one of those. Before I tell you why we need a high priest, why we need someone to intercede to God for us. I want to tell you about your high priest, because there's some things unpacked in Hebrews. Really, the end of chapter 4 to the end of chapter 7, so close to three and a half chapters, the author invests in this comparison of Jesus as a high priest and explaining to us just the very nature and importance and grandeur of our high priest. And he introduces this idea to us in this way. If you have a Bible, turn to Hebrews. We're going to be in chapter 4, and then we're going to be in chapter, I think, 5, and then we're going to spend the rest of the time in chapter 7, and there's lots to read along with today. But if you have a Bible, turn to Hebrews chapter 4. This is how the author introduces to us the idea of our high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God. Let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who, in every respect, has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then, with confidence, draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in the time of need. There's a couple ideas there, and it's important that we understand them. There's the idea of because of Jesus, we can draw near the throne of God with boldness. We can go to God with boldness. This idea that we've inherited as Christians that we go directly to God, he says that we can do this. So we go directly to God with boldness, and we're going to talk about how we do that in a little bit. So to kind of put a pin in that idea, and we're going to circle back to it later. But he also says that we don't have a high priest who cannot sympathize with us. It's important that we remember that Jesus walked this earth, that Jesus was human, that Jesus faced the same temptations that we do. We see him in Matthew in the desert after fasting for 40 days being tempted by Satan himself. He's tempted with his desires, with his appetite for bread. He's tempted with the desire for authority. He's tempted with his ego. And we see that Jesus was tempted as he moved through life in much the same way as we are all tempted as we move through life. And so as a result, we understand that there's no temptation that we face that Jesus has not dealt with. It's not as if Jesus didn't have to manage and master his own propensity to lust in his own heart. It's not that Jesus didn't have to manage and master his own ego, his own greed, his own selfishness. When we feel fatigued and people need more and more and more from us, moms, moms, I think, are chief among this. Moms, they never get to go through their day without somebody needing something, right? Jesus felt that fatigue. He knew what it was to perform miracles, to serve and serve and serve and give, and then to go off to a quiet place, the bathroom, and have someone knock on the door, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Yes, what? He knew what it was not to lose his mind with that, right? He knew what it was to be tempted by his ego. He knew what it was to have people say things to him and have it within him to crush that person. Have it within them to verbally spar with this person in such a way that they would never speak again. And he bit his tongue. He knew what that was. There is no temptation that we face that Jesus did not walk through himself. Because of that, we have a high priest that empathizes and sympathizes with us. I think we tend to think of Jesus on the throne judging us, looking down on us, being disappointed in the things that we do, and that's not it at all. Jesus sympathizes with us. He looks at us and he says, I've been there. I understand why you made that choice. Don't make it again. It's not good for you. He offers us his sympathy. That's a really, really powerful thing. But this isn't all that the author says about Jesus as our high priest. He actually compares telling you, is the most mysterious, fascinating figure in the Bible to me. I have my whole life since I encountered him, since I read this verse, I was probably in high school and I encountered this verse and my first thought is, the order of Melchizedek, who is that? Because here's the thing, there's an order of priests in the Old Testament, the descendants of Aaron. When God sent Moses to Egypt and said, free my people, he sent him with his brother Aaron. And Moses was the civil authority and Aaron was the spiritual authority. And through the tribe of the Levites that follow from, that come from the line of Aaron are named all the priests and high priests throughout the ages. So you would expect for Jesus to be named high priest in the order of Aaron, because that's the order of priests that have moved throughout the Old Testament. But that's not what the author says. He says he is the high priest, not in the order of Aaron, and we're going to see why in a minute, but in the order of Melchizedek. And if you're paying attention, you're saying, no, what now? Why? Well, let me tell you why. Hebrews chapter 7, verses 1 through 3, we're told a little bit more about this figure. He writes this, 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 10th part of everything. He is first by translation of his name, king of righteousness. And then he is having neither beginning of days nor end of life. Oh, wait, I'm sorry. And then he is also king of Salem. That is king of peace. He is without father or mother no genealogy? He has no father or mother? He resembles Christ. He continues as priest forever. Who is this dude? And why don't we know more about him? He only shows up three places in the Bible. We see him in Genesis 14. This is what he's referring to. And I love how flippant the Bible is. Like that's an unimportant detail. Abraham was returning from the slaughter of the king. So don't worry about that or the slaughter or anything, but let's pay attention to this. I just love the Bible. It's not much for detail sometimes. But in Genesis 14, Abraham has a nephew named Lot who's dumb and gets himself in trouble. And Abraham goes to rescue him. And on the way back, he encounters this king named Melchizedek. His name literally means king of righteousness. He is the king of a city called Salem that would later become Jerusalem, the first king of Jerusalem that we see in Scripture. And when Abraham encounters him, he gives him a tenth of everything that he owns. All his riches, all his wealth, all his livestock, everything that he owns, he gives Melchizedek a tenth of it. This, incidentally, is where we get the idea of the tithe. That's where the tithe started. Tithe just means tenth. And in the New Testament, people disagree on whether or not we're supposed to tithe, but no one disagrees on whether or not we're supposed to be generous. And generally, we take that 10% rule as this is the starting point. And as God grows your heart for generosity and your ability to be generous, we do all that we can. But we trace the tithe back to this incredible interaction that Abraham has with Melchizedek in Genesis chapter 14. And it's incredibly interesting that Abraham felt compelled to tithe to Melchizedek and acknowledge him as a priest. Because to this point in Scripture, all we know of is that God revealed himself to Abraham. We don't know that God has been revealing himself to other people, but clearly, somehow Melchizedek knew who God was, served God, and was this king and priest. And to the Jewish mind, for Abraham to be subservient to him, you would expect Melchizedek to tithe to Abraham to the Jewish mind. But instead, Abraham tithes to Melchizedek, acknowledging a superiority there, which would have shocked the Jewish audience. And in Melchizedek, we see, this is fascinating to me, the unification of civic and spiritual authority. In Melchizedek, we see this man who is a king. He is a civil authority. He is in charge of the military. He is governing over a group of people, and yet he is also the spiritual authority over this people. And this is not a unification that we see again in the Old Testament. From Melchizedek, we see Moses take the civil authority, and we see Aaron take the spiritual authority, and we watch those threads run through, we see those streams run through the Old Testament. But we do not see in God's Israel a reunification of the civil and spiritual authority. Actually, from here, he's only mentioned one more time in the Old Testament. David mentions him. We don't see him again. He shows up in Genesis chapter 14. Abraham pays him a tithe. He offers Abraham a blessing. Off he goes. It's this mysterious king of righteousness who's a unification of civil and spiritual authority. And then we don't see him again. And then out of nowhere in Psalm 110, David refers to him again. It's a messianic prophecy, which means David is talking about the Messiah that is to come, who we know as Jesus. And he says in this prophecy that he will be priest forever in the order of Melchizedek. And you're going, what? Why don't we know more about this guy? Why haven't they written more about him? Why didn't God include him more? And to those questions, we have no answers. But here's what's fascinating to me, and it's amazing to me that God allows David to be a part of Melchizedek's story. Because what we have in the Old Testament, if we're paying attention, and this week as I was researching this is the first time I realized it, and I thought I loved it. In the Old Testament, we see this stream of the civil authority of kingship. We see this stream of this reign of who would become David. And in 2 Samuel chapter 7, God promises David that his throne will go on for all of eternity, that his reign will persist through eternity. And we know that Jesus is the continuation of David's reign, that when he returns to earth, he's going to sit on the throne of David. And so Jesus is the continuance of David's reign for all eternity. But what we may not know is that another stream running through the Old Testament is the stream of the priesthood of Melchizedek that is also going to continue for all of eternity. But it's running parallel to this stream of Aaronic priests, priests through the line of Aaron. And it seems like Jesus is going to come back and fulfill that priesthood, and he's not. This is what I want you to know about your high priest, because I think it's amazing. Your high priest, Jesus, is the continuance of the reign of David and of the priesthood of Melchizedek and the reunification of civic and spiritual authority for all eternity. That's big, so I'm going to say it again. Your high priest, Jesus, who intercedes on your behalf, is the continuance of the reign of David and the priesthood of Melchizedek and the reunification of civic and spiritual authority for all eternity. Do you understand that there's these two streams running through the Old Testament that seem like they're parallel, that seem like they don't have anything to do with each other, the reign of David and the priesthood of Melchizedek. And then in the person of Christ, those streams converge and they conclude and they are completed that the whole Old Testament is these streams running and pointing to Christ and culminating in him, that that's your high priest, the one to whom the entire Old Testament points to and culminates in. He is the completion of these two things. He is the continuance of the reign of David and the priesthood of Melchizedek. For all of eternity, they were just simply foreshadowing for Jesus, who came to die on the cross for you and to be your high priest for your sins. And he is the reunification of the civil and spiritual authority. And in Revelation, in the new heaven and the new earth, when God sits on his throne, he sits on the throne of David and continues as our king and our priest forevermore. Melchizedek is a setup for that. And Jesus is the completion of it. When I sit in that truth, I cannot help but be awed at my Savior. He is so much more than a man who came to die on a cross. He is so much more than simply the Son of God. He is the convergence and the completion of all of the Old Testament, and the promise and the hope of the New Testament, and then the completion of everything at the end of time. Jesus is a pretty big deal, and that's your high priest. And not only is he the continuation of the reign of David and the reunification of civic and spiritual authority and the continuation of the priesthood of Melchizedek, but your high priest is the perfection and completion of the earthly priesthood. He is the perfection and the completion of the Aaronic line of priests that they had in the Old Testament. And we see that in these verses here. I've grouped some together, Hebrews chapter 7, verses 11, 18, and 19. I'll kind of jump around, but this is what the author writes. Now, if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood, for under it the people received the law, what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek, rather than one named after the order of Aaron? For on the one hand, a former commandment is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness, for the law made nothing perfect. But on the other hand, a better hope is introduced through which we draw near to God. I know that's a little confusing, so here's what's going on in that passage. The Hebrews followed the priesthood of Aaron, and the descendants of him were priests. And these priests were messed up dudes. They were human just like me and you. They were pastors. And the best that a pastor can do is be human. I mean, your pastor may or may not have snapped at his sweet daughter on a road trip this weekend when she asked one too many times if we were in a new state yet. I mean, that could have happened. We are fallible, gross humans. And the author of Hebrews points out, that's who your high priests were. They were men who sinned and first had to offer a sacrifice for themselves before they could even get to your business. And now we have a high priest that doesn't need to sacrifice for himself. They were men who lived and then they died. This high priest does not do that. The priesthood of Aaron, the Aaronic priesthood existed much like the law did to simply show you your inability to earn your way into heaven. And it said, why would we need another priesthood unless the one that you acknowledge, the line of Aaron, was fallible and ultimately showed you that it couldn't bring you to salvation. We actually needed a priest in the order of Melchizedek to be perfect and to be complete, which is what Jesus was. So he's the perfection and the completion of the priesthood that already existed. So that's who your high priest is. He is the one on whom the entire Old Testament converges and is personified in. He is the completion of the line of priests that we see run through the Old Testament. Both streams. He's a pretty big deal. But I said at the beginning that we actually need this high priest. It's not just nice that we have them. We're not just awed at the majesty of Jesus and who he is. We actually, we need him. And we're told why in chapter 7, verse 25. Verse 25 starts out consequently, is the first word there. And it starts out consequently, which means because of everything that I just said, because of everything I just said from starting in chapter 4, verse 14, moving through chapter 5, 6, through all of 7, now as a conclusion to by dying on the cross and by raising from the dead. And that in that, in what we celebrate here in a few weeks at Easter, Jesus' death on the cross on Good Friday and then his subsequent resurrection from the dead, that Jesus conquered death, he conquered sin, he conquered the grave, he conquered hell, and on our behalf, now we are saved if we simply place our faith in him on the cross. And that is true. However, Hebrews chapter 7 verse 25 tells us that unless he goes to God and intercedes on our behalf, unless he goes to God and sits at the right hand of the throne and prays for you in your salvation, that that work of salvation is not complete. So what we understand is your very salvation relies on the prayers of your high priest. Your very eternity, your spot in heaven. We sang a few minutes ago, I'm a child of God. I'm free indeed. In my father's house, there's a place for me. That is all true. But it's not true if Jesus doesn't go to the throne of God and intercede for us. The salvific work of Christ was not completed on the cross or rising out of the grave. It is completed as he goes to God and sits at his right hand and says, I got them. When they talk to you, I covered them in my righteousness. I love them. I died for them. God, they're good. At your worst moment, Jesus looks at you and he prays for you and he says, Father, they're good. Forgive them. They know not what they do. And if our faith just rests in what Jesus did on the cross and that he rose from the grave and we don't acknowledge that we have a high priest in heaven who's praying to God on our behalf, who is interceding for us, that our understanding of what's working for our salvation falls short. Our very eternity relies on the prayers of our high priest. How arrogant and ignorant is it of us to say that I don't need a high priest, I can go directly to God. No, you can't. You get to go to God because your high priest, Jesus Christ, sits at the right hand of him and allows you to do so. That's why in chapter 4, verses 14 through 16, he says it's because of our high priest that we go boldly into the throne room of God. Because if he's not there going, he's good, she's good, let her in, let her speak. Then we are dashed in the glory, we are consumed in the glory of God. We cannot hope to stand in the throne room of God. And maybe I'm just speaking about myself here, but sometimes we just arrogantly think or claim or feel that I don't need any of that, I don't need a high priest, I can go directly to God. Yes, you do, you need a high priest more than anyone. But your high priest is Jesus. He died for you. Hebrews says he was perfected in that suffering. He conquered death by raising from the grave for you. And then he goes to Father to complete your work of salvation, and he intercedes on your behalf once you place your faith in him. That's your high priest. That's what he does for you. Do you understand that that's why we pray in Jesus' name? That when you pray and you end your prayer because you heard your parents or some other person as you were growing up in their prayers in Jesus' name or the Bible study that you went to, they said in Jesus' name, and so you just started saying in Jesus' name. Do you understand that this is why we do it? Because if we pray in our name, then God's not hearing our prayers. If we pray in our name, in the name of Nate, I pray. Shut up. No. In Jesus' name, we pray. It's an acknowledgement. Whether you understand it or not, it's acknowledgement at the end of your prayers. God, I'm asking for these blessings. I'm thanking you for these things. I'm confessing my sins. I'm asking for intercession here. I'm presenting all of my prayers and petitions to you in the name of my high priest who died for me and sits at your right hand and prays for me. In Jesus' name we pray. Because of his completed work of salvation by sitting at the right hand of the Father and praying for us. Now I don't know about you, but as this washed over me this week, I couldn't help but be awed at my high priest, at pulling these threads from the Bible and seeing how they all work to converge on the person of Christ, and be humbled by my arrogance in the past to think that I get to go directly to God without acknowledging my utter need for a high priest in Christ. But I do hope wherever you were in that spectrum that we will never again go to God without acknowledging that it is because of the death and resurrection and prayers of our high priest that we are able to do that. I hope that this sermon in particular this week helps us paint a more full and rich picture of the person of Jesus in our life whom we come to and whom we worship and who we submit ourselves to. I hope it enlargens our hearts with gratitude and even with awe as we consider Jesus our high priest in the order of Melchizedek. And because we can pray in Jesus's name, I want to invite us to do that now and then we're going to participate in communion. Well, there's one more thing about Jesus and Melchizedek that I'm excited to share with you. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for hearing our prayers in the name of your Son, Jesus. Thank you for praying for us. Thank you for interceding for us. I pray that you would enlarge our hearts with gratitude and faith as we revel in all that you are. Jesus, we can't wait to see your face, to see you sit on the throne of David as our king and our high priest. May we have a fresh gratitude for our salvation, God. May anyone who is listening to me now, who doesn't know you, who has not received the gift of salvation, would they please by faith receive the gift of their high priest, Jesus, whom they so desperately need? Would you please make us daily aware of our need for him? Thank you for your servant Melchizedek and how you used him. Enlarge and enliven our hearts to you, Father. And it's in Jesus' name, our high priest, that we pray. Amen. Right now, we're going to take a minute and observe communion together. So if you're watching at home and you're able to grab some of the elements, we hope that you will do that. Here we have these packets just by way of review. The very top flimsy layer reveals a stale wafer, and then under that is the juice. Again, this is the COVID-friendly version of communion. Nobody likes it, but it is nice to be able to share in it together. This represents the bread and the wine from the last supper that Jesus had with the disciples. Jesus is about to be arrested, and he starts this tradition with his disciples, and he offers them bread, and he says, whenever this is my body that is broken for you, do this in remembrance of me. And then he pours the wine, and he said, this is my blood that is spilled for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And so it became a tradition with the followers of Christ that when they would gather to consume this bread and wine and to do it in remembrance of Jesus and this tradition that he started. And we see in Acts chapter 2 that this was a defining trait of the early church. They would gather in one another's homes and they would break bread and they would share wine and they would pray together and they would remember their Savior. And the reason that we're doing it this week is back in Genesis 14, when Abraham offers a tenth of all that he owns to this king of Salem, Melchizedek. Melchizedek, in return, offers Abraham a blessing. Do you know what that blessing was? It was a blessing of bread and wine. Just another way that the life of Melchizedek tips its cap and points an arrow to Jesus. Another way that our Savior is foreshadowed in the Bible. So as we focus on this mystery of Melchizedek, let us acknowledge together that he offered Abraham the peace and blessing of communion thousands of years before Jesus came to define it so that when we participate in communion today, we don't just go back to Jesus and the disciples, we go back to the very foundations of our faith with Abraham and Melchizedek and participate in this millennia-old tradition as we focus on our Savior together. So I'm going to be quiet for a minute and pray on my own. As I do that, I would invite you to pray too. Go into the throne room of God, ushered there by your high priest. Ask God to unveil in your heart anything that is there that shouldn't be there. Ask him to create in you a renewed sense of gratitude for him. And be awed by the fact that you are participating in a tradition that goes far back beyond Christ, all the way back to the very beginnings of our faith. Let's pray for a minute. I'll say amen and then we'll take the elements together. Amen. Jesus took the bread and he broke it for the disciples. And he said, this is my body that's broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And he poured the wine. And he said, this is my blood. This is poured out for you. Whenever you drink of this wine, do it in remembrance of me.
