Transcendent & Tender

Our Old Testament scripture reading is Isaiah 49, 13 through 83. Please stand for the reading of the word. I invite you, I know this is normal custom, and I know we're going to get some ah's with this, but this is a very powerful words, very powerful scripture, and I encourage you to just close your Bibles, close your eyes, and listen as it was originally intended.

Thank you. Sing for joy, O heavens, and exalt, O earth. Break forth, O mountains, into singing, for the Lord has comforted his people and will have compassion on his afflicted. But Zion said, the Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me.

Can a woman forget her nursing child that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. Your walls are continually before me.

Your builders have made haste. Your destroyers and those who laid you to waste go out from you. Lift up your eyes around and see. They all gather, they come to you. As I live, declares the Lord, you shall put them all on as an ornament.

You shall bind them on as a bride does. Please remain standing.

A New Testament scripture is from the book of Mark, chapter 6, starting in verse 30. The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught. And he said to them, come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest for a while.

For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And when they went away in a boat to a desolate place by themselves, now many saw them going and recognized them. And they ran there on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them.

When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd and he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things. Please remain standing.

Take your Bibles this morning and turn with me to Hebrews 4, Hebrews 4. You follow as I read our text for today, verses 14 through 16. 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 time of need.

Let's pray. Father, we are entirely dependent on your spirit for understanding this text of scripture and we are entirely dependent on your spirit to help us to understand our own hearts and our own weaknesses.

And so I would pray that he would do that double work today as we seek to apply the word of God to our hearts. So God, by your spirit, work amongst us today that we might learn to hold fast. Our confession that we may do it with hope in you.

Thank you. In the name of our savior, amen. Okay, I want you to imagine something with me this morning. Imagine with me that Urban Meyer has recruited you to play football for the Ohio State University.

Okay?

I know, it's imagination.

Just do it.

So imagine that. You feel pretty confident about your prospects. I mean, after all, the great Urban Meyer came to your house and visited with you with the intent of recruiting you to play for him at Ohio State.

But on that very first team day, the very first day you're there, he gets up in front of the team and he says, you've been recruited to play on a football team that's one of the best in the nation. But don't think that you can coast from now on.

You're attending OSU on a scholarship, but know this. If you don't do your best, if you don't make the grade, if you don't give 110%, we can pull that scholarship. Well now you don't feel so good, nor do you feel as confident as you did before, and so you really go to work.

You work harder at that first practice than you ever did your entire life. But for the next two weeks, you work hard. I mean, you really give 120%. And one day, after practice, Coach Meyer comes up to you in the locker room, puts his hand on your shoulder and says, son, I want to see you in my office.

Now, of course, you're a little bit afraid that the coach wants to see you at his office. But the thing is, he said, son, he called you son. Son, you get to the office and the great coach says to you, listen, son, I want you to make it here.

I want you to make it at Ohio State. And I know there's all kinds of distractions. I know there's all kinds of things that can crop up. Listen, I want you to know that you can come to me if you've got problems, all right?

You can come to me and we'll talk. Now, you're not complacent about your place on the team. You know you have to work hard. But now, now, after those words, you know you can. You know you can. Now, that's something like what's happening in the text before us.

Having instilled in you the fear of rebelling against God's voice and missing his rest, he encourages you now to hold fast because of who Jesus is and what he does. Now let's review very quickly. Our Jewish pastor friend to whom we've listened for several weeks now in the book of Hebrews has given us this basic message.

Jesus is superior. Jesus is superior to the angels. Jesus is superior to Moses and to Joshua. And now he turns his attention to another facet of that superiority. Jesus is superior to the priesthood of Aaron, to the Aaronic priesthood.

He's superior even to that. And for that, to make that point, he talks about that from chapter 4 verse 14 all the way to the end of chapter 7. This is now his theme. Jesus is greater than the Aaronic priesthood.

