If you can turn your Bibles with me to Hebrews chapter 5, I'll be reading from verse 1 through 7 this morning. Hebrews chapter 5 verses 1 through 7. Reading out of the NASB. "For every high priest taken from among men is appointed on behalf of men in things pertaining to God in order to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins.

He can deal gently with the ignorant and misguided since he himself also is beset with weakness. And because of it he is obligated to offer sacrifice for sin as for the people so also for himself. And no one takes the honor to himself but receives it when he is called by God even as Aaron was.

So also Christ did not glorify himself so as to become a high priest but he who said to him you are my son today I have begotten you. Just as he says also in another passage you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. In the days of his flesh he offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the one able to save him from death and he was heard because of his piety." Let's pray.

Heavenly Father we thank you and we thank you for continuing to be gracious to us. Lord no matter how much we study and contemplate and meditate we know that we're only scratching the surface of all your thoughts, your love and grace that you poured upon us. I pray that you would help us to recognize even a portion of that grace that we may be in awe, that we may worship you in spirit and in truth and all that we do may be a reasonable response to your great mercy.

So we ask for your Holy Spirit to lead and guide us in Jesus name we pray, amen. You know yesterday I was talking to a missionary who's been out in China and obviously there's a lot of things going on over there and if you don't know you know our church has been engaged in the ministry out there just in various capacities since 1999 and the genesis of our mission there wasn't because I was praying and God gave me this this heart for China.

Early on in the church in order to pay the bills I had to work as a ESL teacher and it was just random I had a friend who was teaching and then he was going out to missions and he said Peter you want to take over and the only qualifications that I had to have a master's in something so because of my seminary degree I qualified I've never taught you know ESL before I just went in and started winging it you know and I just learned how to do it as I was going but I spent about five years teaching Korean grandmothers and mostly grandmothers and everyone said I would have a grandfather literally one lesson for five years mainly because they just kept forgetting and so it was easy for me because there was nothing to prepare so you know it helped pay the bills it gave me insurance for the kids and so I did that for about five years but as time went by even though was paying the bills I was starting wrestling why why am I doing this because I put all that time preparing and studying and then I'm spending about 30 plus hours a week you know teaching ESL to grandmothers that really isn't going anywhere you know it's a lot of it is just to kind of give them something to do in the morning and as I was wrestling with this I got an email from our denomination saying that they needed people to come and teach ESL and again at that time people didn't come in and out of China that's that easily like it is now there weren't a lot of foreign companies in there and so you have to have a special reason so I thought maybe this is it and so all the five years of training I told them what I was doing for a living and so that was how I got our church together you know did the training and then we started going out to China and so that was kind of our our entrance into China the reason I share this with you is during that whole time I was wrestling with what is this for you know I really felt like I was wasting my time but I'm sure all of you have different stories of how there are things that happened in your life that you didn't fully understand and then later on how God kind of connected the dots and that's what led you to where you are so whether you believe in predestination or not I think everybody in some sense at least recognizes it it's hard for us to explain predestination here like God's sovereign election and and how it goes forth but when we talk we always say well this event or that thing or sometimes very painful experiences to how God used that to orchestrate something that he had planned and so any Christian could clearly see that now the reason why I share the story is because so much of Scripture when we read through the Old Testament that didn't make sense like a whole book of Leviticus there are certain events that take place that said what is this for and so when you first read it you just kind of skim over it because you don't quite get it but the more you dig into the scripture the more you begin to see there's a clear purpose for every little thing even the thing that seems so insignificant the more you dig the more you see why that was there in fact not only was it there but it plays a huge role in connecting the dots ultimately brings to Christ now the theologians call that type the word the technical word the theological word is type that God has placed different types of Christ to prepare for the coming of Christ so basically is keep embedded into the Old Testament in history through the laws of tabernacles things that ultimately point to Christ so that when Christ came it was clear that that was talking about Christ so the tabernacle was a type to teach the nation of Israel the need for sacrifice and what Christ was going to do Adam was a type of Christ he was the first Adam that he comes and he as a as his fruits the whole world multiplied but Jesus is is the second Adam the sacrificial lamb is a type of Christ that the blood of the lamb covers the sins of Israel and so Christ becomes the lamb so he's that lamb was a type of Christ the Passover the sacrifice or at least attempt to sacrifice Isaac was also a type pointing to the sacrifice of the Son of God Jonah him being in the belly of the well for three days and then coming out of that was a type of his