Amen. Boy, Steve, I don't know if you can hear it from up here, but that was the best singing I've heard in like a year and a half. That was amazing. Great job, everyone. One of my greatest joys as a pastor, truly, is to sit in the front and just sometimes I stop singing and I just listen to the body that I get to be a part of praise our God together. And it's just a really sweet and special thing. Thank you for being here this morning. Thank you for joining us online or listening throughout the week. If that's your habit, we are grateful for all of that. This is the third part in our series in the book of Hebrews called Greater. When we're moving through the book of Hebrews, we're looking at the comparisons that the author makes between Jesus and some of the figures and facets of the Jewish faith. You'll remember that he writes this letter to Hellenistic Jews, which are Jewish people who grew up outside of Israel in a Greek-dominated culture, probably grew up as practicing Jews, and then converted to Christianity somewhere as adults subsequent to the death and resurrection of Christ and are now trying to work out their new faith. Not only are they trying to work out their new faith, but they're being oppressed by the Roman government violently and physically, and then they're being rejected by their culture. So they're being persecuted from without and from within. And so the author writes this letter to compel them to persevere in their faith, to hang in there in the face of persecution, to hang in there in the face of isolation and stay true to Jesus, their Savior. And again, he does this by making different comparisons over the course of the letter. And so this morning, we arrive at the comparison of Jesus to a high priest, and he makes the point that Jesus is our great high priest. And as I broach the subject of high priest, and we think about Jesus being our high priest, we may feel about that news a little bit like I felt in December of 2008. December of 2008, it was the first year of our marriage. We got married in that July, and Jen's family decided it was high time that we go to Rome, Italy. They had been planning this trip for a while. Now I've married into the family, so my poor father-in-law has to pay my way to Rome as well, and I get to go and schlub all the bags all over Italy, all over the place, wherever we're going. That was my role. While we're there, we're staying in, we rented an apartment, I guess, like it was Airbnb Rome, I guess. And we're staying in this apartment, and it's a couple blocks away from the Vatican City, from St. Peter's Basilica, St. Peter's Square, and all that stuff. And we happened to be there on Christmas Day. And I knew that on Christmas Day, the Pope was going to come out, who was Pope Benedict at the time, and give a papal address. And so I thought it would be a really fun experience. When am I going to be in Rome on Christmas again, a couple blocks away from the Vatican? So I get up that morning, get dressed, and go to St. Peter's Square for the papal address. And it is packed with, I think it was a couple hundred thousand people. It was amazing to see flags from different countries all over the place. I worm my way up towards the front, and Pope Benedict comes out, and he gives his address. And I remember being incredibly impressed with him because he gave the address seven or eight different times in seven or eight languages. And he did it flawlessly. And I don't think he was reading off of anything. It was a really, really impressive thing. And for me, I didn't grow up Catholic. I have no Catholic background. I knew less about Catholicism then than I do now. And I only know a little bit more now than I did then. So it was all just kind of a new experience for me. And I remember at the end of the address, somehow or another, I learned this. I don't know if I heard him say it. I don't know if I read it on the screen where it was giving us the closed captioning of it, but at the end of his address, he offered all of those in attendance. He gave us, I got to see if I can get this right, a verbal plenary indulgence for non-mortal sins in 2008 for that year, which is great news. I was thrilled to have this. Now, I don't want to be disrespectful to Catholicism because for some people that was very meaningful. And what an indulgence is, it basically meant that the Pope forgave me of all of my non-mortal sins in 2008. I don't know what the difference is between mortal and non-mortal sins. It seems like we should try to invest our sinning in the non-mortal kind. I really don't know. But for those sins, I do not have to pay my penance in purgatory. I'm not going to be punished for those in purgatory. And as I received that news, I thought, well, that's great. But I don't really believe in purgatory. And I don't want to be disrespectful to the Pope, but I don't need your forgiveness for my sins. Jesus offers me that. So like I'm all squared away here on the verbal plenary indulgences for non-moral sins. But thank you. I'm good. And I think that that's a little bit how we as 21st century Christians receive the news that we have a great high priest. Oh, I have a high priest. Well, that's great, but like I'm a Christian, I'm all squared away here. I have direct access to God. I don't need an intercessor. Because we might understand a priest to be someone that we go to the priest, and then the priest goes to God on our behalf. And you might be enough of a biblical scholar to kind of start to piece this together from the Jewish perspective, where the Jewish people, they grew up with a high priest. You would go to your priest, and your priest would go to the high priest, and the high priest would make sacrifices on your account. You didn't go directly to God. You went to the high priest, and was your conduit to God, right? And then we know because we're Christians, we act like we have direct access to God. We can pray. We can go to God whenever we want to. I can go into the very throne room of God. I don't need a high priest. I can go directly to God myself. So that's cool that Jesus is the great high priest. It's neat that it's explained like that, but that's probably more for the Hebrew audience than it is for me, because as a Christian, I know I can go directly to God. Except for here's the thing. No, you can't. You cannot go directly to God. I'm going to tell you why in a little bit. But what I want us to understand as we begin this discussion of Jesus as our high priest is that we absolutely need a high priest. We need a high priest. We need someone to go to God on our behalf because we cannot go into the perfect throne room and the perfect presence of Creator God Almighty on our own. We cannot do that. We would be consumed by His glory in an instant. So we have to have a high priest. We need one of those. Before I tell you why we need a high priest, why we need someone to intercede to God for us. I want to tell you about your high priest, because there's some things unpacked in Hebrews. Really, the end of chapter 4 to the end of chapter 7, so close to three and a half chapters, the author invests in this comparison of Jesus as a high priest and explaining to us just the very nature and importance and grandeur of our high priest. And he introduces this idea to us in this way. If you have a Bible, turn to Hebrews. We're going to be in chapter 4, and then we're going to be in chapter, I think, 5, and then we're going to spend the rest of the time in chapter 7, and there's lots to read along with today. But if you have a Bible, turn to Hebrews chapter 4. This is how the author introduces to us the idea of our high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God. Let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who, in every respect, has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then, with confidence, draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in the time of need. There's a couple ideas there, and it's important that we understand them. There's the idea of because of Jesus, we can draw near the throne of God with boldness. We can go to God with boldness. This idea that we've inherited as Christians that we go directly to God, he says that we can do this. So we go directly to God with boldness, and we're going to talk about how we do that in a little bit. So to kind of put a pin in that idea, and we're going to circle back to it later. But he also says that we don't have a high priest who cannot sympathize with us. It's important that we remember that Jesus walked this earth, that Jesus was human, that Jesus faced the same temptations that we do. We see him in Matthew in the desert after fasting for 40 days being tempted by Satan himself. He's tempted with his desires, with his appetite for bread. He's tempted with the desire for authority. He's tempted with his ego. And we see that Jesus was tempted as he moved through life in much the same way as we are all tempted as we move through life. And so as a result, we understand that there's no temptation that we face that Jesus has not dealt with. It's not as if Jesus didn't have to manage and master his own propensity to lust in his own heart. It's not that Jesus didn't have to manage and master his own ego, his own greed, his own selfishness. When we feel fatigued and people need more and more and more from us, moms, moms, I think, are chief among this. Moms, they never get to go through their day without somebody needing something, right? Jesus felt that fatigue. He knew what it was to perform miracles, to serve and serve and serve and give, and then to go off to a quiet place, the bathroom, and have someone knock on the door, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Yes, what? He knew what it was not to lose his mind with that, right? He knew what it was to be tempted by his ego. He knew what it was to have people say things to him and have it within him to crush that person. Have it within them to verbally spar with this person in such a way that they would never speak again. And he bit his tongue. He knew what that was. There is no temptation that we face that Jesus did not walk through himself. Because of that, we have a high priest that empathizes and sympathizes with us. I think we tend to think of Jesus on the throne judging us, looking down on us, being disappointed in the things that we do, and that's not it at all. Jesus sympathizes with us. He looks at us and he says, I've been there. I understand why you made that choice. Don't make it again. It's not good for you. He offers us his sympathy. That's a really, really powerful thing. But this isn't all that the author says about Jesus as our high priest. He actually compares telling you, is the most mysterious, fascinating figure in the Bible to me. I have my whole life since I encountered him, since I read this verse, I was probably in high school and I encountered this verse and my first thought is, the order of Melchizedek, who is that? Because here's the thing, there's an order of priests in the Old Testament, the descendants of Aaron. When God sent Moses to Egypt and said, free my people, he sent him with his brother Aaron. And Moses was the civil authority and Aaron was the spiritual authority. And through the tribe of the Levites that follow from, that come from the line of Aaron are named all the priests and high priests throughout the ages. So you would expect for Jesus to be named high priest in the order of Aaron, because that's the order of priests that have moved throughout the Old Testament. But that's not what the author says. He says he is the high priest, not in the order of Aaron, and we're going to see why in a minute, but in the order of Melchizedek. And if you're paying attention, you're saying, no, what now? Why? Well, let me tell you why. Hebrews chapter 7, verses 1 through 3, we're told a little bit more about this figure. He writes this, 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 10th part of everything. He is first by translation of his name, king of righteousness. And then he is having neither beginning of days nor end of life. Oh, wait, I'm sorry. And then he is also king of Salem. That is king of peace. He is without father or mother no genealogy? He has no father or mother? He resembles Christ. He continues as priest forever. Who is this dude? And why don't we know more about him? He only shows up three places in the Bible. We see him in Genesis 14. This is what he's referring to. And I love how flippant the Bible is. Like that's an unimportant detail. Abraham was returning from the slaughter of the king. So don't worry about that or the slaughter or anything, but let's pay attention to this. I just love the Bible. It's not much for detail sometimes. But in Genesis 14, Abraham has a nephew named Lot who's dumb and gets himself in trouble. And Abraham goes to rescue him. And on the way back, he encounters this king named Melchizedek. His name literally means king of righteousness. He is the king of a city called Salem that would later become Jerusalem, the first king of Jerusalem that we see in Scripture. And when Abraham encounters him, he gives him a tenth of everything that he owns. All his riches, all his wealth, all his livestock, everything that he owns, he gives Melchizedek a tenth of it. This, incidentally, is where we get the idea of the tithe. That's where the tithe started. Tithe just means tenth. And in the New Testament, people disagree on whether or not we're supposed to tithe, but no one disagrees on whether or not we're supposed to be generous. And generally, we take that 10% rule as this is the starting point. And as God grows your heart for generosity and your ability to be generous, we do all that we can. But we trace the tithe back to this incredible interaction that Abraham has with Melchizedek in Genesis chapter 14. And it's incredibly interesting that Abraham felt compelled to tithe to Melchizedek and acknowledge him as a priest. Because to this point in Scripture, all we know of is that God revealed himself to Abraham. We don't know that God has been revealing himself to other people, but clearly, somehow Melchizedek knew who God was, served God, and was this king and priest. And to the Jewish mind, for Abraham to be subservient to him, you would expect Melchizedek to tithe to Abraham to the Jewish mind. But instead, Abraham tithes to Melchizedek, acknowledging a superiority there, which would have shocked the Jewish audience. And in Melchizedek, we see, this is fascinating to me, the unification of civic and spiritual authority. In Melchizedek, we see this man who is a king. He is a civil authority. He is in charge of the military. He is governing over a group of people, and yet he is also the spiritual authority over this people. And this is not a unification that we see again in the Old Testament. From Melchizedek, we see Moses take the civil authority, and we see Aaron take the spiritual authority, and we watch those threads run through, we see those streams run through the Old Testament. But we do not see in God's Israel a reunification of the civil and spiritual authority. Actually, from here, he's only mentioned one more time in the Old Testament. David mentions him. We don't see him again. He shows up in Genesis chapter 14. Abraham pays him a tithe. He offers Abraham a blessing. Off he goes. It's this mysterious king of righteousness who's a unification of civil and spiritual authority. And then we don't see him again. And then out of nowhere in Psalm 110, David refers to him again. It's a messianic prophecy, which means David is talking about the Messiah that is to come, who we know as Jesus. And he says in this prophecy that he will be priest forever in the order of Melchizedek. And you're going, what? Why don't we know more about this guy? Why haven't they written more about him? Why didn't God include him more? And to those questions, we have no answers. But here's what's fascinating to me, and it's amazing to me that God allows David to be a part of Melchizedek's story. Because what we have in the Old Testament, if we're paying attention, and this week as I was researching this is the first time I realized it, and I thought I loved it. In the Old Testament, we see this stream of the civil authority of kingship. We see this stream of this reign of who would become David. And in 2 Samuel chapter 7, God promises David that his throne will go on for all of eternity, that his reign will persist through eternity. And we know that Jesus is the continuation of David's reign, that when he returns to earth, he's going to sit on the throne of David. And so Jesus is the continuance of David's reign for all eternity. But what we may not know is that another stream running through the Old Testament is the stream of the priesthood of Melchizedek that is also going to continue for all of eternity. But it's running parallel to this stream of Aaronic priests, priests through the line of Aaron. And it seems like Jesus is going to come back and fulfill that priesthood, and he's not. This is what I want you to know about your high priest, because I think it's amazing. Your high priest, Jesus, is the continuance of the reign of David and of the priesthood of Melchizedek and the reunification of civic and spiritual authority for all eternity. That's big, so I'm going to say it again. Your high priest, Jesus, who intercedes on your behalf, is the continuance of the reign of David and the priesthood of Melchizedek and the reunification of civic and spiritual authority for all eternity. Do you understand that there's these two streams running through the Old Testament that seem like they're parallel, that seem like they don't have anything to do with each other, the reign of David and the priesthood of Melchizedek. And then in the person of Christ, those streams converge and they conclude and they are completed that the whole Old Testament is these streams running and pointing to Christ and culminating in him, that that's your high priest, the one to whom the entire Old Testament points to and culminates in. He is the completion of these two things. He is the continuance of the reign of David and the priesthood of Melchizedek. For all of eternity, they were just simply foreshadowing for Jesus, who came to die on the cross for you and to be your high priest for your sins. And he is the reunification of the civil and spiritual authority. And in Revelation, in the new heaven and the new earth, when God sits on his throne, he sits on the throne of David and continues as our king and our priest forevermore. Melchizedek is a setup for that. And Jesus is the completion of it. When I sit in that truth, I cannot help but be awed at my Savior. He is so much more than a man who came to