Jesus, the Source of Help

What do you do when you realize you need help? After you've sort of worked harder and dug deeper and exhausted your own personal resources, who do you reach out to? Well, almost certainly it's going to depend on the nature of the need, right? So if you're trying to move something, maybe you reach out to a friend who's strong or who has a truck or a trailer or something that can come alongside and provide practically for that need. Maybe if you're a mom and you're concerned about a child, you reach out to someone to say, hey, is this a fever that needs Tylenol or is this a fever that needs the ER? If you don't have that person in your life, you may call a doctor, someone with that professional experience. The bottom line is when we need help, we need someone with the knowledge and the ability to assist us. What about when that help that we need is really serious, when we're in some kind of crisis, physical, emotional, maybe spiritual? Most of us in that moment are gonna call out to a spouse, maybe a parent, or a sibling, a close friend, someone we really trust, someone who really knows us, that we think can apply, provide what we need in that moment. Well friends, what about when the problem is sin? What about when you realize that sin has entangled you, it's around you, it has got you? Then where do you go? The answer of scripture is very clear. Only Jesus can help when the problem is sin. Only Jesus can, only Jesus has the ability, only Jesus has the willingness, the knowledge to help us when our problem is sin. And that's really what we are seeing throughout this series of Hebrews. Jesus is the great savior. We worship him, we worship through him, and him alone. And what I hope that we see this morning as we continue this study is that Christians can, Christians can and must remain faithful by drawing near to God through Jesus, who is our great high priest. So Christians can and must remain faithful by drawing near to God through Jesus, our great high priest. So as I said, we're continuing a series through Hebrews. We're going to start in chapter 4 today, and it's going to be verse 14 of chapter 4 all the way through verse 10 of chapter 5. If you're new to this series, again, we've been looking at who Jesus is. This is a letter. It's actually a sermon written to a church or churches comprised of predominantly Jewish believers, people who are converted to Christianity and the author is encouraging them to hold fast to Christ, not to lose sight of him, not to be tempted to go back to old ways of worship, but to maintain faithfulness to look to Christ and pursue him to the end. So let me read beginning in verse 14 of chapter 4. Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God. Let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, 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 time of need. For every high priest chosen among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness. Because of this, he is obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins, just as he does for those of the people. And no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was. So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him, who said to him, you are my son, today I have begotten you. As he says also in another place, you are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death. And he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him. being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. Amen. Well, I hope for us to see this morning our need for a high priesthood, the nature of the old high priesthood, the nature of Christ's high priesthood, and then the superiority of Christ's high priesthood. So we'll start first with the need for the high priesthood. And this is really thinking about what has been said, where we are in the argument in the book of Hebrews so far. So this text is marking a transition in the flow of the book. We have seen, as we've studied together, that Jesus is the final and authoritative and complete revelation from God. God, in the last days, is speaking through His Son, has spoken through His Son. Jesus is the great prophet. And the author warned us in chapter 2 of neglect. We must pay attention because we're susceptible to drifting away. It's possible to, even though God has spoken, it's possible to ignore His Word. We saw in chapters three and four that Jesus is the exalted king leading God's people into his promised eternal rest. But just like Israel, we are in danger of being led away through unbelief. We have to take care, both ourselves as individuals and as a body, corporately, to watch out, to exhort one another, and be exhorted by one another so we're not hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. So we see there that God's word can be heard and understood, but ultimately rejected if we don't persevere in faith. For the original audience, the author was reminding them and challenging them, look, there's nothing to go back to. The old covenant has nothing to offer you anymore. Salvation and rest were not delivered through the old covenant, through Moses or Joshua. The rest you need, the rest you want is found in Christ and in Christ alone. And for us, as 21st century hearers of this message, he's telling us the same thing. There's no alternative. There's no plan B. Salvation is found in Christ and in Christ alone. Last time I preached, we ended in chapter 4, verse 13, with really a