20-0112a Transcript

Preacher: Steve Cain

Good morning.

We’ve come, as I mentioned before, to give our respects to God, and to honor Him, and to lift Him up in our songs, hymns, and spiritual songs. And be like David, who loved God so much, and that God even considered him to be one after His own heart. And as we reflect upon David’s particular writings, if you read in Psalms and also in the Proverbs, you will know how much David respected God, and how much David looked to God for everything in his life, whether it was physical or spiritual.

David turned to God, and recognized God, and honored God, and tried to honor Him in his own life, and in his walk of life. And so as we reflect upon that, that is one of the things that we would like to try to emulate ourselves, is to be able to give the same honor and praise to God as David did, and others of the Bible, holy men of old. Let’s go to our Heavenly Father in prayer.

Most gracious Heavenly Father, we thank You so much for the love that You give to us, for Your care, for looking after us throughout the week, and bringing us here. We thank You for the measure of health and safety that we enjoy, and we pray that we will use the blessings, and have used the blessings that we received this past week, in their fullest intended use. And that we are grateful, and reflect that gratefulness to You, about all of the things that we have received from Your, the wonderful things that we have received from Your hand.

We pray that You will bless us this day with the reading of Your Word, that the Holy Spirit has provided for us. You searched Your mind, and revealed these things to the holy men of old, who wrote them down, and provided these things for us, so that we can know Your will, and what You have for us, and that we can conduct our lives in a way that is pleasing in Your sight. We ask Your blessings on this, in Jesus Christ’s name, Amen.

This morning I would like to deal with our worship, and how our worship is directed to God. And I would like to pay particular attention to our High Priest. And we will be taking this lesson mostly, predominantly out of Hebrews.

And as we reflect in the book of Hebrews, we know that God spoke to us in various times. You can read that in chapter 1, starting with verse 1. In the past, God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets, at many times and in various ways. But in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and through whom He made the universe.

The Son is the radiance of God’s glory, and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful Word. After He had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in Heaven, so He became as much superior to the angels as the name He has inherited is superior to theirs. And so as we reflect upon the fact that God has named Jesus, Jesus is the Son of God.

We know that in the past couple of weeks, many people stopped and read the Scriptures concerning Jesus' coming to this earth and His becoming man and being provided with a body like ours. And so we know that Hebrews was pointing out to us why this was done, and for what purpose, and how it was accomplished. And we know that Jesus did come to this earth, and He had a specific purpose in mind, and that was to do the will of His Father who is in Heaven.

And we know, too, from other past Scriptures, for example, Philippians 2, it talks about how that He became flesh and dwelt among us. John points that out to us as we look at John’s Gospel. Chapter 1 in John’s Gospel, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

He was with God in the beginning, and through Him all things were made. And without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of men.

The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. I’ll give you the opportunity to read the balance of that at your leisure. But I would like to stop and think in terms of

what Jesus is doing, and why He is doing what He is doing, and how He came about to do those things.

We know that Jesus is the High Priest, and that He intercedes for us. We know that He is on the right-hand side of God. He is in the Holy of Holies.

He has passed through the Outer Tent, and that Outer Tent does not exist in Heaven. It only existed here on Earth. And when we look at the Outer Tent and the purpose of the Outer Tent, it was designed to allow the priests of that time to be able to offer the sacrifices and the prayers, but they were not allowed to go into the Holy of Holies, the Inner Tent, where the Ark of the Covenant was, and the Mercy Seat of God.

And God was depicted as sitting on that Mercy Seat. And, of course, we know that during one time of the year that the priest, the High Priest, was permitted to go into the Holy of Holies where He presented sacrifices for the nation themselves. But prior to that, no one else could go in.

And so as we reflect upon the purposes of the priesthood, and I would like to look at the purposes of the priesthood, we know that during the patriarchal day that the patriots, the fathers, the elders of the tribes, performed the duties and offered the prayers to God. And it wasn’t until the mosaical purpose that that changed. And we know that after the Israelites came out of Egypt, we know that they roamed the desert and the wilderness for 40 years before they were allowed to go into the Promised Land.

But before they did that, we know that after they came out and crossed over the Red Sea, that God presented Himself to them. And God presented to them a proposition. And we look at that proposition, and the proposition was this.

I will be your God if you will be My people. And so we reflect upon that, and He not only said that, but He also said that if you will be My people and I be your God, I will protect you, and I will curse those who curse you, and I will bless those who bless you. And so we see that God has come to them and made a proposition to them, and with that came the worship service.

We know the sacrifices and the various other things that were installed and ordained by God, and that the priesthood was to perform. Now, the priest, as we look at that in particular, we see that God selected the priesthood from the tribe of Levi, and Aaron was to be selected as the high priest at that time, and then the other priests would be the descendants or heirs of Levi, and they would function as priests at that time too. Now, we know that God gave them commandments, and in that commandments we see that He expected them to perform.

