September 25, 2022 – Sunday Service Live Stream

Corporate Confession and Assurance of Pardon

Would be hallowed here, and that our worship would be pleasing in your sight, through Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen.

Please kneel for the Corporate Confessions. Let's pray together in unison. Almighty and most merciful Father,.

We are thankful that your mercy is higher than the heavens, wider than our wanderings, deeper than all our sins. Forgive our careless attitudes towards your refusal to relieve the suffering of others, our envy of those who have more than we have, our obsession with creating a life of constant pleasure,.

Our indifference to the treasures of heaven,.

Our neglect of your wise and gracious law. Allow us to change our way of life, so that we may desire what is good, love what you love, and do what you command, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Please stand. It is a terrifying thing to enter into the presence of a holy God, but you, the people of God, have Jesus. So you can come, and you can stand and rejoice. Be delighted to hear the assurance of heart.

In Christ, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace, which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence. O church, here assembled, if you think in Christ, take heart today, your sins are forgiven.

Amen. Amen.

Please take up the hymnal and turn to number 580. Leon, O King Eternal, 580.

Please take up the insert that says 278 in the left corner. With all my heart, my thanks I'll bring. I'm going to ask Elissa to play.

Jeremiah 32 and the Promise of Restoration

Chapter 32. The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the 10th year of Zedekiah, king of Judah, which was the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar. For then the king of Babylon's army besieged Jerusalem, and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the prison, which was in the king of Judah's house.

For Zedekiah, king of Judah, had shut him up, saying, why do you prophesy and say, thus says the Lord, behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it. And Zedekiah, king of Judah, shall not escape from the hand of the Chaldeans, but shall surely be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon, and shall speak with him face to face, and see him eye to eye.

Then he shall lead Zedekiah to Babylon, and there he shall be until I visit him, says the Lord. Though you fight with the Chaldeans, you shall not succeed. And Jeremiah said, the word of the Lord came to me, saying, behold, Hanamel, the son of Shalom, your uncle, will come to you, saying, buy my field, which is in Anathoth, for the right of redemption is yours to buy it.

Then Hanamel, my uncle's son, came to me in the court of the prison, according to the word of the Lord, and said to me, please buy my field that is in Anathoth, which is in the country of Benjamin, for the right of inheritance is yours, and the redemption yours, buy it for yourself.

Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord, so I bought the field from Hanamel, the son of my uncle, who was in Anathoth, and weighed out to him the money, 17 shekels of silver, and I signed the deed and sealed it, took witnesses, and weighed the money on the scales.

So I took the purchased deed, both that which was sealed according to the law and custom, and that which was open, and I gave the purchased deed to Baruch, the son of Neriah, son of Messiah, in the presence of Hanamel, my uncle's son, and in the presence of the witnesses who signed the purchased deed before all the Jews who sat in the court of the prison.

Then I charged Baruch before them, saying, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, take these deeds, both this purchased deed, which is sealed, and this deed, which is open, and put them in an earthen vessel that they may last many days.

For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, houses and fields and vineyards shall be possessed again in this land. Now when I had delivered the purchased deed to Baruch, the son of Neriah, I prayed to the Lord, saying, ah, Lord God, behold, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm.

There is nothing too hard for you. You show loving kindness to thousands and repay the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children after them, the great, the mighty God, whose name is the Lord of hosts.

You are great in counsel and mighty in work, for your eyes are open to all the ways of the sons of men, to give everyone according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings. You have set signs and wonders in the land of Egypt to this day, and in Israel and among other men, and you have made yourself a name as it is this day.

You have brought your people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs and wonders, with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, and with great terror. You have given them this land of which you swore to their fathers to give them, a land flowing with milk and honey.

And they came in and took possession of it, but they have not obeyed your voice or walked in your law. They have done nothing of all that you commanded them to do. Therefore you have caused all this calamity to come upon them.

Look, the siege mounds. They have come to the city to take it, and the city has been given into the hand of the Chaldeans who fight against it because of the sword and famine and pestilence. What you have spoken has happened.

There you see it. And you have said to me, O Lord God, buy the field for money and take witnesses. Yet the city has been given into the hand of the Chaldeans. Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah saying, behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh.