die on a cross. He is so much more than simply the Son of God. He is the convergence and the completion of all of the Old Testament, and the promise and the hope of the New Testament, and then the completion of everything at the end of time. Jesus is a pretty big deal, and that's your high priest. And not only is he the continuation of the reign of David and the reunification of civic and spiritual authority and the continuation of the priesthood of Melchizedek, but your high priest is the perfection and completion of the earthly priesthood. He is the perfection and the completion of the Aaronic line of priests that they had in the Old Testament. And we see that in these verses here. I've grouped some together, Hebrews chapter 7, verses 11, 18, and 19. I'll kind of jump around, but this is what the author writes. Now, if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood, for under it the people received the law, what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek, rather than one named after the order of Aaron? For on the one hand, a former commandment is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness, for the law made nothing perfect. But on the other hand, a better hope is introduced through which we draw near to God. I know that's a little confusing, so here's what's going on in that passage. The Hebrews followed the priesthood of Aaron, and the descendants of him were priests. And these priests were messed up dudes. They were human just like me and you. They were pastors. And the best that a pastor can do is be human. I mean, your pastor may or may not have snapped at his sweet daughter on a road trip this weekend when she asked one too many times if we were in a new state yet. I mean, that could have happened. We are fallible, gross humans. And the author of Hebrews points out, that's who your high priests were. They were men who sinned and first had to offer a sacrifice for themselves before they could even get to your business. And now we have a high priest that doesn't need to sacrifice for himself. They were men who lived and then they died. This high priest does not do that. The priesthood of Aaron, the Aaronic priesthood existed much like the law did to simply show you your inability to earn your way into heaven. And it said, why would we need another priesthood unless the one that you acknowledge, the line of Aaron, was fallible and ultimately showed you that it couldn't bring you to salvation. We actually needed a priest in the order of Melchizedek to be perfect and to be complete, which is what Jesus was. So he's the perfection and the completion of the priesthood that already existed. So that's who your high priest is. He is the one on whom the entire Old Testament converges and is personified in. He is the completion of the line of priests that we see run through the Old Testament. Both streams. He's a pretty big deal. But I said at the beginning that we actually need this high priest. It's not just nice that we have them. We're not just awed at the majesty of Jesus and who he is. We actually, we need him. And we're told why in chapter 7, verse 25. Verse 25 starts out consequently, is the first word there. And it starts out consequently, which means because of everything that I just said, because of everything I just said from starting in chapter 4, verse 14, moving through chapter 5, 6, through all of 7, now as a conclusion to by dying on the cross and by raising from the dead. And that in that, in what we celebrate here in a few weeks at Easter, Jesus' death on the cross on Good Friday and then his subsequent resurrection from the dead, that Jesus conquered death, he conquered sin, he conquered the grave, he conquered hell, and on our behalf, now we are saved if we simply place our faith in him on the cross. And that is true. However, Hebrews chapter 7 verse 25 tells us that unless he goes to God and intercedes on our behalf, unless he goes to God and sits at the right hand of the throne and prays for you in your salvation, that that work of salvation is not complete. So what we understand is your very salvation relies on the prayers of your high priest. Your very eternity, your spot in heaven. We sang a few minutes ago, I'm a child of God. I'm free indeed. In my father's house, there's a place for me. That is all true. But it's not true if Jesus doesn't go to the throne of God and intercede for us. The salvific work of Christ was not completed on the cross or rising out of the grave. It is completed as he goes to God and sits at his right hand and says, I got them. When they talk to you, I covered them in my righteousness. I love them. I died for them. God, they're good. At your worst moment, Jesus looks at you and he prays for you and he says, Father, they're good. Forgive them. They know not what they do. And if our faith just rests in what Jesus did on the cross and that he rose from the grave and we don't acknowledge that we have a high priest in heaven who's praying to God on our behalf, who is interceding for us, that our understanding of what's working for our salvation falls short. Our very eternity relies on the prayers of our high priest. How arrogant and ignorant is it of us to say that I don't need a high priest, I can go directly to God. No, you can't. You get to go to God because your high priest, Jesus Christ, sits at the right hand of him and allows you to do so. That's why in chapter 4, verses 14 through 16, he says it's because of our high priest that we go boldly into the throne room of God. Because if he's not there going, he's good, she's good, let her in, let her speak. Then we are dashed in the glory, we are consumed in the glory of God. We cannot hope to stand in the throne room of God. And maybe I'm just speaking about myself here, but sometimes we just arrogantly think or claim or feel that I don't need any of that, I don't need a high priest, I can go directly to God. Yes, you do, you need a high priest more than anyone. But your high priest is Jesus. He died for you. Hebrews says he was perfected in that suffering. He conquered death by raising from the grave for you. And then he goes to Father to complete your work of salvation, and he intercedes on your behalf once you place your faith in him. That's your high priest. That's what he does for you. Do you understand that that's why we pray in Jesus' name? That when you pray and you end your prayer because you heard your parents or some other person as you were growing up in their prayers in Jesus' name or the Bible study that you went to, they said in Jesus' name, and so you just started saying in Jesus' name. Do you understand that this is why we do it? Because if we pray in our name, then God's not hearing our prayers. If we pray in our name, in the name of Nate, I pray. Shut up. No. In Jesus' name, we pray. It's an acknowledgement. Whether you understand it or not, it's acknowledgement at the end of your prayers. God, I'm asking for these blessings. I'm thanking you for these things. I'm confessing my sins. I'm asking for intercession here. I'm presenting all of my prayers and petitions to you in the name of my high priest who died for me and sits at your right hand and prays for me. In Jesus' name we pray. Because of his completed work of salvation by sitting at the right hand of the Father and praying for us. Now I don't know about you, but as this washed over me this week, I couldn't help but be awed at my high priest, at pulling these threads from the Bible and seeing how they all work to converge on the person of Christ, and be humbled by my arrogance in the past to think that I get to go directly to God without acknowledging my utter need for a high priest in Christ. But I do hope wherever you were in that spectrum that we will never again go to God without acknowledging that it is because of the death and resurrection and prayers of our high priest that we are able to do that. I hope that this sermon in particular this week helps us paint a more full and rich picture of the person of Jesus in our life whom we come to and whom we worship and who we submit ourselves to. I hope it enlargens our hearts with gratitude and even with awe as we consider Jesus our high priest in the order of Melchizedek. And because we can pray in Jesus's name, I want to invite us to do that now and then we're going to participate in communion. Well, there's one more thing about Jesus and Melchizedek that I'm excited to share with you. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for hearing our prayers in the name of your Son, Jesus. Thank you for praying for us. Thank you for interceding for us. I pray that you would enlarge our hearts with gratitude and faith as we revel in all that you are. Jesus, we can't wait to see your face, to see you sit on the throne of David as our king and our high priest. May we have a fresh gratitude for our salvation, God. May anyone who is listening to me now, who doesn't know you, who has not received the gift of salvation, would they please by faith receive the gift of their high priest, Jesus, whom they so desperately need? Would you please make us daily aware of our need for him? Thank you for your servant Melchizedek and how you used him. Enlarge and enliven our hearts to you, Father. And it's in Jesus' name, our high priest, that we pray. Amen. Right now, we're going to take a minute and observe communion together. So if you're watching at home and you're able to grab some of the elements, we hope that you will do that. Here we have these packets just by way of review. The very top flimsy layer reveals a stale wafer, and then under that is the juice. Again, this is the COVID-friendly version of communion. Nobody likes it, but it is nice to be able to share in it together. This represents the bread and the wine from the last supper that Jesus had with the disciples. Jesus is about to be arrested, and he starts this tradition with his disciples, and he offers them bread, and he says, whenever this is my body that is broken for you, do this in remembrance of me. And then he pours the wine, and he said, this is my blood that is spilled for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And so it became a tradition with the followers of Christ that when they would gather to consume this bread and wine and to do it in remembrance of Jesus and this tradition that he started. And we see in Acts chapter 2 that this was a defining trait of the early church. They would gather in one another's homes and they would break bread and they would share wine and they would pray together and they would remember their Savior. And the reason that we're doing it this week is back in Genesis 14, when Abraham offers a tenth of all that he owns to this king of Salem, Melchizedek. Melchizedek, in return, offers Abraham a blessing. Do you know what that blessing was? It was a blessing of bread and wine. Just another way that the life of Melchizedek tips its cap and points an arrow to Jesus. Another way that our Savior is foreshadowed in the Bible. So as we focus on this mystery of Melchizedek, let us acknowledge together that he offered Abraham the peace and blessing of communion thousands of years before Jesus came to define it so that when we participate in communion today, we don't just go back to Jesus and the disciples, we go back to the very foundations of our faith with Abraham and Melchizedek and participate in this millennia-old tradition as we focus on our Savior together. So I'm going to be quiet for a minute and pray on my own. As I do that, I would invite you to pray too. Go into the throne room of God, ushered there by your high priest. Ask God to unveil in your heart anything that is there that shouldn't be there. Ask him to create in you a renewed sense of gratitude for him. And be awed by the fact that you are participating in a tradition that goes far back beyond Christ, all the way back to the very beginnings of our faith. Let's pray for a minute. I'll say amen and then we'll take the elements together. Amen. Jesus took the bread and he broke it for the disciples. And he said, this is my body that's broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And he poured the wine. And he said, this is my blood. This is poured out for you. Whenever you drink of this wine, do it in remembrance of me.
Well, good morning, everyone. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Welcome to Grace. Thanks for making us a part of your Sunday. If you're joining us online, thank you for doing that as well. Just a little disclaimer. Panthers fans, it's a total accident that on the day that my Falcons play your weak-willed Panthers that I brought this cup and then face the Falcon towards you. I didn't mean to do that. Here, I'll do this so it doesn't distract you. But you know. We are in the third part of our series called Gentle and Lowly where we're looking at the character of our Savior. And we're seeking to learn more about him. By going through, this is a book, Gentleman Lily is a book by an author and pastor named Dane Ortlund. We had 60 copies. You guys took all of those, which is wonderful. And when I say took, I don't mean steal. I mean, you took them, and I presume you paid for them. I have not looked into the numbers because I don't know how. But if you would like to get a book and read along with us, there's a reading plan for the book and it's available. And if you don't know how to find it, let me know or let us know and we'll help you find it. But before I just jump into what we learned about Christ this week, I wanted to approach it this way. Sorry, now every time I do that, you're going to remember my dumb joke at the beginning of the sermon. I wanted to approach it this way. I think one of the things in life that's really fun to think about is the things that you find to be underrated. I think car rides and silence when you're by yourself, not like with other people, because that's weird, although that is also underrated, because you don't have to talk the whole time, you know. But car rides and silence are underrated. I drove from Atlanta to Raleigh one time without listening to a single thing, and it was actually pretty nice. I think not owning a pet is underrated. I think we overvalue that. But here's one of the things I realized, Jen and I realized was vastly underrated a few weeks ago. Chili's. Chili's, as a restaurant, is crazy underrated. So when Jen and I were in college, any time we would want to go on a date, and this was like 2001, 2002, when we met, when we wanted to go on a date, Jen, where do you want to go? Chili's. And she'd get the same thing every time. And I'm trying to bounce around the menu, and we went enough times that A, I knew her answer. B, please don't make me go to Chili's. I hated it. Just like now, as a grown-up, I hate sushi. I didn't used to hate sushi, but it's what Jen chooses every time, and it may as well just be a tasteless nutrition brick for me. I don't care for it anymore. But I think it was during the summer. Jen had the kids, and we were texting back and forth. We're like, let's meet for lunch. And so I said, where do you want to go? We were kind of bouncing ideas. And you know that exercise when you're trying to decide where to go with your spouse. I don't care. Yes, you do. What you'd like for me to do is play the game of guess the places you don't want to go. And I don't want to play that game. So eventually, one of us said, how about Chili's? And we said, fine. So we go to Chili's, and we get our normal order there, which is chips and queso, a triple dipper with Southwestern egg rolls, sliders, and boneless buffalo rings, hot sauce, sometimes honey chipotle if we're feeling crazy. The kids get their thing. Then all four of us share a molten chocolate lava cake. We get out of there for like $40, $ bucks. Everybody ate everything. And then here's one of my favorite parts about Chili's is they have the kiosk on the table now because my least favorite part of any meal when I'm out to eat is waiting for the check and then waiting for the check to be brought back to me. Because when I, when I ask for the check, when I swipe the card, I am, I'm. I'm a fast leaver. People sometimes offer me rides places. Hey, we're going to the same place. Do you want to ride? No, thanks. Because I don't want to leave when you want to leave. I want to leave before you do. So I'm a fast leaver. So when the check comes, I'm ready to go. And if it's slow service during the apps, when you bring the mains, I will ask for the check right then. Because I don't want to wait on you at the end of the meal when I'm full. Anyways, they've got a kiosk. You swipe your card whenever you want. You get to decide when you leave. You don't have to wait on anyone else's permission to go get in your car. It's great. So then after this Chili's experience, Jen and I looked at each other in the car as we were leaving and she was like, you know what? Chili's is always good. And I was like, it is. It always satisfies. Then, like a month later, we went on a date. Or a couple weeks, I don't know. And when you go on dates, you do the thing where you look around, you find the locally owned, you do the Yelp, Raleigh's Top Restaurant. You find somewhere fancy and nice and worthy of the occasion, and you go. And so we went to some restaurant, I don't remember where. And it cost twice what Chili's did for two people, not four. And we get in the car and we're driving home and I was like, how was that? And she's like, it was good. It's fine. And I was like, yeah, mine was fine too. It was good. It wasn't twice as good as Chili's. And so now, when we go out to eat, should we go someplace fancy? Maybe try Chili's. I would encourage you. There's one right across the street, Triangle Mall. Go there for lunch. Tell me I'm wrong. You're going to have a great experience, okay? I just think it's underrated and that we're too fancy for it, and I think that's funny. And I wanted to introduce this idea of things that we underrate because as we sit here in this series and we focus on the character of Christ, we focus on the theology of Christ, and we try to get to know our Jesus a little bit better. I think that there is a thing about the theology of Christ, about the character of Christ, about the miraculous experience and life of Christ that we as believers deeply undervalue. And I think it's this. We do not properly value the condescension of Christ. I do not believe that we properly value the condescension of Christ. I do not believe that we properly value the condescension of Christ from heaven to earth. And when we hear that word condescension, I think we tend to think of it in negative terms. I try to never ever preach in a way where you're condescended to, where I've put myself on some level that you're not yet at, although that's a little bit difficult to say since I'm literally on a level that you are not right now. But figuratively, I work really hard to never condescend to you, which is super easy because I really don't think I'm better than anyone in this room. As a matter of fact, I think there's plenty of ways in which I'm worse than a lot of you. And we as a church do not condescend to each other. We're all humans. We're all equal. We all have our strengths and our weaknesses. We all have our triumphs and our failures. We do not value person to person condescension. And when someone condescends to you, it ticks you off. And when you see someone else being condescending, you think they're a jerk, and you're right. But this word is good when we apply it to Christ, because he literally did condescend. He went from heaven to earth. He went from deity to human. He gave up his divine being to take on human nature. And I intentionally didn't say he gave up his divine nature to take on human being, human nature, because he did not give up his divine nature. Because we believe in our theology, whether you know this or not, we, Grace, would embrace a theology that says Jesus was 100% man and 100% God and the same being while he was here. This, if you like fancy words, is referred to as the hypostatic union. So he never gave up his divine nature, but he did give up his divine being to come and be with us. And I think it's important to choose the word condescend because it kind of arrests our attention because of the negative connotation we give it. But it forces us to deal with the reality, no, no, no, he really did. He really did give up a great deal to be placed on par and live as equals, as an equal with us. And I think that there's two big reasons, maybe even three, why we don't properly value the condescension of Christ. And the first I want to point out this morning is I think we fail to think about what it cost him to come down here. I think we fail to think about what did Jesus give up to become human? And he gave up his divine being, at least for a time. He gave up being in heaven forever. He's the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. He holds the keys to death and Hades. He lived in heaven in a perfect union with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, surrounded by angels. In Isaiah chapter 6, we have a description of the throne room of God in which seraphim are flying around the throne, and there is no roof, and the robes of God fill the temple with glory, and we are told that Jesus sits at his right hand, and the angels are singing, holy, holy, holy, glory to God in the highest. He left that for Nazareth. And I was trying to think, what did Jesus give up to come be with us and live in our squalor? And there was no apt comparison. And the reality of it is, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what heaven is like. But here's what I'm certain of. That if one day, if we believe in Jesus and we go to heaven, when we get there, we will marvel at the fact that our Savior gave up this to come to this. And I don't think that we often enough reflect upon, as believers, what it meant for Jesus to give up divine being to take on ours. And I'll tell you, I tried to think of an example or an illustration of this, and they all fell so woefully short and fell apart so easily that I thought, I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to say we don't know, but it's a lot. I think we fail to consider what Jesus gave up to condescend to us. I also think we fail to consider what we gain by his condescension. Because I think, we think, we immediately go to the cross. We immediately go to, well, yeah, Jesus was supposed to do this because that's the story of the Bible. As Christians, we encounter scripture and we're told the story of the Bible and it's very quickly within this story that we realize God had sent his son Jesus and so we just kind of accept it as reality. I think it's the same way that we think about being born in the United States versus being born in Afghanistan. Do you realize how much better your life is because you were born in the United States than if you were born in Afghanistan and how random that lottery has to be? Like, I don't think any of us, maybe July 4th. What a good country. But other than that, we don't walk around in gratitude for it. I'm not saying that we should. I'm not being an advocate for that right now. I'm just saying, comparatively speaking, our lives are easier than people who were born in less fortunate countries. And we were born in the fortunate country of Christianity, and we just accept the facts and truths of Christianity without ever considering how fortunate we are to exist in them. And the place that we miss that the most is what do we gain from the remarkable condescension of Jesus Christ to take on humanity? And I think that the answer to this question is best summed up in Hebrews chapter 4 verse 15, where the author of Hebrews writes, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet he did not sin. And I'm going to read 16 too, because we're going to come back to it later. Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. So in this verse, two things I see that we gain. The first thing we gain is that statement, he's able to empathize for our weakness, for he has been tempted in every way, just as we are. Do you understand that his temptation is just the same as ours? There's this famous story in the Gospels where Jesus is tempted by Satan. He's fasted in the desert for 40 days, and Satan comes to him, and he says, you're pretty hungry. This is paraphrase. He says, you're pretty hungry. Why don't you see that rock? Why don't you just turn it into bread and eat it? Satiate your hunger. And Jesus refuses to do that because he's going to honor God and he's going to keep his commitment. And this temptation is probably more ubiquitous to us because none of us, I don't think, have fasted for 40 days. We fasted for a day or two and we understand the pangs of hunger. But we might look at that and we go, I can't relate. But here's how you can. What Jesus did in that moment is choose holiness over his appetite, is choose discipline over what he wanted. He refused to be led by his appetite. Instead, he chose to continue in his service to the Father. And in Philippians, Paul is condemning people. And the way that he condemns them is he says their God is their appetite. Their God is their belly. And what he means is whatever their little heart wants, it gets. They're like, we're like spoiled children with rich parents who give us whatever we want so we'll be quiet. And what that verse means is they gave way to their desires, whatever they were. They wanted more drink, they had more drink. They wanted more food, they had more food. They want to experience that pleasure, they will experience it. They want to be tempted by this person or by that person, they will give in to that temptation. They want to be lazy, they will do that. And as humans, we know. We constantly give in to our appetites. We constantly give in to whatever our little heart desires. And in Jesus, we have an example of someone who fought that temptation, representative of myriad things. Then, Satan says, bow down to me, and I'll give you the kingdoms of the earth. He tempts Jesus with power. Compromise yourself in this way and I'll grease the skids of success over here. Compromise yourself in this way and life will go a little easier. Compromise yourself in this way and you'll save a little bit of money. Do I need more examples? Where we're tempted to compromise ourselves in such a way, compromise our morals and our standards and what we believe God wants us to do and even things that we told God we would do so that we might have things easier on the other side, right? Then in the last one, he says, you're God. Throw yourself off this cliff and let the angels come and rescue you. He tempts him with ego. Oh, you think you're God? Prove it. Right? Someone condescends to you. What do you want to do? You want to get them right back. Someone sends you an email, a customer, a client, a co-worker, a family member, sends you an email that condescends that you don't really appreciate, what do you want to do? Right? And I'll confess, sometimes I type those out. I just get it out. And then I look at it, and I send it. No, I'm just kidding. I press delete. I press delete, and then I give it 24 hours and I type it again. We are familiar with this temptation. In word and action indeed. Jesus faced all the temptations we do. To put a finer point on it. I know this is weird to think about Jesus in this way. But Jesus was a single man. Jesus was a powerful man. Jesus was a man that a lot of people liked. You don't think he ever thought about talking to a woman? You don't think that never occurred to him? He was around wine. He likely consumed wine. You don't think he thought about one night just giving in? Having more than he should? Or maybe he abstained totally, but he was around it. You don't think he ever considered it? You don't think he ever considered when the crowds thronged around him and he was exhausted? You don't think he ever considered going, get away from me. Do you understand I'm the savior of the world? Do you understand I don't have time for this? I'm exhausted. Can you just talk to my assistant? Talk to Andrew and he'll set up an appointment for you. Will you leave me alone? You don't think he ever considered being rude or impatient? Here's one that just occurred to me. If I were Jesus, I'd be tempted when everybody around me was hungry to just be like steaks, you know? You don't think he was ever tempted to do stuff like that? Of course, of course he was tempted. Of course he was. And here's why that's such a powerful truth. Have you ever been in a room, a group of friends, a small group, and watched someone confess something that was hard, that was embarrassing, that was private and in the shadows, and they brought it into the light? Have you ever watched someone do that? And then every time I've seen that happen, which has always been people confessing things to me. I'd never have anything to confess to others. But every time I've seen that happen, I've never, I've never, ever seen it not met with comfort and grace. And what's the most powerful thing that can happen in that situation? Even if there's someone who doesn't struggle with that, but they meet you with comfort and grace, how much more comforting is it when they go, I know I struggle with that too. I've watched in groups of men and in circles, small and relatively large, where someone will say, can you just pray for me and my wife right now? We're in a really difficult season. This and this are happening and we're two ships passing right now. And it's not good. And then watch someone else in that circle go, brother, us too. We are too. Or somebody goes, we did that two years ago. We did that five years ago. I've walked that path, man. I understand. And, and the whole space is washed with grace and comfort. You've seen that happen. I think with women, it's, it's more typical that typical that one of them would finally let their mom guilt break through and say, kids suck. And I don't know if I even like mine or want them. I heard John yell one time, I hate having a sister. And I was like, I don't understand that. Sometimes the family is hard. And then there's this sense when a mom will say that, I feel like a terrible mom. I feel like I'm not doing a good job. I feel like I don't enjoy my kids enough. That someone else will heap their mom guilt out too. And then there's this message of grace and comfort that washes over the room. And the reality is marriage is hard and parenting is hard. It's just true. But there's a special thing that happens when we can share with someone else that's had our experience. One of the things I say, and I'm sure it's true of your industries as well, but when I get to talk with another senior pastor, it's just a different conversation. Because they understand things in a way that if you haven't done this, you just don't know. That's not condescending, that's just true. When you talk to someone who has shared your temptations, that's just comforting in a way that can't be expressed. Hebrews tells us that we have a Savior that has. And even though he hasn't given in to them, he understands what they are. And so in his temptation, he offers us grace and compassion. Because of his temptations and because he's faced them and because he's born with us in our weaknesses, we can go to the throne of God. Now here's what else is implied in this about the wonderful condescension of Christ as far as what do we gain from it. It's implied in this verse, I think. It's implicit. And it's explicit throughout many scriptures. Namely, Isaiah 53, calling him Emmanuel, God with us. What we gain from his condescension is his humanity. The fact that he became human at all. Because in his humanity, he offers empathy, condolence, and comfort. In his humanity, he offers us empathy, condolence, and comfort. I pointed out to you the verse John 11, 35 to highlight his compassion. He weeps with us. He's present with us. He's human with us. I've watched people experience great loss. And in that great loss, maybe a wife loses a husband. And it's far too soon. And so she's experiencing this depth of grief. And I've seen people, I've heard people offer her comfort. And it's well-meaning and it's wonderful and it's good and she receives it and she's gracious. But then I've watched somebody come up to her and say, I've walked that path too. I've been a widow for a decade. That's a different level of connection and comfort. Jesus has experienced our grief. Jesus experienced loss. I don't know if you've thought about this. Jesus had a stepdad. So either his dad Joseph, his earthly father Joseph, passed away, or he had an earthly stepdad. Which, by the way, it occurs to me that maybe there was a time when Jesus' stepdad said, look, I know I'm not your dad. And Jesus thought to himself, you have no idea how layered that is. There you go. But if you've lost a dad, or you've had parents divorced, or if you grew up with a stepdad, maybe it was wonderful, maybe it was painful, I don't know. But what I do know is that Jesus has experienced that. Jesus had half-brothers. One of them wrote a book of the Bible, which may be the greatest proof there is of all time that Jesus was who he says he was. Because what would you have to do to get your half-brother to write a book about your deity? He's experienced our pain and our grief and our sorrow and our loss. He's experienced joy. He's experienced triumph. He's walked through all those things. He lived as a human just as we did. And in those things he shares with us. That's what we gain from his condescension, is we gain the fact that he's faced temptation similar to us. We gain the fact that he was a human just like us. And so all the things and all the emotions that go along with humanity and all the ailments that we could experience that go along with humanity, he has too. That's the miracle of his condescension. That's what we gain. Here's another thing that we gain. He chose to experience death so that we don't have to fear ours. He chose to experience death on the cross so that we don't have to fear ours. No passage, in your notes it says Romans 8.39, but after I sent in the notes, I was considering it, and this passage is so much better. It's 1 Corinthians 15, 55 through 57. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, he gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. We're told in response to the death and resurrection of Christ, death, where is your sting? Sin, where is your victory? There's an old song that says, hell has been defeated. The grave could not hold the king. In his death, he defeated our fear of our death. In his death, he unshackled us from sin. He said, we don't have to be fearful of death. Last week, last week on Tuesday, one of our wonderful partners, Mike Schenck, passed away from cancer. And before he did, when he was in hospice and incredibly lucid, I was able to go visit with him and his family. It was a wonderful visit. And one of the things that was remarkable to me was the fearlessness, courage, and faith with which Mike was marching to his grave. He knew what was going to happen. And there was no sense of fear in him. He joked. He was confident. He knows his Savior. Looking forward to meeting him. And then Susie's faith was remarkable too. Because if we're being really honest, and I don't mean to be too crass about it, but she's the one left holding the bag. It's worse for her than him. Because now she has to figure out how to do this life post-Mike. But they both had such faith and peace about the horizon they were approaching because Jesus chose to die so that we didn't have to. And now that in and of itself is a remarkable thought. Because death is a ubiquitous experience of all creation. Everything on this earth that was there and that has existed and that did exist faces a death of some sort. Whether it's the slow erosion of a mountain, the eventual fall of a tree, an animal, a bird falling to the ground, or us. Everything dies. It's an experience of creation. It is not an experience of heaven. And what we know about death is it's all awful. There's ways that we die suddenly and we never knew it, and so maybe that experience wasn't bad, but the people around us mourn. But most ways to die are terrible. Some of us have watched people wither away and so much pain that they wish for death. Jesus chose. This is an experience he never had to have. He didn't have to do it. But he knew that by condescending to become one of us, that he would die. And he knew exactly how he would die, which is one of the worst ways humanity has ever cooked up. And he chose that death when he didn't have to. And I don't know how much we think about the fact that he never had to do it in the first place. He came here not only to experience our temptation and our humanity and live in our squalor when he was in heaven. He chose that life, but then he also chose to take upon himself death. It was a choice that he didn't have to make. It's like if I said, hey, after church today, you've got option A, option B. Option A, you go to lunch with people you like. You do Chili's. Thank you. We go to Chili's. We get triple dippers. Let's flood the place. Option A, you go to a meal with people you like. You go home. you watch football, it's peaceful, or you take a nap, or you read, you do whatever your thing is. And then have dinner with the family, have dinner with people you like, go to bed when you want to. Nice, peaceful day. Or, we're going to put you on a plane, and we're going to go let the Taliban interrogate you for information. Which would you choose? Option A or option B? Jesus chose torture. He chose torture. He could have stayed in heaven and had a meal with people he liked, sat at the banquet table. He chose torture, and he didn't have to. And I don't think that we all the time adequately appreciate what it means for Jesus to have condescended to humanity. Because we don't realize what he gave up, and we don't think about what we gained. And what we gained, what he gave up is his divine being. What he gave up is his peace. And what he chose instead is what we would gain. Which is comfort and empathy and temptation. Condolence and compassion in our humanity, and then the possibility to walk towards death without fear, to walk towards death with courage, to walk towards death with peace, and to no longer be shackled to sin. So the condescension, humanity, and death of Christ are a forever reminder of God's provision. The condescension, humanity, and death of Christ are a forever reminder of God's provision, of the way that God provides for us by sending his only son to become those things for us that we could not be, by sending his only son to redeem creation back to himself so that he might create a pathway back to him. And this is the greatest miracle of his condescension because everything that I've just told you gives us peace and comfort and hope in the 40, 60, 80, 100 years that he gives us on this earth. All of that's temporal provision for a time when Paul describes as but a mist or a vapor. He says that we experience discomfort for a short time. Compared to eternity, it's nothing. So Christ's condescension doesn't just provide for us in the short term and in the temporal. It provides for us for all of eternity. It provides for us because he hung on the cross, because he redeemed creation and made a path back to our Father. That is ultimately what Christ's condescension means, but I don't want us to miss what it means for our life on this earth. And so what this all means, and where I want us to go and what I want us to consider is because of the miraculous condescension of Christ, we can in all things look to him. We can look to him in sin. We can look to him in triumph. We can look to him in grief and sorrow and joy and anguish. We can look to him in all things. When we fail, we can look to Christ. No matter how far down we go, we can look to Jesus. No matter how far high we are, we should know we need to look to Jesus. No matter how stressful things are, we should look to Jesus. No matter how broken our marriage or our children are, we should look to Jesus. No matter how much of a failure we feel like, we should look to Jesus. No matter how successful we might feel like we are, we should remind ourselves to look to Jesus in all things. His condescension reminds us that we can look to him for his provision and for God's provision at all times. That's what that miracle means. Now I'm going to pray for us and we're going to have communion together to celebrate that miracle and understand the bread is what was broken, is what was given in the desert to signify God's provision, and we will celebrate God's provision in that way now. Let's pray. Father, thank you for sharing your son with us. Jesus, thank you for condescending to us, for choosing to become one of us, for being tempted like we are, for being a human like we are, for doing that just so we can run to you. Thank you for breaking the shackles of sin and muting the sting of death. Thank you for everything that you do for us here in this life, but most of all, Jesus, thank you for what you will do for us in the next and already have done. May we reflect on that and properly appreciate your coming down to earth and taking on human form. May we walk in gratitude to you with an appreciation of this important part of your character. In Jesus' name, amen.