death and resurrection but all the types that are implanted in the Old Testament one of the clearest and one of the most important types was the high priesthood the high priesthood that is explained that we we took a lot of time studying through the book of Leviticus of the requirements of the high priests we're gonna be looking at chapter five six seven why this type of high priest was placed in there and how that ultimately points into is fulfilled in Christ and it is so important for us to do that because you know a lot of times when you read through the Scriptures because we don't understand it we just assume like well it's not for me I think our elder James at the retreat did a in my opinion did a great job presenting the canonicity of Scripture like why do we believe it's authoritative and I know there was a quite a bit of information and so because it went over your head it's like well this is too complicated well he spent most of the time describing the authority of the Scripture by quoting Scripture and it may seem like circular argument but the primary evidence of the authority of God's Word is in the Word itself because no man could have orchestrated all that we see in Scripture no man could have been intelligent enough he would have had enough information or the power to be able to bring all of this together and so the more you dig into the Scripture the more you begin to see how all of these things are connected to each other the end conclusion in an increasing manner is this is divine man could not have done this and then the more you begin to understand it the more there is clear evidence that this isn't written by human hands again one of the clearest of these things is the high priesthood of Christ so today and probably for the next few weeks we're going to be talking about Christ as how he fulfills that type of high priesthood so the first thing that he says about that is that Jesus had to be a man in Hebrews chapter 5 1 it says for every high priest taken from among men is appointed on behalf of men in things pertaining to God in order to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sin so he said he had to be the priest had to be a man appointed on behalf of men so he had to be a man now again just to take a step back if we understood that there's a holy God who's angry with us because of our sins and we need to choose somebody to represent us to go on our behalf and to plead on our behalf not to be angry with us who would we choose what are the qualities that we that that that person needs to have okay do you understand the question so if we were to let's say we don't we were we don't have the access to Jesus we don't know him and if we knew that our sins has caused the God who created us to be angry with us he's just withholding his anger and we are choosing the person to represent it as a goal and plead on our behalf who would we choose what are the qualities I think the first one that we would think of is he has to be one of us because if he's gonna plead on our behalf he needs to understand what our problem is he needs to know what we need to plead for he needs to he needs to represent us so first thing he needs to be a man chosen among us and that's exactly what he is saying here that the high priest was chosen among them because his primary role is to plead for the people that he represents but then not only does he have to be a man he has to be a man who who can even have access to this God because any man who comes before the presence of God and has any sin what happens to him he dies no man can even see him it being the presence of his glory and so whoever represents us has to be able to get into his presence so he cannot have any sin because if he has any sin he wouldn't be able to represent even if he's the best of us if he even if he understood us perfectly and he knew exactly what to say he can never get to him he had to be perfect without sin but not only did he have to be perfect without sin his purpose of getting to God when he has access to God is to plead for mercy for our sins how do you do that well that's what he says the whole point of the high priest sacrifice was on our behalf to make sacrifices to give offerings again for the purpose of appeasing his anger if you look at all three qualities Jesus walked among us he became one of us he lived a sinless life he was tempted in every way yet without sin so he has perfect access to God but not only does he have perfect access to God the sacrifice that he made to appease his wrath and his anger was his own life was his own self so if we look at those qualities there is only one person that qualifies and that's exactly what first Timothy 2 5 says where there is one God and there's only one mediator also between God men the man Christ Jesus only one person qualified to be able to do this task and that was the man Christ Jesus and John 1 14 is that in the word became flesh and he dwelt among us he walked in our shoes and he became a man because he had to represent us before God now I think every single one of us like when you first came to church right those of you who've been here you know in the last maybe four or five years you know when you first come to a church one of the first things that we look for is to see who is like us right so if you're a college student you gravitate toward college students because you can relate to them better you know if you're a certain age you know a certain background whatever it may be you kind of naturally tend to look for and gravitate toward things that you you are familiar with you know I know that from talking to many of you that that many of you some of you were raised in a pastor's family right and so immediately I don't have to say a word especially if you're the middle child of that pastor's family right if you happen to be a male middle child of that pastor's family right and if you happen to be an immigrant of a pastor's family who happened to be a male middle child I get you right I get you immediately without any having any conversation we our natural tendency is we gravitate toward people that we are familiar with so once become familiar