frightening picture. He says, and no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. All of us, naked and exposed before God's judgment. As we consider, that's the imagery of a wrestling chokehold. He's got us, we're pinned. He has us in a death grip. There's no escape, there's no way around it. We are pinned down in sin and we have no hope in and of ourselves. And that image really is the picture of the human dilemma, isn't it? We can't stand before God on our own. This has been true from the beginning of the Bible. And the whole story of the Bible has been how God provides a way for a sinful people to dwell with Him, to come into His presence. The bottom line, as we see throughout the Old Testament and even here, is that we need representation. We need someone to stand in the gap. We need a mediator. And that's exactly what Jesus came to do. And so over the next six or so chapters in the book of Hebrews, the author is going to unpack what it means to have a high priest, someone who intercedes for us before God. So chapter four, verse 14 to 16, what we're starting with today, all the way through chapter 10, those two sections serve as sort of bookends where the author is laying out the theme, the main point of what he's trying to say, and then he's unpacking that in the middle. And so because of that, because four, 14 through 16 are really the most loaded part of the text. I actually want to look at that last. So I think it'll be more helpful if we look at 5, 1 to 10, and then come back to 4 at the end. I hope that that helps. So we're going to look at the nature of the high priesthood and the nature of Christ's high priesthood in chapter 5, and then go back to think about what that means for us from chapter 4. So let's look at the nature of the high priesthood in chapter 5, verses 1 and 4. For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness. Because of this, he is obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins, just as he does for those of the people. And no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was. So there's a lot to unpack there in terms of the high priesthood. We won't be able to get to all that today. We'll be thinking several weeks about the priesthood and the sacrificial system, but this morning I want us to look at three essential aspects of the priesthood that are highlighted here. So first, the high priest's function in chapter one. We see here that the priest has a representative role, right? He acts on behalf of men before God. But the author zeroes in here on the purpose of his acting. It's to make atonement. So he offers gifts and sacrifices for sins. So the Old Testament, we see that there were lots of provisions made for how we respond to certain kinds of sins requiring different kinds of sacrifices. And the high priest was responsible for overseeing all those sacrifices so that the people of Israel were in right standing with God. That was his job. And from this, again, we see that our greatest need through the Old Testament and even now, is to have our sin removed. We are sinners. We are guilty before a just and holy God, and our only hope is to get rid of that sin. But we can't do it ourselves. And the sacrificial system reminded Israel of that, that there was a cost to their sin, blood flowing down the streets. It's what their sin deserved, and yet it's what God provided through animal sacrifice as a way of escape. The beauty of the system, though, as gory and as messy as it was, is it showed that God would provide a way for his people to dwell with him. So that's the high priest's function, to make atonement for sin. Second, let's look at the high priest's disposition. So in verses 2 and 3, we see there he's dealing gently with the ignorant and wayward. The high priest had to be humble. He had to be humble. And it says he can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward because he also is ignorant and wayward. He is beset with weakness. The idea of beset, we think of it as an attribute that he has. Really, the image there is he's wrapped, he's surrounded by weakness. Which is interesting because in the Old Testament, that word is used to describe the high priestly garments that wrapped or encircled, surrounded the high priest as he went into the Holy of Holies. We think of them as holy clothes for a holy person, but the point here is not that this was a holy man, that holy clothes surrounded, they encircled an unholy man. We're reminded here that those garments covered sinners, allowed them to perform their service before God despite their sin. And as verse three reminds us, makes it clear, the priest had to offer for his own sins just as he offered for the people's sins. He's not fundamentally different from them. It's a reminder of humility that was built right into his job description. You sacrifice for your sins before you make a sacrifice for the people's sins. And this should help us really give perspective on how we view other human beings. See, we're all fellow sinners. On one hand, we aren't fundamentally better than anyone else. And it seems that it's always easy for Christians to think we have kind of cleaned ourselves up and now we're fundamentally different from the world around us. We're better, we're more holy than those people out there in the world. And I don't want to minimize at all the call for us as Christians to be a holy people. That is certainly true and right and good. We don't lose the fact that