Well, good morning, everyone. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Welcome to Grace. Thanks for making us a part of your Sunday. If you're joining us online, thank you for doing that as well. Just a little disclaimer. Panthers fans, it's a total accident that on the day that my Falcons play your weak-willed Panthers that I brought this cup and then face the Falcon towards you. I didn't mean to do that. Here, I'll do this so it doesn't distract you. But you know. We are in the third part of our series called Gentle and Lowly where we're looking at the character of our Savior. And we're seeking to learn more about him. By going through, this is a book, Gentleman Lily is a book by an author and pastor named Dane Ortlund. We had 60 copies. You guys took all of those, which is wonderful. And when I say took, I don't mean steal. I mean, you took them, and I presume you paid for them. I have not looked into the numbers because I don't know how. But if you would like to get a book and read along with us, there's a reading plan for the book and it's available. And if you don't know how to find it, let me know or let us know and we'll help you find it. But before I just jump into what we learned about Christ this week, I wanted to approach it this way. Sorry, now every time I do that, you're going to remember my dumb joke at the beginning of the sermon. I wanted to approach it this way. I think one of the things in life that's really fun to think about is the things that you find to be underrated. I think car rides and silence when you're by yourself, not like with other people, because that's weird, although that is also underrated, because you don't have to talk the whole time, you know. But car rides and silence are underrated. I drove from Atlanta to Raleigh one time without listening to a single thing, and it was actually pretty nice. I think not owning a pet is underrated. I think we overvalue that. But here's one of the things I realized, Jen and I realized was vastly underrated a few weeks ago. Chili's. Chili's, as a restaurant, is crazy underrated. So when Jen and I were in college, any time we would want to go on a date, and this was like 2001, 2002, when we met, when we wanted to go on a date, Jen, where do you want to go? Chili's. And she'd get the same thing every time. And I'm trying to bounce around the menu, and we went enough times that A, I knew her answer. B, please don't make me go to Chili's. I hated it. Just like now, as a grown-up, I hate sushi. I didn't used to hate sushi, but it's what Jen chooses every time, and it may as well just be a tasteless nutrition brick for me. I don't care for it anymore. But I think it was during the summer. Jen had the kids, and we were texting back and forth. We're like, let's meet for lunch. And so I said, where do you want to go? We were kind of bouncing ideas. And you know that exercise when you're trying to decide where to go with your spouse. I don't care. Yes, you do. What you'd like for me to do is play the game of guess the places you don't want to go. And I don't want to play that game. So eventually, one of us said, how about Chili's? And we said, fine. So we go to Chili's, and we get our normal order there, which is chips and queso, a triple dipper with Southwestern egg rolls, sliders, and boneless buffalo rings, hot sauce, sometimes honey chipotle if we're feeling crazy. The kids get their thing. Then all four of us share a molten chocolate lava cake. We get out of there for like $40, $ bucks. Everybody ate everything. And then here's one of my favorite parts about Chili's is they have the kiosk on the table now because my least favorite part of any meal when I'm out to eat is waiting for the check and then waiting for the check to be brought back to me. Because when I, when I ask for the check, when I swipe the card, I am, I'm. I'm a fast leaver. People sometimes offer me rides places. Hey, we're going to the same place. Do you want to ride? No, thanks. Because I don't want to leave when you want to leave. I want to leave before you do. So I'm a fast leaver. So when the check comes, I'm ready to go. And if it's slow service during the apps, when you bring the mains, I will ask for the check right then. Because I don't want to wait on you at the end of the meal when I'm full. Anyways, they've got a kiosk. You swipe your card whenever you want. You get to decide when you leave. You don't have to wait on anyone else's permission to go get in your car. It's great. So then after this Chili's experience, Jen and I looked at each other in the car as we were leaving and she was like, you know what? Chili's is always good. And I was like, it is. It always satisfies. Then, like a month later, we went on a date. Or a couple weeks, I don't know. And when you go on dates, you do the thing where you look around, you find the locally owned, you do the Yelp, Raleigh's Top Restaurant. You find somewhere fancy and nice and worthy of the occasion, and you go. And so we went to some restaurant, I don't remember where. And it cost twice what Chili's did for two people, not four. And we get in the car and we're driving home and I was like, how was that? And she's like, it was good. It's fine. And I was like, yeah, mine was fine too. It was good. It wasn't twice as good as Chili's. And so now, when we go out to eat, should we go someplace fancy? Maybe try Chili's. I would encourage you. There's one right across the street, Triangle Mall. Go there for lunch. Tell me I'm wrong. You're going to have a great experience, okay? I just think it's underrated and that we're too fancy for it, and I think that's funny. And I wanted to introduce this idea of things that we underrate because as we sit here in this series and we focus on the character of Christ, we focus on the theology of Christ, and we try to get to know our Jesus a little bit better. I think that there is a thing about the theology of Christ, about the character of Christ, about the miraculous experience and life of Christ that we as believers deeply undervalue. And I think it's this. We do not properly value the condescension of Christ. I do not believe that we properly value the condescension of Christ. I do not believe that we properly value the condescension of Christ from heaven to earth. And when we hear that word condescension, I think we tend to think of it in negative terms. I try to never ever preach in a way where you're condescended to, where I've put myself on some level that you're not yet at, although that's a little bit difficult to say since I'm literally on a level that you are not right now. But figuratively, I work really hard to never condescend to you, which is super easy because I really don't think I'm better than anyone in this room. As a matter of fact, I think there's plenty of ways in which I'm worse than a lot of you. And we as a church do not condescend to each other. We're all humans. We're all equal. We all have our strengths and our weaknesses. We all have our triumphs and our failures. We do not value person to person condescension. And when someone condescends to you, it ticks you off. And when you see someone else being condescending, you think they're a jerk, and you're right. But this word is good when we apply it to Christ, because he literally did condescend. He went from heaven to earth. He went from deity to human. He gave up his divine being to take on human nature. And I intentionally didn't say he gave up his divine nature to take on human being, human nature, because he did not give up his divine nature. Because we believe in our theology, whether you know this or not, we, Grace, would embrace a theology that says Jesus was 100% man and 100% God and the same being while he was here. This, if you like fancy words, is referred to as the hypostatic union. So he never gave up his divine nature, but he did give up his divine being to come and be with us. And I think it's important to choose the word condescend because it kind of arrests our attention because of the negative connotation we give it. But it forces us to deal with the reality, no, no, no, he really did. He really did give up a great deal to be placed on par and live as equals, as an equal with us. And I think that there's two big reasons, maybe even three, why we don't properly value the condescension of Christ. And the first I want to point out this morning is I think we fail to think about what it cost him to come down here. I think we fail to think about what did Jesus give up to become human? And he gave up his divine being, at least for a time. He gave up being in heaven forever. He's the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. He holds the keys to death and Hades. He lived in heaven in a perfect union with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, surrounded by angels. In Isaiah chapter 6, we have a description of the throne room of God in which seraphim are flying around the throne, and there is no roof, and the robes of God fill the temple with glory, and we are told that Jesus sits at his right hand, and the angels are singing, holy, holy, holy, glory to God in the highest. He left that for Nazareth. And I was trying to think, what did Jesus give up to come be with us and live in our squalor? And there was no apt comparison. And the reality of it is, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what heaven is like. But here's what I'm certain of. That if one day, if we believe in Jesus and we go to heaven, when we get there, we will marvel at the fact that our Savior gave up this to come to this. And I don't think that we often enough reflect upon, as believers, what it meant for Jesus to give up divine being to take on ours. And I'll tell you, I tried to think of an example or an illustration of this, and they all fell so woefully short and fell apart so easily that I thought, I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to say we don't know, but it's a lot. I think we fail to consider what Jesus gave up to condescend to us. I also think we fail to consider what we gain by his condescension. Because I think, we think, we immediately go to the cross. We immediately go to, well, yeah, Jesus was supposed to do this because that's the story of the Bible. As Christians, we encounter scripture and we're told the story of the Bible and it's very quickly within this story that we realize God had sent his son Jesus and so we just kind of accept it as reality. I think it's the same way that we think about being born in the United States versus being born in Afghanistan. Do you realize how much better your life is because you were born in the United States than if you were born in Afghanistan and how random that lottery has to be? Like, I don't think any of us, maybe July 4th. What a good country. But other than that, we don't walk around in gratitude for it. I'm not saying that we should. I'm not being an advocate for that right now. I'm just saying, comparatively speaking, our lives are easier than people who were born in less fortunate countries. And we were born in the fortunate country of Christianity, and we just accept the facts and truths of Christianity without ever considering how fortunate we are to exist in them. And the place that we miss that the most is what do we gain from the remarkable condescension of Jesus Christ to take on humanity? And I think that the answer to this question is best summed up in Hebrews chapter 4 verse 15, where the author of Hebrews writes, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet he did not sin. And I'm going to read 16 too, because we're going to come back to it later. Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. So in this verse, two things I see that we gain. The first thing we gain is that statement, he's able to empathize for our weakness, for he has been tempted in every way, just as we are. Do you understand that his temptation is just the same as ours? There's this famous story in the Gospels where Jesus is tempted by Satan. He's fasted in the desert for 40 days, and Satan comes to him, and he says, you're pretty hungry. This is paraphrase. He says, you're pretty hungry. Why don't you see that rock? Why don't you just turn it into bread and eat it? Satiate your hunger. And Jesus refuses to do that because he's going to honor God and he's going to keep his commitment. And this temptation is probably more ubiquitous to us because none of us, I don't think, have fasted for 40 days. We fasted for a day or two and we understand the pangs of hunger. But we might look at that and we go, I can't relate. But here's how you can. What Jesus did in that moment is choose holiness over his appetite, is choose discipline over what he wanted. He refused to be led by his appetite. Instead, he chose to continue in his service to the Father. And in Philippians, Paul is condemning people. And the way that he condemns them is he says their God is their appetite. Their God is their belly. And what he means is whatever their little heart wants, it gets. They're like, we're like spoiled children with rich parents who give us whatever we want so we'll be quiet. And what that verse means is they gave way to their desires, whatever they were. They wanted more drink, they had more drink. They wanted more food, they had more food. They want to experience that pleasure, they will experience it. They want to be tempted by this person or by that person, they will give in to that temptation. They want to be lazy, they will do that. And as humans, we know. We constantly give in to our appetites. We constantly give in to whatever our little heart desires. And in Jesus, we have an example of someone who fought that temptation, representative of myriad things. Then, Satan says, bow down to me, and I'll give you the kingdoms of the earth. He tempts Jesus with power. Compromise yourself in this way and I'll grease the skids of success over here. Compromise yourself in this way and life will go a little easier. Compromise yourself in this way and you'll save a little bit of money. Do I need more examples? Where we're tempted to compromise ourselves in such a way, compromise our morals and our standards and what we believe God wants us to do and even things that we told God we would do so that we might have things easier on the other side, right? Then in the last one, he says, you're God. Throw yourself off this cliff and let the angels come and rescue you. He tempts him with ego. Oh, you think you're God? Prove it. Right? Someone condescends to you. What do you want to do? You want to get them right back. Someone sends you an email, a customer, a client, a co-worker, a family member, sends you an email that condescends that you don't really appreciate, what do you want to do? Right? And I'll confess, sometimes I type those out. I just get it out. And then I look at it, and I send it. No, I'm just kidding. I press delete. I press delete, and then I give it 24 hours and I type it again. We are familiar with this temptation. In word and action indeed. Jesus faced all the temptations we do. To put a finer point on it. I know this is weird to think about Jesus in this way. But Jesus was a single man. Jesus was a powerful man. Jesus was a man that a lot of people liked. You don't think he ever thought about talking to a woman? You don't think that never occurred to him? He was around wine. He likely consumed wine. You don't think he thought about one night just giving in? Having more than he should? Or maybe he abstained totally, but he was around it. You don't think he ever considered it? You don't think he ever considered when the crowds thronged around him and he was exhausted? You don't think he ever considered going, get away from me. Do you understand I'm the savior of the world? Do you understand I don't have time for this? I'm exhausted. Can you just talk to my assistant? Talk to Andrew and he'll set up an appointment for you. Will you leave me alone? You don't think he ever considered being rude or impatient? Here's one that just occurred to me. If I were Jesus, I'd be tempted when everybody around me was hungry to just be like steaks, you know? You don't think he was ever tempted to do stuff like that? Of course, of course he was tempted. Of course he was. And here's why that's such a powerful truth. Have you ever been in a room, a group of friends, a small group, and watched someone confess something that was hard, that was embarrassing, that was private and in the shadows, and they brought it into the light? Have you ever watched someone do that? And then every time I've seen that happen, which has always been people confessing things to me. I'd never have anything to confess to others. But every time I've seen that happen, I've never, I've never, ever seen it not met with comfort and grace. And what's the most powerful thing that can happen in that situation? Even if there's someone who doesn't struggle with that, but they meet you with comfort and grace, how much more comforting is it when they go, I know I struggle with that too. I've watched in groups of men and in circles, small and relatively large, where someone will say, can you just pray for me and my wife right now? We're in a really difficult season. This and this are happening and we're two ships passing right now. And it's not good. And then watch someone else in that circle go, brother, us too. We are too. Or somebody goes, we did that two years ago. We did that five years ago. I've walked that path, man. I understand. And, and the whole space is washed with grace and comfort. You've seen that happen. I think with women, it's, it's more typical that typical that one of them would finally let their mom guilt break through and say, kids suck. And I don't know if I even like mine or want them. I heard John yell one time, I hate having a sister. And I was like, I don't understand that. Sometimes the family is hard. And then there's this sense when a mom will say that, I feel like a terrible mom. I feel like I'm not doing a good job. I feel like I don't enjoy my kids enough. That someone else will heap their mom guilt out too. And then there's this message of grace and comfort that washes over the room. And the reality is marriage is hard and parenting is hard. It's just true. But there's a special thing that happens when we can share with someone else that's had our experience. One of the things I say, and I'm sure it's true of your industries as well, but when I get to talk with another senior pastor, it's just a different conversation. Because they understand things in a way that if you haven't done this, you just don't know. That's not condescending, that's just true. When you talk to someone who has shared your temptations, that's just comforting in a way that can't be expressed. Hebrews tells us that we have a Savior that has. And even though he hasn't given in to them, he understands what they are. And so in his temptation, he offers us grace and compassion. Because of his temptations and because he's faced them and because he's born with us in our weaknesses, we can go to the throne of God. Now here's what else is implied in this about the wonderful condescension of Christ as far as what do we gain from it. It's implied in this verse, I think. It's implicit. And it's explicit throughout many scriptures. Namely, Isaiah 53, calling him Emmanuel, God with us. What we gain from his condescension is his humanity. The fact that he became human at all. Because in his humanity, he offers empathy, condolence, and comfort. In his humanity, he offers us empathy, condolence, and comfort. I pointed out to you the verse John 11, 35 to highlight his compassion. He weeps with us. He's present with us. He's human with us. I've watched people experience great loss. And in that great loss, maybe a wife loses a husband. And it's far too soon. And so she's experiencing this depth of grief. And I've seen people, I've heard people offer her comfort. And it's well-meaning and it's wonderful and it's good and she receives it and she's gracious. But then I've watched somebody come up to her and say, I've walked that path too. I've been a widow for a decade. That's a different level of connection and comfort. Jesus has experienced our grief. Jesus experienced loss. I don't know if you've thought about this. Jesus had a stepdad. So either his dad Joseph, his earthly father Joseph, passed away, or he had an earthly stepdad. Which, by the way, it occurs to me that maybe there was a time when Jesus' stepdad said, look, I know I'm not your dad. And Jesus thought to himself, you have no idea how layered that is. There you go. But if you've lost a dad, or you've had parents divorced, or if you grew up with a stepdad, maybe it was wonderful, maybe it was painful, I don't know. But what I do know is that Jesus has experienced that. Jesus had half-brothers. One of them wrote a book of the Bible, which may be the greatest proof there is of all time that Jesus was who he says he was. Because what would you have to do to get your half-brother to write a book about your deity? He's experienced our pain and our grief and our sorrow and our loss. He's experienced joy. He's experienced triumph. He's walked through all those things. He lived as a human just as we did. And in those things he shares with us. That's what we gain from his condescension, is we gain the fact that he's faced temptation similar to us. We gain the fact that he was a human just like us. And so all the things and all the emotions that go along with humanity and all the ailments that we could experience that go along with humanity, he has too. That's the miracle of his condescension. That's what we gain. Here's another thing that we gain. He chose to experience death so that we don't have to fear ours. He chose to experience death on the cross so that we don't have to fear ours. No passage, in your notes it says Romans 8.39, but after I sent in the notes, I was considering it, and this passage is so much better. It's 1 Corinthians 15, 55 through 57. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, he gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. We're told in response to the death and resurrection of Christ, death, where is your sting? Sin, where is your victory? There's an old song that says, hell has been defeated. The grave could not hold the king. In his death, he defeated our fear of our death. In his death, he unshackled us from sin. He said, we don't have to be fearful of death. Last week, last week on Tuesday, one of our wonderful partners, Mike Schenck, passed away from cancer. And before he did, when he was in hospice and incredibly lucid, I was able to go visit with him and his family. It was a wonderful visit. And one of the things that was remarkable to me was the fearlessness, courage, and faith with which Mike was marching to his grave. He knew what was going to happen. And there was no sense of fear in him. He joked. He was confident. He knows his Savior. Looking forward to meeting him. And then Susie's faith was remarkable too. Because if we're being really honest, and I don't mean to be too crass about it, but she's the one left holding the bag. It's worse for her than him. Because now she has to figure out how to do this life post-Mike. But they both had such faith and peace about the horizon they were approaching because Jesus chose to die so that we didn't have to. And now that in and of itself is a remarkable thought. Because death is a ubiquitous experience of all creation. Everything on this earth that was there and that has existed and that did exist faces a death of some sort. Whether it's the slow erosion of a mountain, the eventual fall of a tree, an animal, a bird falling to the ground, or us. Everything dies. It's an experience of creation. It is not an experience of heaven. And what we know about death is it's all awful. There's ways that we die suddenly and we never knew it, and so maybe that experience wasn't bad, but the people around us mourn. But most ways to die are terrible. Some of us have watched people wither away and so much pain that they wish for death. Jesus chose. This is an experience he never had to have. He didn't have to do it. But he knew that by condescending to become one of us, that he would die. And he knew exactly how he would die, which is one of the worst ways humanity has ever cooked up. And he chose that death when he didn't have to. And I don't know how much we think about the fact that he never had to do it in the first place. He came here not only to experience our temptation and our humanity and live in our squalor when he was in heaven. He chose that life, but then he also chose to take upon himself death. It was a choice that he didn't have to make. It's like if I said, hey, after church today, you've got option A, option B. Option A, you go to lunch with people you like. You do Chili's. Thank you. We go to Chili's. We get triple dippers. Let's flood the place. Option A, you go to a meal with people you like. You go home. you watch football, it's peaceful, or you take a nap, or you read, you do whatever your thing is. And then have dinner with the family, have dinner with people you like, go to bed when you want to. Nice, peaceful day. Or, we're going to put you on a plane, and we're going to go let the Taliban interrogate you for information. Which would you choose? Option A or option B? Jesus chose torture. He chose torture. He could have stayed in heaven and had a meal with people he liked, sat at the banquet table. He chose torture, and he didn't have to. And I don't think that we all the time adequately appreciate what it means for Jesus to have condescended to humanity. Because we don't realize what he gave up, and we don't think about what we gained. And what we gained, what he gave up is his divine being. What he gave up is his peace. And what he chose instead is what we would gain. Which is comfort and empathy and temptation. Condolence and compassion in our humanity, and then the possibility to walk towards death without fear, to walk towards death with courage, to walk towards death with peace, and to no longer be shackled to sin. So the condescension, humanity, and death of Christ are a forever reminder of God's provision. The condescension, humanity, and death of Christ are a forever reminder of God's provision, of the way that God provides for us by sending his only son to become those things for us that we could not be, by sending his only son to redeem creation back to himself so that he might create a pathway back to him. And this is the greatest miracle of his condescension because everything that I've just told you gives us peace and comfort and hope in the 40, 60, 80, 100 years that he gives us on this earth. All of that's temporal provision for a time when Paul describes as but a mist or a vapor. He says that we experience discomfort for a short time. Compared to eternity, it's nothing. So Christ's condescension doesn't just provide for us in the short term and in the temporal. It provides for us for all of eternity. It provides for us because he hung on the cross, because he redeemed creation and made a path back to our Father. That is ultimately what Christ's condescension means, but I don't want us to miss what it means for our life on this earth. And so what this all means, and where I want us to go and what I want us to consider is because of the miraculous condescension of Christ, we can in all things look to him. We can look to him in sin. We can look to him in triumph. We can look to him in grief and sorrow and joy and anguish. We can look to him in all things. When we fail, we can look to Christ. No matter how far down we go, we can look to Jesus. No matter how far high we are, we should know we need to look to Jesus. No matter how stressful things are, we should look to Jesus. No matter how broken our marriage or our children are, we should look to Jesus. No matter how much of a failure we feel like, we should look to Jesus. No matter how successful we might feel like we are, we should remind ourselves to look to Jesus in all things. His condescension reminds us that we can look to him for his provision and for God's provision at all times. That's what that miracle means. Now I'm going to pray for us and we're going to have communion together to celebrate that miracle and understand the bread is what was broken, is what was given in the desert to signify God's provision, and we will celebrate God's provision in that way now. Let's pray. Father, thank you for sharing your son with us. Jesus, thank you for condescending to us, for choosing to become one of us, for being tempted like we are, for being a human like we are, for doing that just so we can run to you. Thank you for breaking the shackles of sin and muting the sting of death. Thank you for everything that you do for us here in this life, but most of all, Jesus, thank you for what you will do for us in the next and already have done. May we reflect on that and properly appreciate your coming down to earth and taking on human form. May we walk in gratitude to you with an appreciation of this important part of your character. In Jesus' name, amen.
Well, good morning, everyone. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Welcome to Grace. Thanks for making us a part of your Sunday. If you're joining us online, thank you for doing that as well. Just a little disclaimer. Panthers fans, it's a total accident that on the day that my Falcons play your weak-willed Panthers that I brought this cup and then face the Falcon towards you. I didn't mean to do that. Here, I'll do this so it doesn't distract you. But you know. We are in the third part of our series called Gentle and Lowly where we're looking at the character of our Savior. And we're seeking to learn more about him. By going through, this is a book, Gentleman Lily is a book by an author and pastor named Dane Ortlund. We had 60 copies. You guys took all of those, which is wonderful. And when I say took, I don't mean steal. I mean, you took them, and I presume you paid for them. I have not looked into the numbers because I don't know how. But if you would like to get a book and read along with us, there's a reading plan for the book and it's available. And if you don't know how to find it, let me know or let us know and we'll help you find it. But before I just jump into what we learned about Christ this week, I wanted to approach it this way. Sorry, now every time I do that, you're going to remember my dumb joke at the beginning of the sermon. I wanted to approach it this way. I think one of the things in life that's really fun to think about is the things that you find to be underrated. I think car rides and silence when you're by yourself, not like with other people, because that's weird, although that is also underrated, because you don't have to talk the whole time, you know. But car rides and silence are underrated. I drove from Atlanta to Raleigh one time without listening to a single thing, and it was actually pretty nice. I think not owning a pet is underrated. I think we overvalue that. But here's one of the things I realized, Jen and I realized was vastly underrated a few weeks ago. Chili's. Chili's, as a restaurant, is crazy underrated. So when Jen and I were in college, any time we would want to go on a date, and this was like 2001, 2002, when we met, when we wanted to go on a date, Jen, where do you want to go? Chili's. And she'd get the same thing every time. And I'm trying to bounce around the menu, and we went enough times that A, I knew her answer. B, please don't make me go to Chili's. I hated it. Just like now, as a grown-up, I hate sushi. I didn't used to hate sushi, but it's what Jen chooses every time, and it may as well just be a tasteless nutrition brick for me. I don't care for it anymore. But I think it was during the summer. Jen had the kids, and we were texting back and forth. We're like, let's meet for lunch. And so I said, where do you want to go? We were kind of bouncing ideas. And you know that exercise when you're trying to decide where to go with your spouse. I don't care. Yes, you do. What you'd like for me to do is play the game of guess the places you don't want to go. And I don't want to play that game. So eventually, one of us said, how about Chili's? And we said, fine. So we go to Chili's, and we get our normal order there, which is chips and queso, a triple dipper with Southwestern egg rolls, sliders, and boneless buffalo rings, hot sauce, sometimes honey chipotle if we're feeling crazy. The kids get their thing. Then all four of us share a molten chocolate lava cake. We get out of there for like $40, $ bucks. Everybody ate everything. And then here's one of my favorite parts about Chili's is they have the kiosk on the table now because my least favorite part of any meal when I'm out to eat is waiting for the check and then waiting for the check to be brought back to me. Because when I, when I ask for the check, when I swipe the card, I am, I'm. I'm a fast leaver. People sometimes offer me rides places. Hey, we're going to the same place. Do you want to ride? No, thanks. Because I don't want to leave when you want to leave. I want to leave before you do. So I'm a fast leaver. So when the check comes, I'm ready to go. And if it's slow service during the apps, when you bring the mains, I will ask for the check right then. Because I don't want to wait on you at the end of the meal when I'm full. Anyways, they've got a kiosk. You swipe your card whenever you want. You get to decide when you leave. You don't have to wait on anyone else's permission to go get in your car. It's great. So then after this Chili's experience, Jen and I looked at each other in the car as we were leaving and she was like, you know what? Chili's is always good. And I was like, it is. It always satisfies. Then, like a month later, we went on a date. Or a couple weeks, I don't know. And when you go on dates, you do the thing where you look around, you find the locally owned, you do the Yelp, Raleigh's Top Restaurant. You find somewhere fancy and nice and worthy of the occasion, and you go. And so we went to some restaurant, I don't remember where. And it cost twice what Chili's did for two people, not four. And we get in the car and we're driving home and I was like, how was that? And she's like, it was good. It's fine. And I was like, yeah, mine was fine too. It was good. It wasn't twice as good as Chili's. And so now, when we go out to eat, should we go someplace fancy? Maybe try Chili's. I would encourage you. There's one right across the street, Triangle Mall. Go there for lunch. Tell me I'm wrong. You're going to have a great experience, okay? I just think it's underrated and that we're too fancy for it, and I think that's funny. And I wanted to introduce this idea of things that we underrate because as we sit here in this series and we focus on the character of Christ, we focus on the theology of Christ, and we try to get to know our Jesus a little bit better. I think that there is a thing about the theology of Christ, about the character of Christ, about the miraculous experience and life of Christ that we as believers deeply undervalue. And I think it's this. We do not properly value the condescension of Christ. I do not believe that we properly value the condescension of Christ. I do not believe that we properly value the condescension of Christ from heaven to earth. And when we hear that word condescension, I think we tend to think of it in negative terms. I try to never ever preach in a way where you're condescended to, where I've put myself on some level that you're not yet at, although that's a little bit difficult to say since I'm literally on a level that you are not right now. But figuratively, I work really hard to never condescend to you, which is super easy because I really don't think I'm better than anyone in this room. As a matter of fact, I think there's plenty of ways in which I'm worse than a lot of you. And we as a church do not condescend to each other. We're all humans. We're all equal. We all have our strengths and our weaknesses. We all have our triumphs and our failures. We do not value person to person condescension. And when someone condescends to you, it ticks you off. And when you see someone else being condescending, you think they're a jerk, and you're right. But this word is good when we apply it to Christ, because he literally did condescend. He went from heaven to earth. He went from deity to human. He gave up his divine being to take on human nature. And I intentionally didn't say he gave up his divine nature to take on human being, human nature, because he did not give up his divine nature. Because we believe in our theology, whether you know this or not, we, Grace, would embrace a theology that says Jesus was 100% man and 100% God and the same being while he was here. This, if you like fancy words, is referred to as the hypostatic union. So he never gave up his divine nature, but he did give up his divine being to come and be with us. And I think it's important to choose the word condescend because it kind of arrests our attention because of the negative connotation we give it. But it forces us to deal with the reality, no, no, no, he really did. He really did give up a great deal to be placed on par and live as equals, as an equal with us. And I think that there's two big reasons, maybe even three, why we don't properly value the condescension of Christ. And the first I want to point out this morning is I think we fail to think about what it cost him to come down here. I think we fail to think about what did Jesus give up to become human? And he gave up his divine being, at least for a time. He gave up being in heaven forever. He's the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. He holds the keys to death and Hades. He lived in heaven in a perfect union with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, surrounded by angels. In Isaiah chapter 6, we have a description of the throne room of God in which seraphim are flying around the throne, and there is no roof, and the robes of God fill the temple with glory, and we are told that Jesus sits at his right hand, and the angels are singing, holy, holy, holy, glory to God in the highest. He left that for Nazareth. And I was trying to think, what did Jesus give up to come be with us and live in our squalor? And there was no apt comparison. And the reality of it is, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what heaven is like. But here's what I'm certain of. That if one day, if we believe in Jesus and we go to heaven, when we get there, we will marvel at the fact that our Savior gave up this to come to this. And I don't think that we often enough reflect upon, as believers, what it meant for Jesus to give up divine being to take on ours. And I'll tell you, I tried to think of an example or an illustration of this, and they all fell so woefully short and fell apart so easily that I thought, I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to say we don't know, but it's a lot. I think we fail to consider what Jesus gave up to condescend to us. I also think we fail to consider what we gain by his condescension. Because I think, we think, we immediately go to the cross. We immediately go to, well, yeah, Jesus was supposed to do this because that's the story of the Bible. As Christians, we encounter scripture and we're told the story of the Bible and it's very quickly within this story that we realize God had sent his son Jesus and so we just kind of accept it as reality. I think it's the same way that we think about being born in the United States versus being born in Afghanistan. Do you realize how much better your life is because you were born in the United States than if you were born in Afghanistan and how random that lottery has to be? Like, I don't think any of us, maybe July 4th. What a good country. But other than that, we don't walk around in gratitude for it. I'm not saying that we should. I'm not being an advocate for that right now. I'm just saying, comparatively speaking, our lives are easier than people who were born in less fortunate countries. And we were born in the fortunate country of Christianity, and we just accept the facts and truths of Christianity without ever considering how fortunate we are to exist in them. And the place that we miss that the most is what do we gain from the remarkable condescension of Jesus Christ to take on humanity? And I think that the answer to this question is best summed up in Hebrews chapter 4 verse 15, where the author of Hebrews writes, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet he did not sin. And I'm going to read 16 too, because we're going to come back to it later. Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. So in this verse, two things I see that we gain. The first thing we gain is that statement, he's able to empathize for our weakness, for he has been tempted in every way, just as we are. Do you understand that his temptation is just the same as ours? There's this famous story in the Gospels where Jesus is tempted by Satan. He's fasted in the desert for 40 days, and Satan comes to him, and he says, you're pretty hungry. This is paraphrase. He says, you're pretty hungry. Why don't you see that rock? Why don't you just turn it into bread and eat it? Satiate your hunger. And Jesus refuses to do that because he's going to honor God and he's going to keep his commitment. And this temptation is probably more ubiquitous to us because none of us, I don't think, have fasted for 40 days. We fasted for a day or two and we understand the pangs of hunger. But we might look at that and we go, I can't relate. But here's how you can. What Jesus did in that moment is choose holiness over his appetite, is choose discipline over what he wanted. He refused to be led by his appetite. Instead, he chose to continue in his service to the Father. And in Philippians, Paul is condemning people. And the way that he condemns them is he says their God is their appetite. Their God is their belly. And what he means is whatever their little heart wants, it gets. They're like, we're like spoiled children with rich parents who give us whatever we want so we'll be quiet. And what that verse means is they gave way to their desires, whatever they were. They wanted more drink, they had more drink. They wanted more food, they had more food. They want to experience that pleasure, they will experience it. They want to be tempted by this person or by that person, they will give in to that temptation. They want to be lazy, they will do that. And as humans, we know. We constantly give in to our appetites. We constantly give in to whatever our little heart desires. And in Jesus, we have an example of someone who fought that temptation, representative of myriad things. Then, Satan says, bow down to me, and I'll give you the kingdoms of the earth. He tempts Jesus with power. Compromise yourself in this way and I'll grease the skids of success over here. Compromise yourself in this way and life will go a little easier. Compromise yourself in this way and you'll save a little bit of money. Do I need more examples? Where we're tempted to compromise ourselves in such a way, compromise our morals and our standards and what we believe God wants us to do and even things that we told God we would do so that we might have things easier on the other side, right? Then in the last one, he says, you're God. Throw yourself off this cliff and let the angels come and rescue you. He tempts him with ego. Oh, you think you're God? Prove it. Right? Someone condescends to you. What do you want to do? You want to get them right back. Someone sends you an email, a customer, a client, a co-worker, a family member, sends you an email that condescends that you don't really appreciate, what do you want to do? Right? And I'll confess, sometimes I type those out. I just get it out. And then I look at it, and I send it. No, I'm just kidding. I press delete. I press delete, and then I give it 24 hours and I type it again. We are familiar with this temptation. In word and action indeed. Jesus faced all the temptations we do. To put a finer point on it. I know this is weird to think about Jesus in this way. But Jesus was a single man. Jesus was a powerful man. Jesus was a man that a lot of people liked. You don't think he ever thought about talking to a woman? You don't think that never occurred to him? He