we can kind of venture out outside of that the purpose of why Jesus did what he did because his whole purpose was to bring us to God and he stepped in our shoes and he invites us if you notice the sportscasters usually they choose exports the athletes and reason why even though they're not the most articulate you know most of them did not go to broadcasting school they weren't communication majors they were just athletes you know but the reason why they are chosen to be the broadcasters is because they can relate to the athletes and so when they call the plays and when they analyze they're analyzing from a athletes perspective that this is what they're thinking this is what they're struggling with and so they represent the athletes well to the people who are watching and so the scripture says that Jesus was made a man because his role was to represent us to God it wasn't just that he was representing God to us he is our representative to him you know those of you who've been to India with us I remember the very first year that we went I think about six six or seven years ago we went to the boonies I mean it's about five hour drive into the countryside so when we first got there I would say the two-thirds of the road was not paved and even my even my friends you know my Southern Baptist friends were asking me Peter do you know what you're doing you know this is a little bit further away and so we said you know what I I want to at least go and meet this guy and I want to meet his dad and see you know what kind of ministry and if anything that he said was true I just want to meet him and so we took a team out there and it was the boonies I was I would say about two-thirds of the road was not paid right now about two-third is paved and then the one-third is not paid but at that time was a two-third wasn't paid and so I remember going there thinking in the back of my mind what did I do right because it was it was in the boonies and when finally we got it to the city and when you get to a city that you're not familiar with what is the first thing that you do those of you who've traveled and typically when we travel we travel to places where you know where there's a lot of tourists gathered together and and every once in a while you might go somewhere where where you don't see anything familiar but when you when you go somewhere where you're not familiar what's the first thing that you look for something familiar right so the first thing we look for is McDonald's right is there are there is there any McDonald's here because even though everything looks strange once you enter into McDonald's everything's familiar apple pie Big Mac well not in India okay those of you who know what I'm talking about right but maybe Starbucks or something but we look for something familiar because that's our connection when it is foreign so when we think of God when we think of God oftentimes we see an image of God that is far and distant so Almighty God who who created the universe and in a few donor pieces anger that he he comes and brings judgment and so we admire him and love him from a distance but Jesus came and he walked in our shoes and he suffered along with us for a whole purpose of defending us and representing us to God pleading on our behalf you know the public defenders typically in at least in our culture get a bad rap because when public defenders are really good at their job criminals get to walk you know what I mean and so is that all your public defender or how do you live with yourself you know and so we want them to slack off a little bit because then more more bad guys go to jail at least that's what we think until we become a criminal or somebody that we love gets into trouble then all of a sudden this this public defender becomes our best friend the scripture tells us that Jesus is playing that role as a public defender but instead of being paid to do this he pays himself with his own blood to stand before a holy God this judge and he is pleading on our behalf does that give you some comfort I'm sure it does I mean when I think as I stand before this holy God that Christ himself is standing on my behalf pleading with his father right he says so he became a man for that purpose and the whole purpose is so that he can invite us so that's something familiar when we look at Christ that he's something familiar that we can go to to get us to God secondly the high priest had to be appointed by God now why was this important he was up to 5 4 3 5 no one takes the honor to himself but receives it when he is called by God even as Aaron was so also Christ did not glorify himself so as to become a high priest but he who said to him you are my son today I have begotten you today I have begotten you why is it important that that they were appointed now you have to understand that the nation of Israel was not like any other nation that the king of Israel was not the final king that those offices were separated so you can't just decide one day so you know what maybe maybe let me try the sacrifices you will get into trouble in fact we have examples of examples in the Old Testament these Kings who are presumptuous and they thought you know what instead of instead of going over to Jerusalem going to the temple I'm just gonna give the sacrifices myself and God brings judgment upon them because they didn't they didn't take heed God's warning and a high priest couldn't by himself decide one day you know what I want to be the king let's overthrow King David and I'm gonna be the king those two offices were completely separate you had to be appointed as a king and you had to be appointed as a high priest now the reason why this is important is because he mentions that Jesus came in the order of Melchizedek now this name it appears in Genesis chapter 14 18 just as a blip this is one of those things that when you read it's like oh that's weird you know Abraham is coming back and he runs into this king of Salem and then he offers sacrifice and gives him a tenth and then says hi bye and he blesses him and he disappears and then we don't know much about him so if you remember Melchizedek it's probably because you read