that's what God calls us to be. But at the same time, we never lose sight of the fact that where we are is only by the grace of God. Christians never look down on anyone else. We have to be people who are characterized by compassion and sympathy, deal gently with those with whom we disagree, deal gently with those with whom we see as ignorant and wayward and sinful, because we know apart from God's grace, that would be us as well. On the other hand, we know that we're not worse off than anyone else. And there's a tendency toward a kind of comparison that sets our trajectory, sets our vision and focus horizontal, that we have a desire to measure up to certain people around us and to win approval in certain people's eyes. And this text remind us that the approval of man is worthless. The person that you admire most in this world, the person you most want to be like, the person you think you need the most is a sinner. Only God can save his people. Third, let's look at the high priest qualification. So we see in verse four, this is not a position that was earned. So there was no Israel's next high priest competition. It wasn't something that they came along and earned. God chose Aaron. He designated him as a high priest. He picked him, and so it was. No one earns his or her way to God. God has to provide a way for his people to relate to him. And the glory of the Bible, the glory of the gospel is that God always has provided a way for his people to relate to him. He wants to relate to his people. And that's what the high priesthood is all about. So let's turn now and look at the high priesthood of Christ. So we'll see the nature of Christ's high priesthood in verses five to 10. So first we'll see Christ's qualification. So Christ also did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said to him, You are my son, today I have begotten you. As he says also in another place, you are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. So back in chapter one, we looked at that declaration, you are my son, today I have begotten you, from Psalm chapter two. And we've seen how that refers to this unique status as the king of humanity. Jesus, with respect to his incarnation, his work, and now his ascension into glory, now he reigns uniquely as the son of God, who's also the son of man, the representative head of humanity. He is the one who speaks on behalf of the Father, he's the faithful priest who perfectly performs the Father's will. And the second quote there is from Psalm 110, and it introduces one of our favorite characters from all of scripture, Melchizedek. If anyone has a boy on the way, that may be a name you wanna consider. We're gonna look at him in a lot more detail in chapter seven, so stay tuned. But I think the point that the author is making here is that this is a different kind of priesthood. So there was a line of priests in Aaron, and then there's another kind of priesthood in Melchizedek. And we can see here very clearly one of the significant differences in that priesthood is that he's a priest forever. This is an eternal priesthood. This is not a perpetual inheritance. This is a different kind of priesthood. And again, stay tuned for that. But the connection is that Jesus too, just like Aaron was, was designated to his office. God appointed him as the high priest. Second, let's look at his disposition. So in the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death. And he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. So like the other priests, Jesus' disposition also was characterized by humility. The phrase, in the days of his flesh, in some ways tells us everything we need to know, doesn't it? There were days before his flesh, there are days after his days of flesh, but he was and is the eternal son of God. He was in the beginning with God, but he didn't count equality with God something to be grasped. He emptied himself of divine glory and came to earth as a human being in a womb to be born, to live a sinless life, and to live as a servant of man, to give his life for them. The author tells us that he offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears. And from Isaiah, we know that he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. But unlike other priests, these prayers and supplications and sorrows and griefs were not over his own sin. They were because of the sin of others. In many ways, his whole life was a life of intercession. We know that that intercession reached its climax in the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus prayed on the night before his crucifixion. He told his disciples, my soul is sorrowful, even to death. In other words, just thinking about what's coming, just having a foretaste of what I'm about to experience could cause me to faint and die right here on the spot. And he prays to God, Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will. That cry of Abba, Father, is the cry of desperation that no parent ever wants to hear. Our text tells us that he was heard because of his reverence. God the Father heard his prayer because of his reverence, because he feared God above all else, because he was willing to give his life in order to obey God to the end. God heard his prayer. And it reminds us of Abraham, right? When he grabbed the knife to finally carry through with slaying Isaac, as God had told him, and God says, stop. Now I know that you fear me because you didn't withhold your son from me. But