Is there anything too hard for me? Therefore, thus says the Lord, behold, I will give this city into the hand of the Chaldeans, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and he shall take it. And the Chaldeans who fight against this city shall come and set fire to this city and burn it.

With the houses on whose roofs they have ordered incense to Baal and poured out drink offerings to other gods to provoke me to anger because the children of Israel and the children of Judah have done only evil before me from their youth.

For the children of Israel have provoked me only to anger with the work of their hands, says the Lord. For this city has been to me a provocation of my anger and my fury from the day that they built it, even to this day.

So I will remove it from before my face because of all the evil of the children of Israel and the children of Judah, which they have done to provoke me to anger. They, their kings, their princes, their priests, their prophets, the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

And they have turned to me the back and not the face, though I taught them, rising up early and teaching them, yet they have not listened to receive instruction. But they set their abominations in the house, which is called by my name to defile it.

And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molech, which I did not command them, nor did it come into my mind that they should do this abomination to cause Judah to sin.

Now, therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning this city of which you say, it shall be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon by the sword, by the famine and by the pestilence.

Behold, I will gather them out of all countries where I've driven them in my anger, in my fury and in great wrath. I will bring them back to this place and I will cause them to dwell safely. They shall be my people and I will be their God.

Then I will give them one heart in one way that they may fear me forever for the good of them and their children after them. And I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from doing them good, but I will put my fear in their hearts so that they will not depart from me.

Yes, I will rejoice over them to do them good and I will surely plant them in this land with all my heart and with all my soul. For thus says the Lord, just as I have brought out, just as I have brought all this great calamity on this people, so I will bring on them all the good that I have promised them.

And fields will be bought in this land of what you say. It is desolate without man or beast. It has been given into the hands of Dutch Aldeans. Men will buy fields for money, sign deeds and seal them and take witnesses in the land of Benjamin and the places around Jerusalem, in the cities of Judah, in the cities of the mountains, in the cities of the low land, in the cities of the South, for I will cause their captives to return, says the Lord.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Corporate Prayer and the Apostles' Creed

Let us now confess our faith through the singing of the Apostles' Creed. Please take up the hymnal and turn to number 302. Come, Christians, join to sing number 302. Let's pray together in unison. Almighty and everlasting God, in whom we live from the beginning of our lives to this day, especially do we praise you for having delivered us from the dangers and uncertainties of this past week.

For these mercies, we bless and magnify your glorious name, humbly beseeching you to accept this, our morning sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. For his sake, who lay down in the grave and rose again for us,.

Your Son, our Savior Jesus,.

Our desires and petitions as may be best for us, granting us in this world knowledge of thy truth. I ask your prayers for God's people throughout the world, for our denomination, for this church, and for all ministers and missionaries.

Pray for the church. I ask your prayers for the poor, the sick, the bereaved, for the burden and for the widows, orphans, and prisoners. Pray for those in any need or trouble.

Lord, hear our prayers.

I ask your prayers for those who do not know Christ and for those who seek a deeper knowledge of him. Pray that they may find and be found by him.

Our prayers.

Dear Heavenly Father, I pray for the lost this morning. I pray that you would ring to the lost, your sweet messengers of the gospel, today and every day. We know that your church is expanding at every moment, that you are changing the hearts of man.

We pray, Lord God, that today would be a salvation for many. We pray that you would strengthen the ministers and the missionaries around the world who are being faithful to bring them.

The sweet good news of Christ.

I pray that you would strengthen your church today and give us the grace to walk by the Spirit and to seek a deeper knowledge of our Lord and Savior. In Christ I am afraid, amen.

I ask your prayers for our children and future generations which will be born to them. Pray that the knowledge of the Lord will fill the earth through them.

Lord, hear our prayers.

Our Father, we thank you that you have given us children.

We thank you, God, that the church.

Is going to be triumphant in the earth and that you're gonna do this through the preaching of the gospel. We pray that we as parents, both physical and spiritual, would be covenantally faithful to you to preach the gospel to our children, that we would raise them in the fear and the admonition of the Lord, and that they would possess the gate of their enemies.

May they become thousands of ten thousands. And may you receive all the glory and all the honor, and may we receive joy. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.

Pray that we may have grace to glorify Christ in our day.

Lord, hear our prayers.

Father, we ask that you would be with us to know about our daily lives, that in all things you would seek to do, we would go out into this world and be shining lights of the gospel, that we would cause many to see our good deeds and give glory to our Father.