Now, as we've proceeded through the book, especially in these recent weeks, he's been warning us that we must be careful lest we miss the rest of God. The rest that God has for us. He's told us often enough that the wilderness generation missed God's rest because they hardened their hearts and rebelled against God by their unbelief.

And he's warned us that we might fail to enter that rest through our unbelief. And now he turns to you and says again, let us hold fast to our confession. It's essentially the same thing he said before.

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the living God. Except now he says this, since we have a great high priest, let us hold fast our confession.

Now this idea of a greater priest, a greater high priest than Aaron, is not a theological concept that our writer has come up with because he has so much time on his hands. He just wants to meditate on that.

No, out of concern for God's people. He urges them to hold fast and tells them they can hold fast because of their high priest, Jesus. With warnings that we've heard now for a number of weeks, with warnings, he prods us out of complacency.

But with encouragement now, he safeguards you from imagining that God is not gracious.

To you.

It's like the coach. God warns you of dire consequences, but then comes alongside to say he'll help you through. What he's doing here is he begins this discussion of Jesus as superior to Aaron and his priesthood.

What he's doing here is persuading you to believe that you can hold fast. That's where he's headed now. You can hold fast. So he begins, you must hold fast. Here's the point of this paragraph of verses 14 through 16.

It's a command. It's a plea, urging you to hold fast to your confession. Now Jesus, remember that these folks and you face pressure for your faith in Christ. You remember what Jesus said, if they hated me, they'll hate you.

We shouldn't be surprised at that. When you follow Jesus, there's going to be pressures against you. There's going to be pressures for following Jesus. For following Jesus, you may face social ostracism.

You may face loss of employment. You may suffer time in jail. You may, as many of our Afghan brothers and sisters in Christ are now facing, you may actually die for following Jesus. No matter what the pressure you face, you must hold fast to your confession.

Now he's not saying hold fast to merely to a set of beliefs. Certainly that's part of it. It's not hold fast to certain truths about Jesus. It's holding fast to what you say about Jesus, what you believe about him.

For example, the catechism that I love a lot is the Heidelberg Catechism and the Gospel Coalition's reiteration of that. The New City Fellowship Catechism starts out with this question, what is our only hope in life and death?

This is what we confess. What is our only hope in life and death? Here it is, that we are not our own, but belong, body and soul, both in life and death to God and to our Savior, Jesus Christ. No, we confess that, hold fast to that.

If we confess that Jesus is our only hope in life and death, then you cannot deny that. In fact, if you do, if you do face death, will your only hope still be in Jesus? You see, that's holding fast to your confession.

Will your hope still be in Jesus? Or will you deny him to escape the pressure of losing your life, right? Hold fast to your confession. If you confess that Jesus is Lord, that means you're willing to obey him no matter what.

The cost.

No matter what the cost, you obey him. Hold fast to your confession. How do you hold fast? He's already given us some indication of how to do that. Turn back to chapter three for a moment. Chapter three, these verses 12 through 14, take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.

Hold fast, he's saying, but exhort one another every day, as long as it's called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, for we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.

Holding fast means holding to your original confidence all the way to the end. And that happens, he says. That can happen. As you recognize the power of sin to deceive your heart and then to harden it, you hold fast when you examine your heart.

You hold fast as you are in the habit of exhorting one another, all right? That's how we hold fast. But now, he says, you must and you can hold fast because you have a great high priest,.

Jesus.

You can hold fast because you have a great high priest. You see the difference. Now he's coming alongside you and say, you can hold fast because you have Jesus. And so the first thing he says here is, you can hold fast because you have a great high.

Priest.

Now, our writer, over the next few chapters, is going to develop this whole idea of Jesus as our high priest. He's going to talk about things like what a high priest is, how he assumes that office. But up to this point, at least we know this from chapter two, a high priest is one who represents or acts on our behalf.

He approaches God on our behalf. At least we know that. And the one who represents us before God is a great high priest.

Great.

Well, how is he great? He goes, tells us here. Jesus is a great high priest because he's passed through the heavens. Jesus has been exalted. Jesus has been exalted to the presence of God by virtue of his sacrifice.