for Jesus, God's hearing him did not mean a change in direction. God didn't remove him from his trial because there was no other way. The plan from before the foundation of the world required the death of the son of God, the lamb who would take away the sin of the world. But we know that God did deliver him through it, didn't he? Because death couldn't hold him, didn't hold him. And so he was raised on the third day glorious and triumphant. The author tells us that even though he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. Now, when we think about that, it seems like the son would be the one of privilege, right? The son, these are king's kids. They don't suffer. And yet here, we see that being the son and suffering are not incompatible. They're actually inescapable. Jesus being the son required him to come and suffer. Now, we think about son, sonship and obedience and these kinds of things. And some of us have a reference to a mindless kind of obedience. Some of us have siblings who were perfect siblings because they just had no will, right? They just did whatever their parents told them. They don't learn obedience. They just don't have any other instinct to disobey. But this is not the case with Jesus. I'm sure it was true throughout his incarnation, but on the cross, we see the tension between his will to obey and the cost of his obedience come to its climax. And he followed through, even though it cost him his life, he learned obedience through suffering. And so we see Jesus's humility, not as a sinner, but as a fellow sufferer. He knows the weakness of our condition. He knows what it's like to live in a world that's hostile to God's will and his ways, to feel the pull of the flesh and the lies of Satan. Jesus has suffered, friends, just like we have. Third, we see his function, which is making atonement. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. So through his suffering, Jesus was made perfect. And we've heard that language before in Hebrews. And as we talked about before, this isn't with respect to his character. It's with respect to his role. Because of his obedience through suffering, he's made perfect. God makes him perfect as the priest to represent suffering men and women before the throne. So it says he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him. Unlike the former priests, we'll think about this in weeks to come, their job was never done, right? There's an endless number of sacrifices to make. But Jesus offers eternal salvation. His sacrifice did what no previous sacrifice could do. It actually dealt with sin. And so Jesus completely purified his people, removed their sin and guilt so that they are permanently delivered from God's wrath. His sacrifice was once for all. Jesus, we see, is the source of eternal salvation. Not a source, not a way, not an option. He is the one and only way to be reconciled to God. So if you're here this morning and you aren't a Christian, this is what you have to understand. Jesus came to bring about God's divine plan to save sinful men and women from his own wrath. He lived the life that we owed to God, died the death that our sins deserve so that he could satisfy God's perfect justice. We just sang about that a few minutes ago. Jesus was raised from the dead, ascended into heaven. He now intercedes for his people, waits to return to bring us into glory with him. Jesus offers salvation to all who come to him in faith and repentance, who turn away from their sin and trust in him. So please understand that this is what Jesus requires of you. If you're not a Christian this morning, please don't leave without talking to me or someone else about that gospel message. But notice here, all of us, that the author says Jesus is the source of salvation to all who obey him. Not to all who believe in him, not to all who made a decision for him, I'm not saying those things aren't good or helpful or even essential at some level, but let's just appreciate that what the author of Hebrews is saying here is that Christians are known by their obedience to Christ, their willingness to carry out and follow through with what Christ has commanded. The author doesn't seem to have a category for someone who considers himself or herself a Christian who does not intend to obey the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus makes full atonement for the sins of his people and he offers eternal salvation. So now with that in mind, let's go back to chapter four and just meditate on what this priesthood means for us. So let's look back at four, verses 14 through 16. Consider the superiority, the greatness of Christ's priesthood. Since then we have a great 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 high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, 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. So we see here, friends, Jesus is the great priest, and he offers the kind of help we need. The author tells us that he's perfect in his function, He's made full atonement for sin through his sacrifice of himself. And as a result, he's passed through the heavens. His sacrificial work, his atoning work for sin is done. And now he's at the right hand of God the Father, the majesty on high. He's the son of God who has perfectly accomplished the Father's will. We see he's perfect in his disposition. He is the model of humility. He can sympathize with our weakness because in every way he is tempted as we are. And yet he's