We pray, Father, that you would cause us to turn away from sin, that we would be in mercy which you have bestowed upon us.

Please stand and prepare yourselves to sing our Psalm of the Month, Psalm 83. This is our last opportunity this month to sing together. It's been a great blessing to sing this one. Let us sing Psalm 83 heartily unto the Lord.

Zechariah 3: Joshua the High Priest on Trial

This is God's holy and infallible word. Then he showed me Joshua, the high priest, standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to oppose him. And the Lord said to Satan, the Lord rebuke you, Satan.

The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you. Is this not a brand plucked from the fire? Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments and was standing before the angel. Then he answered and spoke to those who stood before him, saying, take away the filthy garments from him.

And to him, he said, see, I have removed your iniquity from you and I will clothe you with rich robes. And I said, let them put a clean turban on his head. So they put a clean turban on his head and they put the clothes on him.

And the angel of the Lord stood by. Then the angel of the Lord admonished Joshua saying, thus saith the Lord of hosts, if you will walk in my ways and if you will keep my command, then you shall also judge my house and likewise have charge of my courts.

And I will give you places to walk among these who stand here. Here, oh Joshua, the high priest, you and your companions who sit before you, for they are a wondrous sign. For behold, I am bringing forth my servant, the branch.

For behold, the stone that I have laid before Joshua upon the stone are seven eyes. Behold, I will engrave its inscription, says the Lord of hosts. And I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day.

In that day, says the Lord of hosts, everyone would invite his neighbor under his vine and under his fig tree. Glory. Please pray with me. Oh Lord, we pray that your name would be exalted today when we consider Joshua and his high priesthood.

And oh Lord Jesus, I pray that we would see you to be the once forever high priest over the church of God. And that your people would run and shed their filthy garments before you and be clothed in your righteousness.

And we ask all of these things in Jesus' name. Please be seated. My original plan, I intended to preach the entirety of the whole chapter of Zechariah three. And I believe I could probably not do a good job in the time allotted to do that.

So I'm only gonna focus primarily on verses one through five today. We will make a little bit of an allusion to the second part of the chapter, but I encourage you to be attentive because this will set the stage for a great week next week if the Lord is willing.

Today, the message has one central point and I'd like you if you're taking notes to write this down. Joshua, the high priest, is on trial in the divine court. Joshua, the high priest, is on trial in the divine court.

Chapter three ushers us into the center of the night visions. The question now arises, a temple is under construction. Cyrus has let the people go. The people are rebuilding life, centering around worship, their life in Jerusalem and Judea.

And in this vision, we have a picture of the standing high priest. We learned, if you'll remember from Haggai, that Zerubbabel, the descendant of David, a picture of Christ in some ways, is now governor in the land of Jerusalem and Judea.

And the namesake of Jesus, Jesus' name in Hebrew is Joshua, and he, Joshua, is the actual high priest in the land, appointed for this work. When the temple service resumes, Joshua will be presiding over it.

Joshua's grandfather was the last serving high priest before the temple was destroyed. We have evidence of this from places like Ezra. So when we think about Joshua in this position, the question comes to mind when we're reading through Zechariah.

The temple is being put in order. There's going to be sacrifices offered there. But what about the priesthood? The priests have married foreign wives in Babylon. They have been corrupted by sin. Joshua, at least indirectly, is attributed with this dereliction, this fall from proper holy standards for the priesthood.

How can the priests who have defiled themselves, who are soiled with Babylon and their own sin and captivity, how can they now preside in the temple service? That sets the stage for the gospel according to Zechariah.

Let's look at chapter three again. Then he showed me, this is Zechariah speaking in this vision, Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord. Zechariah nearly every day probably spoke with Joshua.

Joshua was a close companion of his. Zechariah is seeing something in heaven that pictures and articulates a reality of his world. That Joshua, his friend, he sees in the throne room of heaven before the thrice holy God, and it's not pretty.

When we come today to worship, we've lost our liturgy attempts to help instruct us and bring us back. It is a terrifying thing to enter into the presence of God. Our God, as we learned recent months, is a consuming fire.

We have come to believe that God is a friendly grandfatherly sort of God. We forget the holy terrors of the Lord. Joshua is probably a pretty fine guy, but in comparison to the holy standard of God, he is in trouble.