As we look at Chapter 8, we see that the commandment that God gave them at that time did not meet up with everything that God wanted to have accomplished. But we know that in this particular case, that the sacrifices as according to the Hebrew letter, the sacrifices failed in respect from the standpoint that it could not deal with their conscience. It dealt with their shortcomings.

It dealt with the sins that were there, but it did not deal with the conscience of sin and the awareness of sin. And so we see that the priests were performing the functions, but the duties of the priests and the duties of the people as they were worshiping with God, that God has told them through Jeremiah, in Jeremiah 31, 31, that He was going to be changing that particular approach. So let’s take a look at Chapter 8 of Hebrews, and look at the function of the priest at that time.

Starting with verse 3. Every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices, and so it was necessary for this one also to have something to offer. He’s talking about Jesus, who had been appointed as the high priest. If he were on earth, he would not be a priest, for there are already men who offer the gifts prescribed by the law.

They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle. See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.

But the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which He is mediator, is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better promises. For if there had been nothing wrong with the first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. But God found fault with the people and said, The time is coming, and it’s coming from Deuteronomy 31, 31.

The time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not remain faithful to my covenant. I turned away from them, declares the Lord.

This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after the time, declares the Lord. And here’s the new covenant. And this is the covenant that Jesus is mediator of.

This is the covenant that we are under and that we are benefiting from. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.

No longer will a man teach his neighbor or a man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more. By calling this covenant new, he has made the first one obsolete.

And what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear. When we look at the worship that was being offered at that time by the priests, we see that when they offered the once a year sacrifice for the atonement of the sins of the Israelites, we see that the priests had to be offering sacrifices for their own sins, as well as the sins of the nation and for the people. And when they would go before God with the sacrifices of the individuals, the priests would have to offer their own sin sacrifices.

So what is that telling us? What is that telling us about the worship of the Mosaic Law? What it’s telling us about the worship of the Mosaic Law is that the priests themselves were just as subject to the sin and the offerings that they were offering as the people they were representing and helping with their sacrifices. And so we see that God is not pleased with the things that are going on at that time. What we would have would be the idea that we would have an individual who would be offering worship, such as with today.

If I was standing up here trying to pretend to you that I was something other than I’m not, you would know that, wouldn’t you? You would recognize that. And if I was a hypocrite in many of the ways in which I was preaching to you, you would know that, wouldn’t you? And so consequently, you would say to yourself, why should I go down there and worship with them when they’re no better than I am? And so we would say there’s no respect. There’s absolutely no respect whatsoever.

What was the purpose of the sacrifices? The purpose of the sacrifices was to deal with the sins and help them become ceremonially clean. But it did not deal with the conscience. And so what happened then is that the worship was not meeting the things that God wanted.

And we see him saying many, many times that, I do not desire sacrifices, the blood of bulls and goats. What does he want? We see oftentimes that the things that he was after was a circumcised heart. What is a circumcised heart? A circumcised heart is one that is attuned to God’s will.

A circumcised heart is one that is wanting to do the will of God and is fully aware when they are short and coming up short in sinning. And we know that Paul in Romans 3, chapter 6, where he talks about all sin and falls short of the glory of God and that the wages of sin is death. And so as we reflect upon the fact that God wants a circumcised heart, he wants us to be completely aware of the things that violate him, that go against his will.

And when we look at the reflection of when a person sins, what is he doing? He is basically going and falling short of the will of God at that time, whether it’s stealing, cheating, adultery, whatever the sin may be, we know that God has not changed his mind and his attitude toward what that is and how offensive it is to him and how he does not want to see those particular behaviors in his worshipers. And so he’s telling us that he does not desire sacrifices, the blood of bulls and goats. When he’s saying that, he’s saying, I want your heart, I want you obeying me and doing my will and not going against it.

And every time a person would come in to offer sacrifices and to ask God or the priest to offer the sacrifices on their behalf, what has happened? They sinned against God. And as they sinned against God, then they’re reflecting that to them. And so what we have then is that we have a priest who sacrifices sin.

He is not walking according to the will of God any more than the person who he’s assisting in that worship with. Look at, once again, the passage that was right in your hearing, Matthew, the 23rd chapter. And what we see is that this is exactly what Jesus is taking issue with.

Jesus is taking issue with what the leaders are doing and how they are living. In chapter 23, we see this seven woes. And so in particular, the ones that I picked out was verse 13 and 15.

Verse 13 or 15. You travel over land and sea to win a single convert. And when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.