without sin. Now sometimes that can actually cause us some confusion, right? If Jesus was without sin, doesn't it mean that he wasn't really tempted, he wasn't actually tempted? But the answer is a resounding no. In fact, on the contrary, only Jesus knows the full weight of temptation because only he has endured all the temptation without breaking. None of us know the full weight of temptation because we give into it. So think about just a recovering addict who slips up every day or every week or something like that, some cyclical thing. That addict does not know the weight of temptation like the one who walks away and never goes back to a substance, even though he thinks about it and craves it every day for the rest of his life. And it's not the athlete who kind of gets on the machine and tries to press a certain weight and just collapses under the weight. That's not the one who knows the full weight It's the one who gets under it and actually makes the press, right? That's the one who knows the full weight. Friends, Jesus knows the depths of our temptation in a way that none of us ever do. And as the author will say later, in your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. But Jesus shed every drop of his blood and was without sin. I think the other question that this asks is, well, what does it mean that he was tempted in every way? What does it mean that Jesus was tempted in every way? Certainly he wasn't tempted to look at internet pornography, or break the speed limit, or to yell at his kids. No, but those things aren't the real temptations either, are they? Those just look at the fruit of the sin, the manifestation of the sin, and not the root level sin. Because ultimately, all temptation to sin is rooted in questioning God's character. Right? Sin is doubting God's goodness, his truthfulness, his reliability, his care, giving into the lie that we know better, we deserve better. And it's perhaps here that we understand the greatness of his temptation, Jesus's temptation, because we know he did deserve better. But he refused to give in. He refused to depart from God's charted path for him. He learned obedience through suffering and remained perfectly sinless. So again, friends, this text highlights our desperate need for help and Jesus's absolute, complete ability to provide all the help that we need. As chapter two says, he suffered when tempted, so he is able to help those who are being tempted. As we think about what this means for us, I want us to consider the two main commands, how we respond to this reality of Jesus as our great high priest. And the first one is simply to hold fast the confession. This means that we have to be a people who hold on tight and don't let go of the truth of who Jesus is. Okay, so the Christian confession is the bedrock of our faith. Jesus is God and man. He's uniquely fit to be the one mediator between God and man. He was in the beginning with the Father. He was incarnate by the work of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, lived a sinless life, was crucified, died, was buried. The third day he rose again, ascended into heaven, intercedes at the right hand of God. And friends, if we lose that, we lose Christianity. We have no salvation apart from the confession of who Jesus is. And we have to understand that that confession is the dividing line between the church and the world, the church and other religions. Christians do not worship the same God as Muslims or Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses or Jews, prosperity preachers, Hindus, Buddhists, or anyone else. We depend upon the confession of who Jesus is. We can't forget, friends, and we must cling to the truth of who Jesus is and what he has accomplished for us. Because if we lose that, we lose everything. Second, the command to draw near to the throne of grace. Now we need to realize that this is really an amazing invitation. The throne is the place of God's presence. It's where God's glory, his power, everything about who he is is revealed in a form that we have some level of access to. And under the Old Covenant, this was represented by the Holy of Holies, right, which was a marked-off section inside of a marked-off section inside of another marked-off section. It wasn't a place that people came to pray or to worship God. It wasn't even a place priests could come and go as they please. No, the Holy of Holies was entered by the high priest once a year on the Day of Atonement. He would enter to make atonement, offer the blood for the sins of the people. But the author of Hebrews is commanding us and all of us, God's people united with Christ by faith to draw near to that place. And even more to draw near with confidence, right? This isn't just permission, not just in case of an emergency, but by right and by belonging to come to the throne of grace. And yet it flows naturally out of everything we've heard. If Jesus really has reconciled us to God, if he really has identified with us as brothers, if we really are adopted as sons and daughters into the kingdom of heaven, then we really do have every right to be there. Just as much as the president's children have a right to run around in the Oval Office. So often we, as Christians, can be guilty of a kind of false humility. We don't draw near. And we say it's because we're too sinful, we're too unworthy, we don't feel like we deserve to be there. And brother and sister, don't you just see that that's the