Zechariah sees his friend in grave danger in the throne room of God. I wanna turn you back to the book of Exodus in chapter 28 really quickly. Please turn there. Exodus 28. There's a way that priests are to serve.

The day of atonement, as you know, this is reminiscent of it. Joshua standing alone in the presence of the Lord. A temple's under construction. A priesthood needs to be in place that can fitly serve the Lord in the manner he has prescribed.

So the people of God have been confronted with various problems. They don't have a place to worship. They've been sinful. They come from a rebellious people. Now they recognize the way they're going to approach God is through priesthood, and their priesthood is defiled.

But that's a terrifying thing. To approach God improperly is death. To not have appropriate representation before God means there's no salvation. So this is an important aspect of their consideration as they rebuild the temple in Jerusalem.

I wanna start reading in the interest of time in verse 31. It's kind of in the middle. It's describing the priestly garments, but I want you to get a sense of what's happening here. You shall make the robe of the ephod all of blue.

There shall be an opening for his head in the middle of it, and shall have a woven binding all around its opening, like the opening in a coat of mail, so that it does not tear. And upon its hem, you shall make pomegranates of blue, purple, and scarlet all around its hem, and bells of gold between them all around.

A golden bell and a pomegranate, a golden bell and a pomegranate upon the hem of the robe all around. And it shall be upon Aaron when he ministers, and its sound will be heard when he goes into the holy place before the Lord.

And when he comes out, do you see what it says? He's dressed in this very ornate regalia, these vestments, that he might approach God. His tassels and all the little things, they jingle and jangle, and if they hear that he stops jangling, they'll yank him out from the holy place.

What does it say at the end of that verse? When he goes into the holy place before the Lord, when he comes out, that he may not die. That's the God that we serve. A holiness that is, by human standards, left to ourselves naturally is unapproachable.

We cannot go in there. This makes the picture of Joshua more startling and shocking to Zechariah. We continue reading. Verse 36 of Exodus 28. You shall also make a plate of pure gold and engrave on it, like the engraving of a signet, holiness to the Lord.

The high priest not only represents and has the apparel of holiness, he's the guy who's supposed to be consecrated and set apart as holy to the Lord on behalf of the people. Verse 37. And you shall put it on a blue cord that it may be on the turban.

It shall be on the front of the turban. So shall it be on Aaron's forehead that Aaron may bear the iniquity of the holy things which the children of Israel hallow in all their holy gifts. And it shall always be on his forehead that they may be accepted before the Lord.

You shall skillfully weave the tunic of the fine linen thread. You shall make the turban of fine linen, and you shall make the sash of woven work. For Aaron's sons, you shall make tunics, and you shall make sashes for them, and you shall make hats for them for glory and beauty.

So you shall put them on Aaron, your brother, and on his sons with him. You shall anoint them, consecrate them, and sanctify them that they may minister to me as priests. Now, I should have stopped again.

Our approach to God is reverent. It's awe-filled. It's tentative when we consider our own sinfulness. The high priest making atonement for the people once per year. Think of the anguish of heart and soul that the heavy burden that he bears as he walks into this holy place.

All of these things that we read over in our reading plans, we say these are just, we have to get through all of these details. All of these with great precision tell us and speak to us about the way that we have to approach God, and it's in holiness.

We have to be set apart. We have to be sanctified and consecrated and anointed that we may, in this case, that they may serve as priests. Continue reading verse 42. And you shall make for them linen trousers to cover their nakedness.

They should reach from the waist to the thighs. They shall be on Aaron and on his sons when they come into the tabernacle of meeting, or when they come near to the altar to minister in the holy place.

What does it say there in the next phrase? That they do not incur iniquity and die. This is the most serious business in all the world, the worship of God. It shall be a statute forever to him and to his descendants after him.

Now let's go back to our text in Zechariah 3. Zechariah sees his friend Joshua, the high priest, standing before the angel of the Lord. It's terrifying enough as it is, but Satan is there. Satan has entered into the divine courtroom.

And Satan, in Hebrew, best translation would just be that word we know him as, the accuser. The accuser is there. The accuser is there and he's ready to bring his charges against Joshua, the high priest.