Because he gave his life, God exalted him. He's in the very presence of God. Here is our transcendent Savior. And the important thing to see here is, because he has gone through the heavens, you now have access to God and to his power and to his grace.

You now have access to God. You now can stand. Abandoning your confession would be folly. If you renounce him, you're cut off from God. You see, he's ascended to the very presence of God. He occupies the throne of authority.

All the providences that come into your life, even the difficult ones, come by his hand. And he has all the authority to do as he pleases. You are not subject to random events. Rather, he has passed through the heavens and now sits on a throne where he can organize and tailor your circumstances.

Notice as well that Jesus is a great high priest because he's the very Son of God. That's what he says. He's the very Son of God. The one who represents you before God is the radiance of God's glory. He is the agent of God's creation.

He's a ruler worthy to be addressed as God himself. He is the ruler of the very house of God. We've seen all those things. This is the one who represents you. So he's not just any high priest, but he's a divine high priest with power and authority.

You can hold fast because you have a great high priest.

You see?

Abandoning your confession would be folly, for Jesus is the Son of God, and that would cut off your access to God and to his power. Holding fast is wise because Jesus has gained you access to the God of all power and all.

Love.

You see?

It would be folly to abandon your confession because Jesus is the great high priest and that would cut you off from God's forgiveness. Holding fast is wise because of your great high priest. You can hold fast because you have a great high priest.

But then he doesn't end there, does he? In verse 15 he says, you can hold fast because you have a sympathetic high priest. He says you have a high priest who sympathizes with you, certainly this must shock you.

You say, wait a minute, in light of his dignity and his transcendence, how can he identify with we contempted sinners? If he's so transcendent, how then can he identify with us?

Here's why.

This ascended transcendent Savior can identify with you because he has experienced the same weaknesses and the same temptations that you have. Oh man, can you get a handle on that? Can you just think about that?

He has experienced the same weaknesses and the same temptations that you have. Jesus knows what it's like to be exhausted and hungry and thirsty. He knows that. He knows pain, grief, disappointment, even betrayal.

He's known all those weaknesses. He lived with those weaknesses himself. Have you ever noticed how hard it is to obey the Lord Jesus in your weakness? You've been disappointed, the job that you were after that would seem to be the answer to your financial woes.

You find out you've been turned down for that promotion and you are utterly disappointed and defeated. As you walk in the door that night, your wife says to you, the children were abominable.

Today.

You need to deal with them. Not only that, but the chimney's falling apart and you need to start getting fixed on that. Do you think your natural tendency then is to say, oh my, okay, let me get to work?

In your disappointment, no, your head's going to explode. You're saying to yourself, I don't need to hear this stuff now. And you may lash out at your wife.

Why?

Because you're weak.

That's why.

It's hard to obey God. You ever notice, for example, when you're in physical pain, your universe tends to end right here at your nose. That's not the time when you want to be really, really a godly husband.

Or maybe, maybe you've been up all night with a crying baby and you've only got two and.

A half hours of sleep.

And your husband in the morning wakes you up and says, hey, what are we going to have for breakfast this morning? Your tendency is not to say, oh my, of course, let me get up right away and get you your.

Breakfast. 10 minutes, honey.

Is that what you're going to do? You're really tempted at that point to say, are you kidding me?

Fix your own breakfast. Why?

Because in those weaknesses, right? It's hard to obey. Jesus experienced all those, right? Been there, done that, ultimately expressed in Jesus. He knows what it's like to face your weaknesses. Jesus knows as well what it's like to have someone lure him to the path of sin, a path that would be easier to take than the path of obedience.

You remember Satan tempting Jesus and saying, bow down to me and I'll give you all the kingdoms.

Of the world.

Jesus was going to get all the kingdoms of the world. But he had to suffer first, right? Suffering before the crown could have taken the easy path, but he did not. He was tempted. There isn't one temptation you faced that Jesus hasn't faced.

