Okay, Hebrews chapter 5 verses 1 through 10, 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 sacrifices for sins as for the people, so also for himself. And no one takes 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." And again, 7 through 10 is where we're going to be focused this morning.
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. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from the things which he suffered. And having been made perfect, he became to all those who obey him the source of eternal salvation, being designated by God as a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.
Let's pray. Father, we've gathered here together to honor you, to worship you, to hear from you. Help us, Lord God, to have open ears, softened hearts, to listen, to understand, and to obey. May Christ and his suffering bear fruit, Lord God, even today. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
If I was to ask you, if you were to think back in your Christian life, whether you've been a Christian for a year or 10 years or longer than that, 20, 30 years, what has made the biggest impact in your life? Was it a sermon? Was it a book you read?
Was it some particular person who invested their time into your life? What has made the biggest impact? You know, when I think about out of the years that I've been a Christian, what image do I have in my head that has made the biggest impact that I remember? And if I tell you what made the biggest impact, you're going to think it's kind of trivial, you know, because even as I tell it, it's going to sound trivial.
But the image that I have in my head that made the biggest impact or made a deep impact in my life was when I was 19 years old, my former youth pastor, who used to be my youth pastor when I was in high school, you know, I met him in college and then he asked if I would like to be discipled by him.
And of course, I was hungry at that time and said, "Yes, I mean, if you're willing to meet up with me, I would." But he was a man who didn't necessarily have obvious gifts. In fact, as a youth pastor, he was not liked by the youth at all. You know, he had broken English and he tried too hard.
You know what I mean? He had a bunch of teenagers, you know, who were like hormones going crazy. And he would come and he would try too hard to kind of like be one of us and be cool and it kind of backfired on him. And so every time he tried to meet up with the students and the students just like, "Oh, that guy," you know, and so he basically just kind of lost control of the group.
But I appreciated his effort. And so by the time I came to college, when he asked to meet up, he's like, "Yeah, I mean, that's what I want. I want to grow." I would say he probably made the biggest impact in my life, but I can't remember a single sermon he gave.
I can't remember a single thing that he said to me that I remember today. It's like, "Oh, because of him." You know, I don't remember because that's not what impacted me. And when I think of how he impacted me, it was more from just watching him. Again, like I said, he wasn't a gifted man.
He wasn't like a dynamic leader. He wasn't a type of guy that can stand in front of a large crowd and gather attention. But I remember specifically this one retreat that we went to when I was 19 years old, and there was a bunch of people who gathered and waiting for the, you know, the head leaders to show up.
And it was kind of chaotic. And I forget, it was 100 or 200 people, we're sitting around, and something needed to be done, but nobody wanted to, you know, everybody was kind of awkward and didn't know what to do. And so my discipler, he kind of stepped up and because there was a need, it was chaotic, and he tried to organize people, and he was trying to be silly and playing games and asking people to do this, and it wasn't working.
He made an awkward situation much more awkward. And I remember sitting watching that, you know, just kind of feeling uncomfortable. And I think you guys have all been in similar situation, and we were all just like, "What is he doing?" You know, he's making a fool of himself. But again, the reason why that made such an impact on me was because as I was observing him, the only reason why he was doing that, and I think he was very aware that it wasn't working.
And I think he was very aware that people were snickering and kind of like, "What is this fool doing?" You know, he was making a fool of himself. But I remember sitting there watching him thinking, "Man, the only reason why he's doing that is because there was a need," and he just kind of stepped up.
And again, like I said, even as I tell it, he's like, "You got impacted by that?" But the reason why it made such a deep impression in me is it was just purely out of...there was a necessity. He wasn't trying to get glory. It wasn't because he was good at it.
It wasn't because he was effective. It was just...he was just a man who was faithful, who was just serving and doing his job. And I remember thinking to myself, "That's the kind of man I want to be. I want to be somebody who just serves because I love Christ." You know, our natural tendency, even in the context of serving Christ, our natural tendency is to want glory.
And that's not just to some people. That's every single one of us because that's at the root of our rebellion. Our root of our rebellion is to idolize mankind, idolize ourselves, wanting to be recognized. And so that's why we shop for clothing. That's why we want to get better education.
That's why we want to make more money because our natural inclination is to get recognition, even in the context of doing God's work. Remember, when Jesus was going to the cross, he was telling his disciples he's going to be beaten and crucified. And the only thing that the disciples were thinking is, "Who's going to sit to the left and who's going to sit to the right?