point? That's the point. If anyone was worthy, then Jesus came for no reason. The reason Jesus came is because we were not worthy, never have been, never could be. But because he has come and because he's invited us to the presence of God, it's actually arrogant of us to say we don't deserve to be there. We're elevating our sin to the level of sovereign, saying that Jesus' sacrifice wasn't sufficient to cover our sin. We need to work off the dead on our own and clean ourselves up a little bit to come to God. But brothers and sisters, that's as backward and as wrong as it could be. As the hymn says, let not conscience make you linger, nor of fitness fondly dream. All the fitness he requires is to feel your need of him. Little children get that. Because when they get in trouble, they call for mama and daddy, don't they? We experienced it with my son last night, two years old, told him it was time to come inside. He didn't come inside. Storm door closes and he starts screaming, mama, daddy, you know, freaking out. He needs us. He got himself into trouble. It was his own disobedience that got him there. And yet when he needed help, he called out to us to help him. He didn't know anywhere else to go. As we get older, we get wiser in our own eyes. We get more self-sufficient. We try to get ourselves out of a jam and then ultimately make them worse for ourselves rather than just crying out for help. How it grieves us as parents, doesn't it? When we find out our children have hurt themselves, they've gotten into a worse situation because they didn't come to us for help. What if your friend came to you and said, you know, I know you're in a rough season of life. I've arranged for someone to come to your house and clean for you and cook for you a few times a week just to ease some of the burden. It's all taken care of. We've paid. We've set everything straight. Just call and make the appointment and she'll start to come over. And then your friend checks in on you a couple weeks later and says, you know, how's it going? Has it been helpful? And you say, well, we decided not to call. We knew it would be a lot of trouble for somebody to cook and clean for us, so we just didn't bother. Would your friend admire you for that? Would he say, wow, that's really humble. That's good for you? Or would he say, what do you mean you didn't want to cause the trouble? I paid for the trouble. I arranged for that. I made provision for all that. That was the whole point. And so often, Christians, that's exactly how we look at what God has done for us in Christ. He's given us, as sinners, the right to approach Him, the right to come to Him for the help that we need, and yet we reject it on the very grounds that He gives it. All the fitness He requires is to feel your need of Him. And brothers and sisters, if we are really holding fast to the confession of who Jesus is and what he's done, then the only logical, the only rational response for us is to go to the throne with confidence drawn near. Friends, the throne we are summoned to is the throne of grace, not the throne of judgment. This is the source of our assurance and confidence in Christ. What was once the throne of judgment, what was once a fearful thing for us is no more because it's been covered with Christ's blood. The blood of the Lamb has been slain and now it is a place of grace for us. This is our source of help as Christians, just the kind of help that we need, the kind we certainly can't provide for ourself because it's the place of help with sin. Our greatest need is not situational wisdom or provision or relationship. Our greatest need is to have our sins dealt with before a holy God. And the throne of grace is where we find that. It's the source of mercy. It's where we can find confidence that if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness. And so often we live in fear because we don't ask for that forgiveness. We don't come to God and believe that in Christ we are forgiven. Christ, our high priest, sacrificed his life, gives us assurance that our past sins have been dealt with and are no more. We find mercy in him, mercy that our sins are buried in the depths of the ocean, never to be resurrected again. So Christian, when you are in despair over past sin, when you're overcome with guilt, don't be like a fool who runs away from God. Run to God. Come to the throne of grace where you find mercy, where Christ intercedes for you, where the blood of the lamb covers every sin. Nothing is hidden from his sight. There's nothing you can confess at the throne that surprises God. Nothing. Come to the throne for mercy. The throne is also our source of grace for help in our time of need. So if the emphasis on mercy was looking past to the forgiveness for sins we have committed, grace looks forward to power to overcome future temptation. And when we hear that, we have to admit that that's not always the kind of help we're looking for, is it? So a lot of time, the help that we want is actually sympathy, just somebody to feel bad for us, to listen to us, and essentially to excuse our weakness, right? But that's not the kind of help Jesus offers. When we come to Jesus for help, we should expect to change. So Jesus offers help as the one who was obedient to the point of death on a cross, who has paved the way for us to trust God, who has invited us to follow him in doing the same. He calls us right where we are, but he doesn't expect us to stay right where