There isn't any. You say, for example, my parents just don't understand me. They do not understand me. They don't know what makes me tick. Listen, Jesus was the only perfect child in the world and he had imperfect parents.

Do you think they understood him? They didn't. Jesus knows what that's like. Some of you have businesses and you work your tail off and some people don't pay their bills. Do you think Jesus the carpenter might know what that's like?

Consider the Afghan Christian who now faces Taliban fighters at his door and they're saying, renounce Jesus or die. Jesus stood there too. He could have renounced his confession and lived, but he didn't.

Because of that, Jesus can sympathize with you. Notice how it's stated here in this verse where it says, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize. In other words, put it in positive terms, he cannot help but sympathize.

He cannot help but sympathize. It's his very heart. It is impossible for him to be unable to sympathize with you. Don't you hate it when someone says, I feel your pain? You just want to say, no, you don't.

You don't have any idea about my pain. But Jesus does because he's walked in your shoes, you see? He says to you, I know exactly how you feel. And he does. He does. Look at the wonder of this marvelous truth.

The one who commands you to hold fast your confession is not some distant deity who callously demands your loyalty. He knows exactly what it feels to confront real temptation of denying the confession.

He knows what that's like. Whatever suffering, trial, temptation, or weakness that you face, Jesus has faced it as well.

Isn't that amazing?

Can you get a grip on that? Jesus knows how you feel because he's walked in your shoes. He knows what it's like. And yet, he did it without sinning. Aha, you say, oh no, see there, there, Jesus doesn't know exactly how it is because he never failed.

He never caved into the pressure. Listen, let me tell you something. He knows even better than you what it's like to live in a fallen world. He knows better than you do what that's like. Have you ever had the experience, I know everyone here in this room has had the experience of walking a distance with a pebble in your shoe, right?

It is irritating. In fact, sometimes it gets unbearable, doesn't it? I cannot wait. I got to find a place to sit down and get rid of this pebble. Think of what life in a fallen world is like for a perfect being.

You want to talk about pebble in your shoe? Your pebble is his boulder. He knows better than you what it's like to live in a fallen world with a fallen environment and fallen sinful people. He feels the pressure even more than you ever have felt the pressure.

Not only that, but we need one who was without sin when he faced weakness and temptation. The scholar Philip Edgcombe Hughes wrote this some years ago. I love this. What we need and they needed was not a fellow loser, but a winner.

Not one who shares our defeat, but one who is able to lead us to victory. Not a sinner, but a savior. You see, he needs to be without sin. And so our pastor friend writes this, you can hold fast your confession because you have a high priest who sympathizes with you.

You can hold fast. You had the one who commands you to hold fast, right? Knows you. He's not merely transcendent. He is tender. Listen, he commands only what he himself has obeyed. You can hold fast because you have a high priest who knows you.

You see?

Here's the last thing he says in verse 16. You can hold fast because you have a generous high priest. You have a generous high priest. Because Jesus is both transcendent and sympathetic. Because he is sinless and compassionate.

You can approach the throne of grace with confidence. Now please notice this. We know this verse. We know it well. And we skip over the words. But please note that Jesus sits on a throne of what? He sits on a throne of grace.

His rule and authority over you is nothing but gracious. He relates to you in every way by grace. Is he pure, spotless, without sin, holy? Is he all those things?

Absolutely.

Yet he beckons you to come to his throne of grace. He invites you to come. This holy, spotless, pure savior beckons you to come to his throne. Understand that this is a throne of grace by virtue of Jesus' death and not a throne of wrath.

I just find it fascinating that the writer tells us he sits on a throne of grace. And because of that, you have the right to come before him. You can come confidently into his presence. You don't have to wait at the door until he says, okay, come on in.

I'm ready to hear you. That's what he means by confident. Not that you're flippant, but that there's no preconditions. You just come, boldly. We say to ourselves, I'm such a failure as a Christian. I cannot get it right.