it and probably asked that question and if you don't it's because it didn't make sense and you just kind of buried it somewhere and so that was placed in there and then now he's going to explain what that was again we're not gonna go too deep into it today it's gonna come out you know as we go forward from chapter 5 but the reason why this is important is because in the nation of Israel you could not voluntarily do that God kept this offer separate because the whole point of this King priest office was reserved for Christ and Christ alone so to take that role as a king to make sacrifice was no different than the high priest entering to the Holy of Holies and sitting on that mercy seat that I'm gonna try this seat and God said no remember when the high priest came in there there was such reverence for the things of God he put it on a bell and he's to do his work you need to hurry up and get out because that was not his place the whole purpose was to with the sprinkling of blood to cover the sins of Israel to cover himself with his sins and then hurry up and get out because that mercy seat was reserved for Christ and so his high priesthood just as the human high priesthood could not appoint himself Christ himself had to be appointed meaning that his king priesthood that the throne that he sat in that he also was the high priest making sacrifice was uniquely Christ and all of that was prepared in the Old Testament and he gave bits and pieces of that so when Christ shows up there he is an aha statement I didn't know who Melchizedek was where does he where does he come from why is Abrahams giving tithes to him and all of a sudden he says Jesus Christ comes as king priest in the order of Melchizedek because the only king priest that we see in the Old Testament that didn't get into trouble is the king of Salem king of righteousness now if you fell asleep even for two seconds you probably what is he talking about right but if you stayed with me this is huge this is one of those things that again in our life we have certain things that happen and we can't connect the dots but years later we realize wow God used that to bring me here this is one of those big things that God was doing behind the scene that they didn't understand but now when Christ comes he sits at the throne of mercy and that was his throne it was reserved for him and so no man could come in and say let me rest here for a second that was reserved for him that's why it was important they say it was appointed to him not only was it appointed to him thirdly it says that not only was he a man not only was it was this prepared and appointed he said he was a sympathetic high priest in Hebrews chapter 5 - it says he can deal gently with the ignorant and misguided since he himself also is beset with weakness he didn't just he didn't just establish he didn't just establish a mediator he established a mediator that was going to be compassionate and gentle now why was that important because if you send an ambassador to represent you the whole purpose of this is to bring grace and mercy so that people can come to him his whole purpose and Jesus's existence and his and his sacrifice was to draw us to to his Holy God so the sacrificial system was an expression of his mercy even the sacrifice even all the slaughter of animals we may look at that and say wow that's harsh why are you killing these animals all of the slaughter of the animals was because God was trying to be merciful to sinners if God didn't care if he wasn't merciful none of that is necessary as soon as you sin you're squashed but everything that God was doing in the Old Testament was an extension of his arm inviting sinners to come and so the man that was sent to do his work must also be a gracious and compassionate man and why did he do that all for the purpose of inviting us to him inviting us to the mercy seat inviting us to the throne of grace in order that we may be able to be reconciled with this Holy God it says that because he was beset with weakness he can be gentle you know the word for gentle is really interesting because some of your translation says it's compassion but the word literally means to be in the middle right it doesn't sound exciting right that because he was beset with with weakness he can be in the middle right now that's a literal translation of that word what that word means is he's neither harsh nor apathetic he's neither harsh nor apathetic that's why this word is so perfect for this scene because if he was harsh he would crush them the sinners come is that again you're gonna sacrifice again you're gonna bring that again forget you I'm not gonna sacrifice for you so if he was harsh he would just squash them when they send and they would deserve it or on the other hand is that you said it's like you know we all sin you know I mean we all sin and just kind of sweeping it's not that big of a deal don't worry about it we're not gonna go through this all them oh you don't have much money for these sacrifices you know let's just kind of you know do a little bit of this and just kind of sweep it under the rug what this word means was neither was he apathetic towards and he hated sin and yet he was compassionate and so he was a perfect mediator because he understood the wrath of God because he himself was God so he understood how his father hates sin and he knew that he couldn't just sweep it under the rug he couldn't just look the other way so I'm gonna pretend like that never happened he wasn't apathetic towards sin he understood that if something did not happen the wrath would come and crush all sinners and yet because he was a man he understood our weaknesses he was beset with weakness he was surrounded by weakness and so yet he had hatred towards sin he was compassionate toward the sinners and that's why this word gentle is such a perfect word to describe that's the priesthood of Jesus Christ and that's why you have this juxtaposition of the mercy seat as a throne of grace you don't think of thrown as being gracious you don't think of grace as having power and authority and yet Jesus's position is a throne of grace he's neither apathetic towards sin