He says, and this is not articulated. You can imagine this is speculative in some sense. He says, look at your high priest. Look at how he's soiled with his sin. Look how he's been corrupted, not only by his own transgressions, his father's transgressed your holy law.

And not only that, the priests whom he presides over, they've all taken foreign wives. They can't serve at the altar of you, oh God. This is a terrifying scene. We've said in our liturgy, our sins bring us a list of accusations.

Can you imagine there in the presence of God with your sin laid bare and the enemy of God, your enemy too, Satan, prosecuting you for your sins. He stands there at his right hand to oppose him. But brethren, our Lord opposes him.

Look at verse two. And the Lord said to Satan, the Lord rebuke you, Satan. The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you. The Lord himself intervenes on Joshua's behalf. And intervening on Joshua's behalf, he's intervening on the priesthood's behalf.

And in intervening on the priesthood's behalf, the entirety of the people of God now have God himself, the Lord, rising in their defense. Because of what he's going to do in them. This language next in verse two is familiar in places like Amos four, verse 11.

Is not this a brand plucked from the fire? The high priest Joshua is in the fire. The priesthood's in the fire. The people of God now returning from exile, they're in the fire. And God himself plucks them out of the fire and saves them.

They're charred and they're covered in ash. But God says, I'm going to do a work in these who are plucked from the fire. Now, remembering Exodus 28, look at verse three. Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments and was standing before the angel.

The language of this word, the root of this word is hard. It's the word for human excrement. You remember the holy precision of Aaron and his sons as commanded by Moses in Exodus 28? Fine linen, purple, gold, jewels, breastplates, ephods, turbans, all of these things.

Joshua is standing in the throne room, the justice room of heaven. And he's covered in dung. This is a terrible vision at the start. This is terrifying for Zechariah to see with his own eyes. His friend, one of the best of all the people, he's presented in his natural state before God, before this holy tribunal, and Satan's accusing him.

Look at his filthy garments. He's covered in it. Satan would say, Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, was standing before the angel. You and I, according to 2 Corinthians 5, are going to make an appearance in the divine courtroom.

You and I in our natural estate are going to have filthy garments, but we have Jesus. Joshua, his namesake, he has Jesus in the divine courtroom. Joshua doesn't have a way to atone for his own sins. And if you think about it, he's really in a precarious place because there's no offering structure formally in place as a temple.

He's covered in his iniquity, standing before a holy God. What will you do? Standing in your iniquity before a holy God. But Jesus, our high priest, intercedes. He's answered and spoke to those who stood before him, saying, take away the filthy garments from him.

This is amazing. This is mercy and grace and gospel and an obscure prophet in the Old Testament. Joshua has no way to make himself right with God. He certainly can't be the high priest. He's got his own problems.

How is he going to represent the people? How is he going to lead the defiled priesthood in righteousness? Look at his defilement. Jesus says, take away the filthy garments from him. And to him, he says, see, I have removed your iniquity from you and I will clothe you with rich robes.

As you know, in the temple system, there's two offerings that go into, prepare to go into the holy place. And a lot is cast. And one of them will be slaughtered there on the altar and the other will become the scapegoat and be sent with derision outside of the city into the wilderness.

This double picture of the removal of sin. The iniquity laid on the victim. The sins to be carried away laid on the scapegoat and he's driven out into the wilderness outside the camp of the people. Joshua has a double problem.

He's standing in the presence of God as the high priest in filthy garments. His iniquity is deeply personal. It's familial. His fathers have failed. His people, the people whom he represents, even the elite priests he represents, they've all failed.

But our God says, take away the filthy garments from him. See, I have removed your iniquity from you and I will clothe you with rich robes. There's also something very powerfully being spoken to the people then and to you now.

The people of God standing represented by Joshua here, building a temple, coming back into the land. They have a very bad past. And so the question is, can our God remove the iniquity of our past? Does he really do that?

This track record is one of failure. Joshua should in some ways be disqualified for this work, but he's been preserved by the Lord. These priests, they shouldn't serve as the priests of the Lord. And this people of God should not be the people of God.

But God keeps his promises. He says, I'm going to not only wipe away the iniquity that you present have, presently show and exhibit, I'm going to wipe away the iniquity that prevents you, should prevent you from serving.