Who's the greatest?" So it was by no accident that the very last image that Jesus left to his disciples before he went to the cross was him on his knees serving them. He was washing their feet and he said, "Not only am I doing this," he says, "if you want to be my disciples, you will need to do this for each other." So that was not by accident that Jesus did that.
He said, "You know, this is a great lesson. I forgot to tell you this." He left that impression upon them as their Lord, as their Messiah, to humble ourselves because he knows that our natural inclination is to magnify ourselves. Now the text that we're looking at this morning is talking about Jesus' suffering.
I'm going to start with verse 8. We're going to get back to verse 7 because verse 8 kind of summarizes what Jesus did to become a sympathetic high priest. We talked about last week how a high priest needed to be a man. He needed to be a man who was appointed.
And as a result of that, he needed to be a gentle. He neither...it was apathetic towards sin, nor was he harsh towards sinners. He was in the middle. He was able to be gentle. So this week, we're looking at verse 8, 7, 8, 9, and 10 to describe in detail what does that suffering look like?
How did he become this gentle high priest? Well, it says in verse 5, 8, "Although he was a son, he learned obedience from the things which he suffered." Let me stop right there. That phrase, you probably have read it many times, maybe you have even memorized it. Think about what this is a description of, who this description is.
Though he was a son, we're not talking about just any son, he's the son of the living God. In other words, Christ is God himself, is described as a man who is learning to obey in his suffering. Every single one of those words does not fit the son of God.
The son of God had to learn. The son of God had to obey. The son of God had to suffer. It doesn't fit. It doesn't make any sense. In Psalm 147, verse 5, it describes the God that you and I worship, the son of God. Great is our Lord, and abundant in strength.
His understanding is infinite. If you want to find passages in the Old Testament about the omniscience of God, I mean, you'll find tons and tons because there's passage after passage. There's event after event to describe our God as being omniscient, knowing all things, and yet he said, "Jesus humbled himself and he learned." A God who knows everything had to learn.
In Colossians 1:16-18, Jesus Christ is the creator and he is completely omnipotent. For by him all things were created, both in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. In other words, there's nothing above him. He's completely omnipotent. All things have been created through him and for him.
He is before all things and in him all things hold together. There is nothing above him. All things were created by him and all things are for him and all rulers and all authorities and all things hold together because of him. He is completely omnipotent. And yet, it says, not only did he learn, he learned obedience.
Obey what? How can a God who is on the top of the hill? How can a God who has all kings, all rulers subjected under him have to obey? And then he suffered. Isaiah 40, 28-29, he says, "Do you not know, have you not heard, the everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, does not become weary or tired.
His understanding is inscrutable. He gives strength to the weary and to him who lacks might, he increases power. He's the one who strengthens the weary. He's the one that people run to when they need power." And yet, he says, he suffered. So this statement that although he was son, Jesus, he learned obedience from the things which he suffered does not make sense.
How can that be a description of the same person? How can an omniscient, omnipotent, immutable God learn obedience through suffering? I mean, I think the perfect example of that is we find in Luke 2, 45-47. The backdrop behind this is Jesus' mother and father, Joseph and Mary, they, being a good Jew, decided to go down and make a journey to Jerusalem to practice one of their festivals.
And while they're there, you know, they do their thing and then they go back. And on their way back home, after a couple of days on the way back home, they realize that Jesus is not with them. So just in case we think like, "Well, that's a really bad mother," you know what I mean?
How do you lose your son for two days and not recognize that, right? You have to understand that when they probably made that journey, they did it with probably their whole clan, maybe their grandfather, grandmother, aunt, uncle, cousins, and I don't know exactly how many people were with them, but my guess is it was a huge caravan, right?
Maybe 20, maybe 30, maybe 50 of them, I don't know. But they went together and it was a large enough group where they didn't recognize him. They did not recognize him gone. So he was probably a preteen, about 11 or 12 by the time that this is written. So when they recognize that he is not there, they go back to Jerusalem and it takes them three days to find him because they didn't know where he was.
And that's the backdrop. In verse 45, it says, "When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem looking for him. And in those days, they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers." This is omniscient, omnipotent, immutable God sitting under the teaching of the very teachers that in his ministry he's going to rebuke.