And so he’s reflecting upon the shortcomings of the priests. He’s reflecting upon the shortcomings of the teachers. He’s reflecting upon the shortcomings of the Pharisees and the scribes and how that they are not making any effort whatsoever to worship the way God wants them to worship and to live a life the way God wants them to live.

And so if you read all of the woes, the seven woes in Matthew 23, you’ll see that it is pretty comprehensive. And the life that they are living is such that why would anybody want to become a follower of the Mosaic law or the Pharisees or the Jewish law? Why would anyone want to do when most of the people are hypocrites? What we have then is God coming to Jesus. And we see that Jesus was given a body, wasn’t he? Why was he given a body? Hebrew letter tells us that he was given a body in chapter 10 of Hebrews to come and to do the will of God.

Take a look here. The law is only a shadow of good things that are coming, not the realities of themselves, for the reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. If it could, would they not have been stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins.

But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said, Sacrifices and offerings you did not desire. In other words, even when he offered and established the sacrifices that were in the Mosaic law, he didn’t want to see that happen.

He wanted to see people living the life that he ordained for them to live. But he says, But a body you prepared for me with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. Then I said, Here I am.

It is written about me in the scroll. I have come to do the will, O God. When he says he has come to do the will, he is very much aware of the shortcomings of the people at that time.

He is very much aware that God’s will is not a part of that person’s life or their teaching. But it was with Jesus, wasn’t it? God’s will was everything to Jesus. And as Jesus lived this world and this life, he did the will of God and he did it perfectly.

He did it to the fullness. And so when God came to Jesus and offered him the position of being the high priest, he was offering to Jesus the position of being the forgiver of sins. And we know that Jesus not only came to die on the cross for or to do the will of God, but he also came to redeem man.

And we know that death was a very real fear of the people in that time. And it continues to be a real fear today. For the individual who has no concept about what is going to happen to him, what does the Bible do for us? It tells us where we came from, why we’re here and where we’re going.

And it gives us the understanding of what death is all about. And we know that sin is Satan’s tool to hold us in death, to keep us from experiencing what God wants us to experience with him in heaven. He wants us to experience eternity with him in hell.

He doesn’t want us to experience eternity in heaven. And so he gladly receives individuals into death who have been subject to sin. And that is everybody, isn’t it? For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

So when Jesus came into the world, he not only came into the world to do the will of God while he was alive and here on this earth and live a sinless life, but he also came in to redeem us. And he allowed himself to go into the stronghold of Satan, the stronghold being death. He allowed himself to go into the stronghold of Satan.

But Satan couldn’t hold him because there is no sin to be found on Jesus. And so Jesus was able to go into the stronghold of Satan. And then God provided him with the resurrection.

And so with the resurrection, Jesus is able to come forth and he is able to provide us with the opportunity to be redeemed from our sins and to be forgiven of our sins. And that when we put him on and when we become a disciple of Jesus and accept him, then we have the forgiveness of

our sins because we are receiving the righteousness of God, but we’re also receiving the righteousness of Jesus. I am not ashamed of the gospel of God.

Isn’t that what Paul writes in Romans? I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God. As we see in verse 16 of Romans, the first chapter, I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes, first to the Jews and then to the Gentiles. For in the gospel is a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last.

Just as it is written, the righteous will live by faith. I’ve not been able to develop the full thing because I know that even if I did, you wouldn’t want to stay here until 1 o’clock or 1.30. I’m giving you, what is it? Notes? But we’re given, Jesus has been given the power to be our high priest. He has been given the ability to offer his sacrifice for our sins and he has given us the opportunity to share in that.

And so as we look at not only in Romans, the first chapter, but Romans, the sixth chapter also, where it talks about knowing not what has happened and what transpired when you become a child of God, when you become a disciple of Jesus. What shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means. We died to sin, how can we live in it any longer? For don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

Tonight I would like to talk about what it meant, how God was able to give Jesus this position of high priest and what it meant when he said, after the order of Melchizedek. I would like to be able to see you here tonight so you can see that and to understand what it was and what God was saying. And he says, I make you a high priest with an oath.

And I’m doing it after the order of Melchizedek. Our high priest intercedes for his disciple. Our high priest intercedes for the house that he has built.

Hebrews just briefly talks about Jesus' house. We are, when we are Christians, a part of the household of Jesus. Just as Moses was the leader over his house, Jesus is the leader over his house.

And we become a member of that house. Know ye not that as many of you were baptized? You’ve been bought with a price, says 1 Corinthians 6 and 3. I’d like to extend to you the opportunity to become a disciple of Jesus. And in so doing, Jesus will represent you as a high priest before God.

And you can boldly enter into the presence of God. I’d like to extend to you the opportunity, while together we stand and sing the song of encouragement.