How can I possibly approach God? Here's how you can. Look at Jesus. He does not sit on his throne with his arms folded in anger. Rather, he beckons you to come so he can embrace you with his arms and give you help.

You see, he sits on a throne of grace. Dane Ortlund, in his book Gentle and Lowly, writes this. Listen carefully, listen carefully. This high and lofty Christ does not cringe at reaching out and touching dirty sinners and numb sufferers.

Such embrace is precisely what he loves to do. He cannot bear to hold back. We naturally think of Jesus touching us the way a little boy reaches out to touch a slug for the first time. Face screwed up, cautiously extending an arm, giving a yelp of disgust upon contact, and instantly withdrawing.

We picture the risen Christ approaching us with a severe and sour disposition. Tell me you haven't thought that. That's not our Savior. He beckons you to come. He invites you, he embraces you. But you know what we do oftentimes?

We do our Protestant penance. We say, all those Catholics, they got the penance thing. That's wrong, that's unbiblical. We do the same thing. We just do it differently. You know what we do? We sin again, and we say to ourselves, I can't go to God.

How can I go to God? I failed again.

I have failed again.

I'm such a failure. And so what we do is we're gonna tell God over and over just how sorry we are. And we think that if I reach a certain level of misery, I'm miserable about my sin. Then I can go into his presence.

That's not what he says here. You come with boldness. You come confidently. There's no penance to pay. You do not have to make it up to God and then try to enter his presence. Rather, you can come with confidence.

Now look, here is the high priest sitting on a throne of grace, sympathetic to your plight, beckoning to you to approach confidently. That is our high priest. And when do you do approach the Savior? What do you find?

You find him generous to you. He generously grants you what? First of all, mercy. Have you sinned?

Have you sinned?

Come to the throne of grace and find mercy. You see, mercy. You find yourself slipping into sin's deceitfulness. You find yourself starting to rebel against God's voice. And you ask, am I hardened? Am I too far gone?

Run, run into the throne room and find Jesus full of mercy, granting you forgiveness so that you can, confident of his favor, hold fast your confession. He generously grants grace to you. He generously grants you grace.

The battle for faithfulness seems overwhelming to you. You're in danger of letting loose your confession. You are weak and the enemy is strong. The cost of suffering for Jesus seems too high. Run into the throne room to find grace from Jesus.

Find him ready to give you grace and power to stand in the overwhelming battle. He says to you, when your need is greatest, when the battle seems overwhelming, come to the throne of grace, and I will give you all you need to stand faithfully.

With grace and mercy freely, generously given you, you can hold fast. So this morning, have you found yourself terrified at the warnings of God? Those warnings that we've seen over the last several weeks?

Maybe you've been terrified by all those. And he says, you must hold fast your confession. You must hold fast. But you have a savior who not only saves you from your sin, the guilt of your sin, you have a high priest who actually works to help you hold fast your confession.

Where is your hope? As we've wrestled with this idea of holding fast so we don't fall away through unbelief from the living God, I ask you this question, where is your hope? Is it in your willpower to be able to hang on till the end?

Is it in your willpower? If it is, you will lose hope because you know you are weak and the battle is overwhelming. You know you are too easily led astray. There is no hope in gutting it out. Gritting your teeth, hanging on and saying I can't let go.

But you can find hope and help for the struggle in Jesus. He is a great high priest who sympathizes with you in all your weaknesses and temptations and generously gives you all that you need to stand.

Since then, we have a great high priest. Let us hold fast our confession. Look to Jesus and hold fast. Father, thank you for the hope that you give us in the gospel. We are lost without it. We are doomed without it.

We cannot even hold on without it. Oh, Father, help us to realize that since we have such a great high priest, we can hold fast our confession. God, help us to do it. Help us to look to Jesus more and more.

Help us to go to him with confidence, not because of how well we're doing, because of what he did. Help us to see him on the throne of grace. Help us to hold fast our confession by looking to Jesus. And we thank you for all that you have done for us and all that you've told us this morning.

In Jesus' name, amen.