Joshua's past, his failure is wiped away. The priesthood's failure is wiped away. The disobedience that sends Israel into exile in Christ is wiped away that they may now freely serve him. See, I have removed your iniquity from you and I will clothe you with rich robes.

Joshua's under heavy charges. Satan says, here's your high priest, soiled and defiled and unfit for service. The Lord responds, I have clothed him in my righteousness. In clothing Joshua, I've purified the priesthood.

Now they can serve me. God has put Joshua and the people out of the fire and restored them to their high place as God's people, as his priests, as the high priest. But notice again that Joshua has done nothing to perform any righteous act himself.

This is gospel in Zechariah. The Lord himself, out of his merciful and gracious abundance, does it for Joshua and for the people for his own namesake and glory. Consequently, here, God's covenant is renewed through a restored priesthood, ministering in a newly constructed temple.

The impurity, the defilement, the soiled garments are purged. The past is cleansed and now righteousness flows down from heaven. He even gets a turban put on his head that he might take on that beautiful role.

Now it continues and this will be more articulated, more expounded next week. From this place of deliverance and salvation and purification, now Joshua has to walk in obedience. And walking in obedience, a very strange thing appears and we'll learn about this next week.

Joshua has the privilege now of merging the priestly office with the kingly office. We're gonna see that next week. All of this is picturesque of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. But to prepare our hearts for communion, I thought I would reveal to you and show you from scripture in Hebrews, the more excellent priesthood.

So I'm gonna ask you to turn to the book of Hebrews now. And I want you to think of yourself. The vision of Zechariah applied to the people of God residing here, to your own life, to your family, those under your charge and care.

Fathers, you're standing before God because of for yourself and for your wife and for your children. Mark, you're standing before God as yourself as a husband, as a father, as a grandfather and as a minister of the gospel.

Strict judgment is coming, brother. What can a man do? Let's turn to Hebrews and we'll start in chapter two. I will shorten the quantity of verses that I refer to. But I think this will be very powerful for us to consider and set the stage well for next week.

Hebrews chapter two. The little clue I want to give you children is when the final high priest, Jesus, stands in the divine court, he's not clothed in soiled garments. He's clothed in the perfect fine linen.

Whatever the glorious attire of the high priest ought to be, Christ has it in super abundance. So if the people can be sanctified by wretched Joshua, how much more can the people of God be sanctified in Christ, our high priest?

Hebrews chapter two. I'll begin reading in verse 17 of chapter two. Therefore, speaking of Christ, in all things he had to be made like his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

For in that he himself has suffered, being tempted, he is able to aid those who are tempted. Joshua in Zechariah's time represents the people. How much more so does Jesus represent us? Turn over to chapter four.

We'll begin reading in verse 14. It says, and there's, of course, that glorious Sabbath vision of heaven and all of the implications of the word of God being sharper than any two-edged sword, living and powerful.

All this is the stage. Verse 13, it says, there is no creature hidden from his sight but all things are naked and open to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account. Joshua is laid bare naked in the presence of God and Satan wants to gut him and wants his intestines to run out that we might see it before God.

The word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit carves us into pieces and reveals those deep, dark recesses of our lives. It's all laid bare before our God. It's there in the divine courtroom. Nothing is hidden from his sight.

All things are naked and open to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account. But there's Jesus. Verse 14, seeing then that 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 cannot sympathize with our weaknesses but was in all points tempted as we are yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in the time of need.

The picture I have today is me running with my garments and saying I want to be shed free, set free of these garments and clothed in your righteousness and he bids me to come, take off your filthy rags and be clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

Run to the throne room of heaven. Remember, that's where God is. The holy fires of heaven reside there. The terrors of the Lord are there. He says, run in there and be clothed in my righteousness. Over to chapter five, Zechariah chapter three is about Jesus Christ.

Hebrews five, for every high priest taken from among men is appointed for men and things pertaining to God that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. He can have compassion on those who are ignorant and going astray since he himself is also subject to weakness.

Because of this, he is required as for the people so also for himself to offer sacrifices for his sins. Remember that picture of the man, his own sin like Joshua. He serves in the role, he's the high priest, he represents the priests, he represents his family, he represents all of the people.

He has to offer sacrifices for his sin, for his priests, for his family, for his wife, for his children, for the nation. Verse five, so also Christ did not glorify himself to become high priest but it was he who said to him, you are my son, today I have begotten you.