nor is he harsh towards sinners he's in the middle he is compassionate he will deal with our sins he will appease the wrath of God by his own sacrifice and that position was appointed to give to him since the beginning it was something that only he could do and that's what all that priesthood was for everything that we learned about the high priesthood was to prepare so when Christ did it that all mankind would see that and say aha he didn't just he didn't just on a whim say you know what we tried everything nothing is working it wasn't plan B from the very beginning that was his plan he himself was beset with weakness he surrounded himself and he tasted what it was like to be in sinful society learning on their sinful men being surrounded by simple siblings even being raised by simple parents that he may be a sympathetic high priest we have a team right now that has gone to Ecuador and they went to visit we have about a hundred and forty three different children that are being supported by our church and I think we have about 16 or 17 members that have gone there they're gonna come back on Saturday and they'll give us an update on Sunday what they saw now we all know if you're one of those families that are supporting these children we're getting a letter so we have an idea we've seen pictures but it's a completely different story when you walk in their shoes when you go into their homes you know I had a chance to go to Philippines through Pastor Peter and my wife and an elder Philip but we all had opportunities to go typically when we travel we travel to the nicest places go to the nicest hotels they need the nicest food and I want to encourage you that if you get an opportunity I'm not sure if we're gonna go next year or not if you get an opportunity to to really invest that money and go see for yourself because it really is paradigm shifting and it's not like you didn't know like we know right we know because we read it we watch films and television but it's completely different when you're engrossed in it and you begin to understand why certain things are happening in the world when you watch from a distance you know there's a lot of young people especially so you know what the sex trafficking we need to stop the sex trafficking and so we need to find out these men who are doing these things and stop it and and make sure that the law goes and stop it but the when you get in there and you walk in their shoes you realize that so much of this sex trafficking is happening voluntarily part of the reason why it's so hard to stop is because they can't eat if they don't do that so it's not like these men are going into these villages and and they're preying on these young children all they do is they go on a tour bus and get in a nice hotel and these young girls come to the hotel of course they don't want to do that and a lot of times the parents send them because a lot of them it's a choice between selling their bodies and eating so when you step into their shoes and you you're engrossed in that poverty the problem is not that simple but we get into problems when we watch them from a distance and say oh that's a problem this sex trafficking has to stop and we try to get involved without fully understanding what's going on and that's why these trips are very helpful because you see poverty while you're there in a different light see our Savior came and he walked in our shoes and the scripture says in verse 7 the days of this flesh in days of Jesus's flesh he offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the one who was able to save him he didn't just taste the suffering of mankind he experienced agony he says he was crying in tears he understands he understands the agony that would bring him to tears to get on his knees and to pray till our sweat turns into blood that's how that's the kind of agony he experienced so now that Jesus who experienced that kind of pain Romans 834 says who is the one who condemns Christ Jesus who died yes rather who was raised who is at the right hand of God who also intercedes for us because he cried out in pain because he shed tears because he pleaded with the father he knows how to plead for us these aren't just empty words his compassion was earned even though he was a son he learned obedience he learned obedience he stepped in our shoes all of this for what purpose to invite us that he's sympathetic high priest and he says come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart you know what's crazy about all of this the scripture says if you abided my words and my words abide in you ask whatever you wish it shall be done for you right but the problem that we have is rarely do we feel completely confident rarely do we feel completely confident that we are abiding in him and his word is abiding in us completely so we pray and we plead but there's always a doubt in my mind that I haven't done enough and I remember the compromises in the sins so even though we cry out there's always a doubt in our mind that maybe my prayer is not effective Jesus has no problem he cried out to God but God heard him it says because of his piety because there is no sin in him he has full access to God because he was tempted in every way without sin it is that Savior that is pleading on her behalf and if we have any doubts that maybe God doesn't hear us because of our sins there is no doubt that our intercessory our high priest when he cries out and he is praying for us that God hears him perfectly that's the high priest that's the king priest that we worship and that is the Savior that invites us to come to him and find rest there is no barrier there's only one mediator there's no other man there's no other system there's no other church there's only one mediator between us and God and is the man Christ Jesus come come to Christ stop coming to church come to Christ come to Christ and find rest that you will only find in his presence all this he did so that he can bring us to him how can we resist this guy I pray that the more we dig the more we are in all the more we are in all that we would truly become worshippers who worship him spirit in the truth Let's pray.