was around wine. He likely consumed wine. You don't think he thought about one night just giving in? Having more than he should? Or maybe he abstained totally, but he was around it. You don't think he ever considered it? You don't think he ever considered when the crowds thronged around him and he was exhausted? You don't think he ever considered going, get away from me. Do you understand I'm the savior of the world? Do you understand I don't have time for this? I'm exhausted. Can you just talk to my assistant? Talk to Andrew and he'll set up an appointment for you. Will you leave me alone? You don't think he ever considered being rude or impatient? Here's one that just occurred to me. If I were Jesus, I'd be tempted when everybody around me was hungry to just be like steaks, you know? You don't think he was ever tempted to do stuff like that? Of course, of course he was tempted. Of course he was. And here's why that's such a powerful truth. Have you ever been in a room, a group of friends, a small group, and watched someone confess something that was hard, that was embarrassing, that was private and in the shadows, and they brought it into the light? Have you ever watched someone do that? And then every time I've seen that happen, which has always been people confessing things to me. I'd never have anything to confess to others. But every time I've seen that happen, I've never, I've never, ever seen it not met with comfort and grace. And what's the most powerful thing that can happen in that situation? Even if there's someone who doesn't struggle with that, but they meet you with comfort and grace, how much more comforting is it when they go, I know I struggle with that too. I've watched in groups of men and in circles, small and relatively large, where someone will say, can you just pray for me and my wife right now? We're in a really difficult season. This and this are happening and we're two ships passing right now. And it's not good. And then watch someone else in that circle go, brother, us too. We are too. Or somebody goes, we did that two years ago. We did that five years ago. I've walked that path, man. I understand. And, and the whole space is washed with grace and comfort. You've seen that happen. I think with women, it's, it's more typical that typical that one of them would finally let their mom guilt break through and say, kids suck. And I don't know if I even like mine or want them. I heard John yell one time, I hate having a sister. And I was like, I don't understand that. Sometimes the family is hard. And then there's this sense when a mom will say that, I feel like a terrible mom. I feel like I'm not doing a good job. I feel like I don't enjoy my kids enough. That someone else will heap their mom guilt out too. And then there's this message of grace and comfort that washes over the room. And the reality is marriage is hard and parenting is hard. It's just true. But there's a special thing that happens when we can share with someone else that's had our experience. One of the things I say, and I'm sure it's true of your industries as well, but when I get to talk with another senior pastor, it's just a different conversation. Because they understand things in a way that if you haven't done this, you just don't know. That's not condescending, that's just true. When you talk to someone who has shared your temptations, that's just comforting in a way that can't be expressed. Hebrews tells us that we have a Savior that has. And even though he hasn't given in to them, he understands what they are. And so in his temptation, he offers us grace and compassion. Because of his temptations and because he's faced them and because he's born with us in our weaknesses, we can go to the throne of God. Now here's what else is implied in this about the wonderful condescension of Christ as far as what do we gain from it. It's implied in this verse, I think. It's implicit. And it's explicit throughout many scriptures. Namely, Isaiah 53, calling him Emmanuel, God with us. What we gain from his condescension is his humanity. The fact that he became human at all. Because in his humanity, he offers empathy, condolence, and comfort. In his humanity, he offers us empathy, condolence, and comfort. I pointed out to you the verse John 11, 35 to highlight his compassion. He weeps with us. He's present with us. He's human with us. I've watched people experience great loss. And in that great loss, maybe a wife loses a husband. And it's far too soon. And so she's experiencing this depth of grief. And I've seen people, I've heard people offer her comfort. And it's well-meaning and it's wonderful and it's good and she receives it and she's gracious. But then I've watched somebody come up to her and say, I've walked that path too. I've been a widow for a decade. That's a different level of connection and comfort. Jesus has experienced our grief. Jesus experienced loss. I don't know if you've thought about this. Jesus had a stepdad. So either his dad Joseph, his earthly father Joseph, passed away, or he had an earthly stepdad. Which, by the way, it occurs to me that maybe there was a time when Jesus' stepdad said, look, I know I'm not your dad. And Jesus thought to himself, you have no idea how layered that is. There you go. But if you've lost a dad, or you've had parents divorced, or if you grew up with a stepdad, maybe it was wonderful, maybe it was painful, I don't know. But what I do know is that Jesus has experienced that. Jesus had half-brothers. One of them wrote a book of the Bible, which may be the greatest proof there is of all time that Jesus was who he says he was. Because what would you have to do to get your half-brother to write a book about your deity? He's experienced our pain and our grief and our sorrow and our loss. He's experienced joy. He's experienced triumph. He's walked through all those things. He lived as a human just as we did. And in those things he shares with us. That's what we gain from his condescension, is we gain the fact that he's faced temptation similar to us. We gain the fact that he was a human just like us. And so all the things and all the emotions that go along with humanity and all the ailments that we could experience that go along with humanity, he has too. That's the miracle of his condescension. That's what we gain. Here's another thing that we gain. He chose to experience death so that we don't have to fear ours. He chose to experience death on the cross so that we don't have to fear ours. No passage, in your notes it says Romans 8.39, but after I sent in the notes, I was considering it, and this passage is so much better. It's 1 Corinthians 15, 55 through 57. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, he gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. We're told in response to the death and resurrection of Christ, death, where is your sting? Sin, where is your victory? There's an old song that says, hell has been defeated. The grave could not hold the king. In his death, he defeated our fear of our death. In his death, he unshackled us from sin. He said, we don't have to be fearful of death. Last week, last week on Tuesday, one of our wonderful partners, Mike Schenck, passed away from cancer. And before he did, when he was in hospice and incredibly lucid, I was able to go visit with him and his family. It was a wonderful visit. And one of the things that was remarkable to me was the fearlessness, courage, and faith with which Mike was marching to his grave. He knew what was going to happen. And there was no sense of fear in him. He joked. He was confident. He knows his Savior. Looking forward to meeting him. And then Susie's faith was remarkable too. Because if we're being really honest, and I don't mean to be too crass about it, but she's the one left holding the bag. It's worse for her than him. Because now she has to figure out how to do this life post-Mike. But they both had such faith and peace about the horizon they were approaching because Jesus chose to die so that we didn't have to. And now that in and of itself is a remarkable thought. Because death is a ubiquitous experience of all creation. Everything on this earth that was there and that has existed and that did exist faces a death of some sort. Whether it's the slow erosion of a mountain, the eventual fall of a tree, an animal, a bird falling to the ground, or us. Everything dies. It's an experience of creation. It is not an experience of heaven. And what we know about death is it's all awful. There's ways that we die suddenly and we never knew it, and so maybe that experience wasn't bad, but the people around us mourn. But most ways to die are terrible. Some of us have watched people wither away and so much pain that they wish for death. Jesus chose. This is an experience he never had to have. He didn't have to do it. But he knew that by condescending to become one of us, that he would die. And he knew exactly how he would die, which is one of the worst ways humanity has ever cooked up. And he chose that death when he didn't have to. And I don't know how much we think about the fact that he never had to do it in the first place. He came here not only to experience our temptation and our humanity and live in our squalor when he was in heaven. He chose that life, but then he also chose to take upon himself death. It was a choice that he didn't have to make. It's like if I said, hey, after church today, you've got option A, option B. Option A, you go to lunch with people you like. You do Chili's. Thank you. We go to Chili's. We get triple dippers. Let's flood the place. Option A, you go to a meal with people you like. You go home. you watch football, it's peaceful, or you take a nap, or you read, you do whatever your thing is. And then have dinner with the family, have dinner with people you like, go to bed when you want to. Nice, peaceful day. Or, we're going to put you on a plane, and we're going to go let the Taliban interrogate you for information. Which would you choose? Option A or option B? Jesus chose torture. He chose torture. He could have stayed in heaven and had a meal with people he liked, sat at the banquet table. He chose torture, and he didn't have to. And I don't think that we all the time adequately appreciate what it means for Jesus to have condescended to humanity. Because we don't realize what he gave up, and we don't think about what we gained. And what we gained, what he gave up is his divine being. What he gave up is his peace. And what he chose instead is what we would gain. Which is comfort and empathy and temptation. Condolence and compassion in our humanity, and then the possibility to walk towards death without fear, to walk towards death with courage, to walk towards death with peace, and to no longer be shackled to sin. So the condescension, humanity, and death of Christ are a forever reminder of God's provision. The condescension, humanity, and death of Christ are a forever reminder of God's provision, of the way that God provides for us by sending his only son to become those things for us that we could not be, by sending his only son to redeem creation back to himself so that he might create a pathway back to him. And this is the greatest miracle of his condescension because everything that I've just told you gives us peace and comfort and hope in the 40, 60, 80, 100 years that he gives us on this earth. All of that's temporal provision for a time when Paul describes as but a mist or a vapor. He says that we experience discomfort for a short time. Compared to eternity, it's nothing. So Christ's condescension doesn't just provide for us in the short term and in the temporal. It provides for us for all of eternity. It provides for us because he hung on the cross, because he redeemed creation and made a path back to our Father. That is ultimately what Christ's condescension means, but I don't want us to miss what it means for our life on this earth. And so what this all means, and where I want us to go and what I want us to consider is because of the miraculous condescension of Christ, we can in all things look to him. We can look to him in sin. We can look to him in triumph. We can look to him in grief and sorrow and joy and anguish. We can look to him in all things. When we fail, we can look to Christ. No matter how far down we go, we can look to Jesus. No matter how far high we are, we should know we need to look to Jesus. No matter how stressful things are, we should look to Jesus. No matter how broken our marriage or our children are, we should look to Jesus. No matter how much of a failure we feel like, we should look to Jesus. No matter how successful we might feel like we are, we should remind ourselves to look to Jesus in all things. His condescension reminds us that we can look to him for his provision and for God's provision at all times. That's what that miracle means. Now I'm going to pray for us and we're going to have communion together to celebrate that miracle and understand the bread is what was broken, is what was given in the desert to signify God's provision, and we will celebrate God's provision in that way now. Let's pray. Father, thank you for sharing your son with us. Jesus, thank you for condescending to us, for choosing to become one of us, for being tempted like we are, for being a human like we are, for doing that just so we can run to you. Thank you for breaking the shackles of sin and muting the sting of death. Thank you for everything that you do for us here in this life, but most of all, Jesus, thank you for what you will do for us in the next and already have done. May we reflect on that and properly appreciate your coming down to earth and taking on human form. May we walk in gratitude to you with an appreciation of this important part of your character. In Jesus' name, amen.
Well, good morning, everyone. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Welcome to Grace. Thanks for making us a part of your Sunday. If you're joining us online, thank you for doing that as well. Just a little disclaimer. Panthers fans, it's a total accident that on the day that my Falcons play your weak-willed Panthers that I brought this cup and then face the Falcon towards you. I didn't mean to do that. Here, I'll do this so it doesn't distract you. But you know. We are in the third part of our series called Gentle and Lowly where we're looking at the character of our Savior. And we're seeking to learn more about him. By going through, this is a book, Gentleman Lily is a book by an author and pastor named Dane Ortlund. We had 60 copies. You guys took all of those, which is wonderful. And when I say took, I don't mean steal. I mean, you took them, and I presume you paid for them. I have not looked into the numbers because I don't know how. But if you would like to get a book and read along with us, there's a reading plan for the book and it's available. And if you don't know how to find it, let me know or let us know and we'll help you find it. But before I just jump into what we learned about Christ this week, I wanted to approach it this way. Sorry, now every time I do that, you're going to remember my dumb joke at the beginning of the sermon. I wanted to approach it this way. I think one of the things in life that's really fun to think about is the things that you find to be underrated. I think car rides and silence when you're by yourself, not like with other people, because that's weird, although that is also underrated, because you don't have to talk the whole time, you know. But car rides and silence are underrated. I drove from Atlanta to Raleigh one time without listening to a single thing, and it was actually pretty nice. I think not owning a pet is underrated. I think we overvalue that. But here's one of the things I realized, Jen and I realized was vastly underrated a few weeks ago. Chili's. Chili's, as a restaurant, is crazy underrated. So when Jen and I were in college, any time we would want to go on a date, and this was like 2001, 2002, when we met, when we wanted to go on a date, Jen, where do you want to go? Chili's. And she'd get the same thing every time. And I'm trying to bounce around the menu, and we went enough times that A, I knew her answer. B, please don't make me go to Chili's. I hated it. Just like now, as a grown-up, I hate sushi. I didn't used to hate sushi, but it's what Jen chooses every time, and it may as well just be a tasteless nutrition brick for me. I don't care for it anymore. But I think it was during the summer. Jen had the kids, and we were texting back and forth. We're like, let's meet for lunch. And so I said, where do you want to go? We were kind of bouncing ideas. And you know that exercise when you're trying to decide where to go with your spouse. I don't care. Yes, you do. What you'd like for me to do is play the game of guess the places you don't want to go. And I don't want to play that game. So eventually, one of us said, how about Chili's? And we said, fine. So we go to Chili's, and we get our normal order there, which is chips and queso, a triple dipper with Southwestern egg rolls, sliders, and boneless buffalo rings, hot sauce, sometimes honey chipotle if we're feeling crazy. The kids get their thing. Then all four of us share a molten chocolate lava cake. We get out of there for like $40, $ bucks. Everybody ate everything. And then here's one of my favorite parts about Chili's is they have the kiosk on the table now because my least favorite part of any meal when I'm out to eat is waiting for the check and then waiting for the check to be brought back to me. Because when I, when I ask for the check, when I swipe the card, I am, I'm. I'm a fast leaver. People sometimes offer me rides places. Hey, we're going to the same place. Do you want to ride? No, thanks. Because I don't want to leave when you want to leave. I want to leave before you do. So I'm a fast leaver. So when the check comes, I'm ready to go. And if it's slow service during the apps, when you bring the mains, I will ask for the check right then. Because I don't want to wait on you at the end of the meal when I'm full. Anyways, they've got a kiosk. You swipe your card whenever you want. You get to decide when you leave. You don't have to wait on anyone else's permission to go get in your car. It's great. So then after this Chili's experience, Jen and I looked at each other in the car as we were leaving and she was like, you know what? Chili's is always good. And I was like, it is. It always satisfies. Then, like a month later, we went on a date. Or a couple weeks, I don't know. And when you go on dates, you do the thing where you look around, you find the locally owned, you do the Yelp, Raleigh's Top Restaurant. You find somewhere fancy and nice and worthy of the occasion, and you go. And so we went to some restaurant, I don't remember where. And it cost twice what Chili's did for two people, not four. And we get in the car and we're driving home and I was like, how was that? And she's like, it was good. It's fine. And I was like, yeah, mine was fine too. It was good. It wasn't twice as good as Chili's. And so now, when we go out to eat, should we go someplace fancy? Maybe try Chili's. I would encourage you. There's one right across the street, Triangle Mall. Go there for lunch. Tell me I'm wrong. You're going to have a great experience, okay? I just think it's underrated and that we're too fancy for it, and I think that's funny. And I wanted to introduce this idea of things that we underrate because as we sit here in this series and we focus on the character of Christ, we focus on the theology of Christ, and we try to get to know our Jesus a little bit better. I think that there is a thing about the theology of Christ, about the character of Christ, about the miraculous experience and life of Christ that we as believers deeply undervalue. And I think it's this. We do not properly value the condescension of Christ. I do not believe that we properly value the condescension of Christ. I do not believe that we properly value the condescension of Christ from heaven to earth. And when we hear that word condescension, I think we tend to think of it in negative terms. I try to never ever preach in a way where you're condescended to, where I've put myself on some level that you're not yet at, although that's a little bit difficult to say since I'm literally on a level that you are not right now. But figuratively, I work really hard to never condescend to you, which is super easy because I really don't think I'm better than anyone in this room. As a matter of fact, I think there's plenty of ways in which I'm worse than a lot of you. And we as a church do not condescend to each other. We're all humans. We're all equal. We all have our strengths and our weaknesses. We all have our triumphs and our failures. We do not value person to person condescension. And when someone condescends to you, it ticks you off. And when you see someone else being condescending, you think they're a jerk, and you're right. But this word is good when we apply it to Christ, because he literally did condescend. He went from heaven to earth. He went from deity to human. He gave up his divine being to take on human nature. And I intentionally didn't say he gave up his divine nature to take on human being, human nature, because he did not give up his divine nature. Because we believe in our theology, whether you know this or not, we, Grace, would embrace a theology that says Jesus was 