we are. It's kind of like walking into a gym hopelessly out of shape. And you could have one of two responses. You can have a trainer who just kind of comes along and makes fun of you and says, wow, you're really out of shape. You're hopeless. You don't belong here at all. Or you could have one who's not really in much better shape than you are and who just kind of says, yeah, this working out stuff is hard. Let's go have a smoothie. Or you can have one who comes up and says, About five years ago I walked in here and I was just like you. I was out of shape, I was unhealthy, I needed help and I got help. I changed my diet, I exercised and now I'm healthier than ever and I can help you get on track because I've been there. And that's the kind of help Jesus has. He's walked our road, he has endured temptation. This also helps us to think about the kind of help we offer each other in the church, doesn't it? Because so often, a lot of times what we do is like that gym response that says, boy, somebody comes to you to confess sin or to talk about a problem and you say, wait, yeah, I really, I know just what you mean. Yeah, I struggle with that too. Yep, the Christian life is really hard. Boy, won't it be much better when we get to heaven? And if that's all that we say, what we're really doing is just excusing sin and weakness. It's not Christian help at all. And on the other hand, sometimes what we offer is ourselves, right? So Christian help is not, here's all the things I don't like about you, and all the things you should fix yourself. And it's not, let me fix you. And it's not, stop doing that. And it's not, I did this, why can't you? It's not any of those things. Christian help acknowledges, yes, you're broken, I'm broken, we're all broken, but let's go to the one who fixes. Let's go to the one who heals. Jesus helps me, I know he can help you too. Let's go to him. As we thought about in chapter three, that comes by exhorting each other every day in the gospel so that we're not hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. We don't give in to that lie and the temptation to think it's all pointless. The summons for us as Christians to draw near is an invitation to bold and confident prayer. The high priesthood of Christ assures that all of heaven's power is available to us who are striving to believe the gospel, to answer the accusations of the devil, and to pursue faithfulness every day in the midst of adversity. We never stumble because there was no other choice, right? God never puts us into that position. We stumble because we didn't cry out for help. God is able and available. So we should expect to change. We should also expect to suffer. The gospel should give us perspective that when we ask for God in the midst of help in trials, it should inform what we might expect to get. Because a lot of times when we ask God for help, what we really want is just relief, isn't it? We just want it to stop. But God has bigger purposes for us than we have for ourselves. We see that in the life of Christ. Even though Jesus was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. So friends, if Jesus had to learn obedience through suffering, how should we expect to learn? Not only do we have a lot to learn about obeying God as our heavenly father, but we have a lot to unlearn in disobeying God as heavenly father. And we just have to face it. Suffering is a much better teacher than blessing, isn't it? We don't learn the lessons of trust and dependence when everything's going our way. We learn them when things go wrong. We're reminded this morning that God is not absent in those moments. This is familiar territory for Jesus. He is with us, friends, in our suffering. He's the one who made us, who watches over us, who promises not to let us be tempted beyond what we can bear, but to provide a way of escape for us to endure, to remain in and under that trial and faithful. But we're also reminded that suffering will one day be vindicated. Because Jesus was heard and he was delivered through his trial. And all those in Christ are promised the same thing. Trials are designed now to drive us to the throne of grace. To desire and work toward our heavenly home where we experience the realities of God's grace and mercy in full. That's the help that we need, friends. That's the help that only Jesus offers. So let's take him up on it. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we praise you this morning because we have a great priest. We praise you that we can look back on the life of Christ and we can see how he perfectly brought about your will, how he was called by you, appointed, designated by you for a particular task, how he executed it perfectly, making full atonement for our sin. We praise you for his humility, for his suffering, and we praise you that because of that, Lord, we can draw near to the throne of grace to find help. We thank you that Jesus can help us like no other, and we pray that we would never be a people who are saddled with guilt that paralyzes us from doing what you require of us. Pray that we would never be a people who are proud and arrogant of who we are because of your grace. And so God, we pray that you would keep us fixed on Christ. May we remind each other of him, Lord, and we pray for each of us here, Lord, that we would turn to him. We would fix our eyes on him. We would hold fast to him and draw near to you through him. And we pray this in Jesus' name, amen.