He said all of these Pharisees, all of these scribes, all of these supposed teachers of the temple. He says of them, "They sit in the seat of Moses." So listen to what they have to say, but do not do what they do because they're hypocrites. Everything that they do, they do for men to see.
And it is these same people that he subjects himself under and he's listening, asking questions and learning. Some of these people are going to be the same people who are going to crucify him. In about 20 years' time, Jesus knowing this, as a young man, he subjects himself to learn under these hypocrites.
Verse 51, "And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and he continued in subjection to them. And his mother treasured all these things in his heart and Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature in favor with God and men." That picture alone, I mean, you know, we have so many things about Christianity that, you know, sometimes we have and it's like, "Oh, I can't understand why there's hell.
I can't understand why there's suffering." To me, all of those things have obvious answers, you know, and I don't think it's that difficult, to be honest. The answer is pretty easy. The God of the universe, who is perfect in nature, is offended and angry with sinners who are rebelling against him and so he's bringing judgment.
That's the answer. We may not like it, but that's the answer. But the real question behind the gospel is not why is there judgment because that's pretty clear if we understand who he is and understand who we are. The real question is, why would the King of Kings and Lord of Lords submit himself to these people?
Why would he be in a position where he needs to learn and to obey and to suffer? That's the big question. When he says he learned obedience through suffering, I think the obvious application of that or illustration of that is at Gethsemane. You know, the word Gethsemane, the title, literally means "olive press" because that's where they collected olives and then they pressed it to make oil.
And that's exactly what happens to Jesus at Gethsemane, where he gets pressured and by his crushing, life comes for us. In Matthew chapter 26, 38-39, we have a description of what takes place. Jesus says to them, the disciples, "My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death. Remain here and keep watch with me." And if you don't know the background, Jesus is about to go to the cross that very morning and he is in anguish and he's asking his disciples to join him in prayer.
And when he went a little beyond them, fell on his face and prayed, saying, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me." The cup he is referring to, the cup he is asking the Lord to may it pass. If it is possible, may it pass.
This is the same cup that was prepared and prophesied from Genesis. From Genesis. As soon as Adam and Eve fell, there was a prophecy that the seed of the woman is going to come and he is going to crush the head of the serpent. It was prophesied and ordained from Genesis.
It is that cup he is praying and saying, "Is it possible for this to pass?" Jesus has been telling his disciples that he's going to come and drink this cup. His whole purpose of his existence, why he came and why he was born, why he lived, why he called his disciples, was to drink this cup.
But as he is in anguish about the suffering about to come, he is pleading with his Father, "Is there a way to pass this cup?" When the Bible talks about how he suffered, he learned obedience. I mean, this is the extent of his suffering that everything that he came to do, but as a human being, as a man, just like any one of us, faced with suffering, he was asking his Father, "Is there another way?" You know what's crazy here?
He says, "Let this cup pass from me, yet not as I will, but as you will." You know what that means? At that moment, in his weakness, in his flesh, it was not his will to go to the cross. At that moment, I mean, you want to see his weakness.
I mean, there it is right there. God ordained, God prepared, deliberately has come, prophesied, telling his disciples, preparing to go to the cross, and in his weakness, he's crying out, "Is there a way for this cup to pass? Not my will, but your will be done." Why did he do this?
For what purpose? Why would a God of the universe put him in that situation? Isaiah 53, 5, "But he was pierced through for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The chastening for our well-being fell upon him, and by his scourging, we are healed." This is what makes us Christian, that we see his suffering, that he didn't just suffer for mankind, he suffered for me.
He put himself in that situation because of me, because of my sin. My sin made it necessary for him to learn obedience through his suffering. Every child who's born in this world is born with an instinct to live. Anybody who has children, you know what I'm talking about. As soon as they're born, you don't sit there in the delivery room teaching them how to eat.
You don't teach them how to suck. They come out wanting to eat. There is a natural instinct to survive, and that instinct to survive never dies. Until the day that we have our last breath, we have instinctively a desire to live. And this instinct to live is what causes us to stay away from danger.
If suffering is coming, we do at all costs try to avoid that. So when we buy a house, if the neighborhood is not safe, that's not where we go. If we go to a certain part of the country where there's danger of certain kind of measles or malaria, we avoid it or we get shot.