100% man and 100% God and the same being while he was here. This, if you like fancy words, is referred to as the hypostatic union. So he never gave up his divine nature, but he did give up his divine being to come and be with us. And I think it's important to choose the word condescend because it kind of arrests our attention because of the negative connotation we give it. But it forces us to deal with the reality, no, no, no, he really did. He really did give up a great deal to be placed on par and live as equals, as an equal with us. And I think that there's two big reasons, maybe even three, why we don't properly value the condescension of Christ. And the first I want to point out this morning is I think we fail to think about what it cost him to come down here. I think we fail to think about what did Jesus give up to become human? And he gave up his divine being, at least for a time. He gave up being in heaven forever. He's the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. He holds the keys to death and Hades. He lived in heaven in a perfect union with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, surrounded by angels. In Isaiah chapter 6, we have a description of the throne room of God in which seraphim are flying around the throne, and there is no roof, and the robes of God fill the temple with glory, and we are told that Jesus sits at his right hand, and the angels are singing, holy, holy, holy, glory to God in the highest. He left that for Nazareth. And I was trying to think, what did Jesus give up to come be with us and live in our squalor? And there was no apt comparison. And the reality of it is, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what heaven is like. But here's what I'm certain of. That if one day, if we believe in Jesus and we go to heaven, when we get there, we will marvel at the fact that our Savior gave up this to come to this. And I don't think that we often enough reflect upon, as believers, what it meant for Jesus to give up divine being to take on ours. And I'll tell you, I tried to think of an example or an illustration of this, and they all fell so woefully short and fell apart so easily that I thought, I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to say we don't know, but it's a lot. I think we fail to consider what Jesus gave up to condescend to us. I also think we fail to consider what we gain by his condescension. Because I think, we think, we immediately go to the cross. We immediately go to, well, yeah, Jesus was supposed to do this because that's the story of the Bible. As Christians, we encounter scripture and we're told the story of the Bible and it's very quickly within this story that we realize God had sent his son Jesus and so we just kind of accept it as reality. I think it's the same way that we think about being born in the United States versus being born in Afghanistan. Do you realize how much better your life is because you were born in the United States than if you were born in Afghanistan and how random that lottery has to be? Like, I don't think any of us, maybe July 4th. What a good country. But other than that, we don't walk around in gratitude for it. I'm not saying that we should. I'm not being an advocate for that right now. I'm just saying, comparatively speaking, our lives are easier than people who were born in less fortunate countries. And we were born in the fortunate country of Christianity, and we just accept the facts and truths of Christianity without ever considering how fortunate we are to exist in them. And the place that we miss that the most is what do we gain from the remarkable condescension of Jesus Christ to take on humanity? And I think that the answer to this question is best summed up in Hebrews chapter 4 verse 15, where the author of Hebrews writes, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet he did not sin. And I'm going to read 16 too, because we're going to come back to it later. Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. So in this verse, two things I see that we gain. The first thing we gain is that statement, he's able to empathize for our weakness, for he has been tempted in every way, just as we are. Do you understand that his temptation is just the same as ours? There's this famous story in the Gospels where Jesus is tempted by Satan. He's fasted in the desert for 40 days, and Satan comes to him, and he says, you're pretty hungry. This is paraphrase. He says, you're pretty hungry. Why don't you see that rock? Why don't you just turn it into bread and eat it? Satiate your hunger. And Jesus refuses to do that because he's going to honor God and he's going to keep his commitment. And this temptation is probably more ubiquitous to us because none of us, I don't think, have fasted for 40 days. We fasted for a day or two and we understand the pangs of hunger. But we might look at that and we go, I can't relate. But here's how you can. What Jesus did in that moment is choose holiness over his appetite, is choose discipline over what he wanted. He refused to be led by his appetite. Instead, he chose to continue in his service to the Father. And in Philippians, Paul is condemning people. And the way that he condemns them is he says their God is their appetite. Their God is their belly. And what he means is whatever their little heart wants, it gets. They're like, we're like spoiled children with rich parents who give us whatever we want so we'll be quiet. And what that verse means is they gave way to their desires, whatever they were. They wanted more drink, they had more drink. They wanted more food, they had more food. They want to experience that pleasure, they will experience it. They want to be tempted by this person or by that person, they will give in to that temptation. They want to be lazy, they will do that. And as humans, we know. We constantly give in to our appetites. We constantly give in to whatever our little heart desires. And in Jesus, we have an example of someone who fought that temptation, representative of myriad things. Then, Satan says, bow down to me, and I'll give you the kingdoms of the earth. He tempts Jesus with power. Compromise yourself in this way and I'll grease the skids of success over here. Compromise yourself in this way and life will go a little easier. Compromise yourself in this way and you'll save a little bit of money. Do I need more examples? Where we're tempted to compromise ourselves in such a way, compromise our morals and our standards and what we believe God wants us to do and even things that we told God we would do so that we might have things easier on the other side, right? Then in the last one, he says, you're God. Throw yourself off this cliff and let the angels come and rescue you. He tempts him with ego. Oh, you think you're God? Prove it. Right? Someone condescends to you. What do you want to do? You want to get them right back. Someone sends you an email, a customer, a client, a co-worker, a family member, sends you an email that condescends that you don't really appreciate, what do you want to do? Right? And I'll confess, sometimes I type those out. I just get it out. And then I look at it, and I send it. No, I'm just kidding. I press delete. I press delete, and then I give it 24 hours and I type it again. We are familiar with this temptation. In word and action indeed. Jesus faced all the temptations we do. To put a finer point on it. I know this is weird to think about Jesus in this way. But Jesus was a single man. Jesus was a powerful man. Jesus was a man that a lot of people liked. You don't think he ever thought about talking to a woman? You don't think that never occurred to him? He was around wine. He likely consumed wine. You don't think he thought about one night just giving in? Having more than he should? Or maybe he abstained totally, but he was around it. You don't think he ever considered it? You don't think he ever considered when the crowds thronged around him and he was exhausted? You don't think he ever considered going, get away from me. Do you understand I'm the savior of the world? Do you understand I don't have time for this? I'm exhausted. Can you just talk to my assistant? Talk to Andrew and he'll set up an appointment for you. Will you leave me alone? You don't think he ever considered being rude or impatient? Here's one that just occurred to me. If I were Jesus, I'd be tempted when everybody around me was hungry to just be like steaks, you know? You don't think he was ever tempted to do stuff like that? Of course, of course he was tempted. Of course he was. And here's why that's such a powerful truth. Have you ever been in a room, a group of friends, a small group, and watched someone confess something that was hard, that was embarrassing, that was private and in the shadows, and they brought it into the light? Have you ever watched someone do that? And then every time I've seen that happen, which has always been people confessing things to me. I'd never have anything to confess to others. But every time I've seen that happen, I've never, I've never, ever seen it not met with comfort and grace. And what's the most powerful thing that can happen in that situation? Even if there's someone who doesn't struggle with that, but they meet you with comfort and grace, how much more comforting is it when they go, I know I struggle with that too. I've watched in groups of men and in circles, small and relatively large, where someone will say, can you just pray for me and my wife right now? We're in a really difficult season. This and this are happening and we're two ships passing right now. And it's not good. And then watch someone else in that circle go, brother, us too. We are too. Or somebody goes, we did that two years ago. We did that five years ago. I've walked that path, man. I understand. And, and the whole space is washed with grace and comfort. You've seen that happen. I think with women, it's, it's more typical that typical that one of them would finally let their mom guilt break through and say, kids suck. And I don't know if I even like mine or want them. I heard John yell one time, I hate having a sister. And I was like, I don't understand that. Sometimes the family is hard. And then there's this sense when a mom will say that, I feel like a terrible mom. I feel like I'm not doing a good job. I feel like I don't enjoy my kids enough. That someone else will heap their mom guilt out too. And then there's this message of grace and comfort that washes over the room. And the reality is marriage is hard and parenting is hard. It's just true. But there's a special thing that happens when we can share with someone else that's had our experience. One of the things I say, and I'm sure it's true of your industries as well, but when I get to talk with another senior pastor, it's just a different conversation. Because they understand things in a way that if you haven't done this, you just don't know. That's not condescending, that's just true. When you talk to someone who has shared your temptations, that's just comforting in a way that can't be expressed. Hebrews tells us that we have a Savior that has. And even though he hasn't given in to them, he understands what they are. And so in his temptation, he offers us grace and compassion. Because of his temptations and because he's faced them and because he's born with us in our weaknesses, we can go to the throne of God. Now here's what else is implied in this about the wonderful condescension of Christ as far as what do we gain from it. It's implied in this verse, I think. It's implicit. And it's explicit throughout many scriptures. Namely, Isaiah 53, calling him Emmanuel, God with us. What we gain from his condescension is his humanity. The fact that he became human at all. Because in his humanity, he offers empathy, condolence, and comfort. In his humanity, he offers us empathy, condolence, and comfort. I pointed out to you the verse John 11, 35 to highlight his compassion. He weeps with us. He's present with us. He's human with us. I've watched people experience great loss. And in that great loss, maybe a wife loses a husband. And it's far too soon. And so she's experiencing this depth of grief. And I've seen people, I've heard people offer her comfort. And it's well-meaning and it's wonderful and it's good and she receives it and she's gracious. But then I've watched somebody come up to her and say, I've walked that path too. I've been a widow for a decade. That's a different level of connection and comfort. Jesus has experienced our grief. Jesus experienced loss. I don't know if you've thought about this. Jesus had a stepdad. So either his dad Joseph, his earthly father Joseph, passed away, or he had an earthly stepdad. Which, by the way, it occurs to me that maybe there was a time when Jesus' stepdad said, look, I know I'm not your dad. And Jesus thought to himself, you have no idea how layered that is. There you go. But if you've lost a dad, or you've had parents divorced, or if you grew up with a stepdad, maybe it was wonderful, maybe it was painful, I don't know. But what I do know is that Jesus has experienced that. Jesus had half-brothers. One of them wrote a book of the Bible, which may be the greatest proof there is of all time that Jesus was who he says he was. Because what would you have to do to get your half-brother to write a book about your deity? He's experienced our pain and our grief and our sorrow and our loss. He's experienced joy. He's experienced triumph. He's walked through all those things. He lived as a human just as we did. And in those things he shares with us. That's what we gain from his condescension, is we gain the fact that he's faced temptation similar to us. We gain the fact that he was a human just like us. And so all the things and all the emotions that go along with humanity and all the ailments that we could experience that go along with humanity, he has too. That's the miracle of his condescension. That's what we gain. Here's another thing that we gain. He chose to experience death so that we don't have to fear ours. He chose to experience death on the cross so that we don't have to fear ours. No passage, in your notes it says Romans 8.39, but after I sent in the notes, I was considering it, and this passage is so much better. It's 1 Corinthians 15, 55 through 57. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, he gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. We're told in response to the death and resurrection of Christ, death, where is your sting? Sin, where is your victory? There's an old song that says, hell has been defeated. The grave could not hold the king. In his death, he defeated our fear of our death. In his death, he unshackled us from sin. He said, we don't have to be fearful of death. Last week, last week on Tuesday, one of our wonderful partners, Mike Schenck, passed away from cancer. And before he did, when he was in hospice and incredibly lucid, I was able to go visit with him and his family. It was a wonderful visit. And one of the things that was remarkable to me was the fearlessness, courage, and faith with which Mike was marching to his grave. He knew what was going to happen. And there was no sense of fear in him. He joked. He was confident. He knows his Savior. Looking forward to meeting him. And then Susie's faith was remarkable too. Because if we're being really honest, and I don't mean to be too crass about it, but she's the one left holding the bag. It's worse for her than him. Because now she has to figure out how to do this life post-Mike. But they both had such faith and peace about the horizon they were approaching because Jesus chose to die so that we didn't have to. And now that in and of itself is a remarkable thought. Because death is a ubiquitous experience of all creation. Everything on this earth that was there and that has existed and that did exist faces a death of some sort. Whether it's the slow erosion of a mountain, the eventual fall of a tree, an animal, a bird falling to the ground, or us. Everything dies. It's an experience of creation. It is not an experience of heaven. And what we know about death is it's all awful. There's ways that we die suddenly and we never knew it, and so maybe that experience wasn't bad, but the people around us mourn. But most ways to die are terrible. Some of us have watched people wither away and so much pain that they wish for death. Jesus chose. This is an experience he never had to have. He didn't have to do it. But he knew that by condescending to become one of us, that he would die. And he knew exactly how he would die, which is one of the worst ways humanity has ever cooked up. And he chose that death when he didn't have to. And I don't know how much we think about the fact that he never had to do it in the first place. He came here not only to experience our temptation and our humanity and live in our squalor when he was in heaven. He chose that life, but then he also chose to take upon himself death. It was a choice that he didn't have to make. It's like if I said, hey, after church today, you've got option A, option B. Option A, you go to lunch with people you like. You do Chili's. Thank you. We go to Chili's. We get triple dippers. Let's flood the place. Option A, you go to a meal with people you like. You go home. you watch football, it's peaceful, or you take a nap, or you read, you do whatever your thing is. And then have dinner with the family, have dinner with people you like, go to bed when you want to. Nice, peaceful day. Or, we're going to put you on a plane, and we're going to go let the Taliban interrogate you for information. Which would you choose? Option A or option B? Jesus chose torture. He chose torture. He could have stayed in heaven and had a meal with people he liked, sat at the banquet table. He chose torture, and he didn't have to. And I don't think that we all the time adequately appreciate what it means for Jesus to have condescended to humanity. Because we don't realize what he gave up, and we don't think about what we gained. And what we gained, what he gave up is his divine being. What he gave up is his peace. And what he chose instead is what we would gain. Which is comfort and empathy and temptation. Condolence and compassion in our humanity, and then the possibility to walk towards death without fear, to walk towards death with courage, to walk towards death with peace, and to no longer be shackled to sin. So the condescension, humanity, and death of Christ are a forever reminder of God's provision. The condescension, humanity, and death of Christ are a forever reminder of God's provision, of the way that God provides for us by sending his only son to become those things for us that we could not be, by sending his only son to redeem creation back to himself so that he might create a pathway back to him. And this is the greatest miracle of his condescension because everything that I've just told you gives us peace and comfort and hope in the 40, 60, 80, 100 years that he gives us on this earth. All of that's temporal provision for a time when Paul describes as but a mist or a vapor. He says that we experience discomfort for a short time. Compared to eternity, it's nothing. So Christ's condescension doesn't just provide for us in the short term and in the temporal. It provides for us for all of eternity. It provides for us because he hung on the cross, because he redeemed creation and made a path back to our Father. That is ultimately what Christ's condescension means, but I don't want us to miss what it means for our life on this earth. And so what this all means, and where I want us to go and what I want us to consider is because of the miraculous condescension of Christ, we can in all things look to him. We can look to him in sin. We can look to him in triumph. We can look to him in grief and sorrow and joy and anguish. We can look to him in all things. When we fail, we can look to Christ. No matter how far down we go, we can look to Jesus. No matter how far high we are, we should know we need to look to Jesus. No matter how stressful things are, we should look to Jesus. No matter how broken our marriage or our children are, we should look to Jesus. No matter how much of a failure we feel like, we should look to Jesus. No matter how successful we might feel like we are, we should remind ourselves to look to Jesus in all things. His condescension reminds us that we can look to him for his provision and for God's provision at all times. That's what that miracle means. Now I'm going to pray for us and we're going to have communion together to celebrate that miracle and understand the bread is what was broken, is what was given in the desert to signify God's provision, and we will celebrate God's provision in that way now. Let's pray. Father, thank you for sharing your son with us. Jesus, thank you for condescending to us, for choosing to become one of us, for being tempted like we are, for being a human like we are, for doing that just so we can run to you. Thank you for breaking the shackles of sin and muting the sting of death. Thank you for everything that you do for us here in this life, but most of all, Jesus, thank you for what you will do for us in the next and already have done. May we reflect on that and properly appreciate your coming down to earth and taking on human form. May we walk in gratitude to you with an appreciation of this important part of your character. In Jesus' name, amen.