We buy insurance just in case something tragic happens and that we can't control to minimize the damage. So every instinct that we have, we want to avoid suffering. Jesus did not get here because He made some poor choices. Jesus did not get here because He didn't have the wisdom to avoid it.
He walked into this. He planned to do this. And yet, as He was facing the cross in His flesh, He cried out to His Father, "Is this the only way?" Isaiah 53, 7, "He was oppressed and He was afflicted, and yet He did not open His mouth like a lamb that is led to a slaughter and like a sheep that is silent before His shearers, so He did not open His mouth." He volunteered for this, even in His anguish, even as He was crying out to His Father.
And that's what it means when it says that He learned obedience in His suffering. As He was suffering in His weakness of His flesh, just like any other human being would cry out and look for an escape, Jesus was like any of us. Yet His prayer didn't end with, "Lord, save me from this." Though that was in His heart, though that was His instinct, just like any one of us, it ended with, "But not My will, but let Your will be done." That's what it means when the Scripture says He was tempted in every way, yet without sin, that even in His temptation, even in His intense anguish, He never gave into His flesh, He gave into the Lord's will.
In verse 7, it describes His anguish to another level. Verse 7, "In the days of His flesh, as a human being, He offered up both prayers and supplication." For any other human being, a prophet, even angels, to pray and to offer supplication is obvious, it's noble. But this is God.
There is no lack in Him. There is nothing that He needs. And yet, the reason why He prays, the word supplication basically means to plead, to plead for God to answer, for God to intervene. So what would be obvious, what would be noble for any other human being, but for Jesus to be offering this prayer is an odd scene.
In Psalm 23, one of churches, Christians' favorite verses, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." In other words, I have no other need but Him. I am complete with the Lord. He takes care of me. He's my refuge. In the presence of my enemies, He prepares a banquet for me.
But the reason why we're able to say that is because there is nothing that He cannot provide because He's the omnipotent, omniscient, all-powerful, immutable God. And so if I have Him, I have everything. That's what Psalm 23 means. So He is it. It's not like we go through Him to get something else.
He is the answer. And the reason we love that passage is because if we have Him, we have everything. And the reason why if we have Him, we have everything is because He lacks nothing. He doesn't lack wisdom. He doesn't lack power. He doesn't lack knowledge. He lacks nothing.
And for that omnipotent, omniscient, immutable, all-powerful God, in His flesh, He offered up prayers and supplication, pleading. He puts Himself in a place where He was in need. He humbled Himself deliberately. And every once in a while, it makes news when somebody who's famous and who's multimillionaire, with all the money in the world, that we expect them to be flying out and flying around in private jets or limousine with chauffeurs, and then we catch a glimpse of them on a subway, like everybody else.
It makes a big deal. Keanu Reeves, right? They got a video of him in the New York subway, and this guy's been a big movie star for, what, three decades now? Maybe more? And they catch a glimpse of him on the subway, riding like everybody else. And the only difference between him and us is he's better looking.
I'm not going to say anything about his acting. He's very good looking, right? A great guy, nice guy, you know, it's not to knock him, but the world is just flipping over over this guy because you don't expect him to be riding a subway. You don't expect him to be nice like everybody else.
He's a multimillionaire adored by the world because he's good looking. We as a world fawn over people for being a bit humble, and yet when we think about our Lord, God of the universe, who humbled himself, became a man. And not just a man, but humbled himself to the point of being ridiculed and suffered on the cross, crying out in tears, it says, to the one who was able to save him from death.
Why does he even have to pray? He's the author of life. Why does he even pray to God to save him from death? It was already his. He's the one who gives life. I am the way, the truth, and the life. Nobody comes to the Father but through me.
He says he is life. He says he has come to give life and give this life abundantly, and yet in Gethsemane he is praying with supplication, pleading with God, crying out with tears. Those tears wasn't because he made bad choices. Those tears wasn't because he made the wrong turn somewhere or something tragic happened to him.
Those tears were for us. He put himself in that situation to save us. Only time that we've seen Jesus weep like that in the Bible is two other places. One is in front of the Lazarus' tomb. Jesus comes and he tells them that he's going to bring him back from the dead, and people are weeping, and before he calls him out, he weeps.
Why is he weeping? He deliberately came late to the tomb. He already told them that this is not going to lead to death. He's about to bring him from the tomb, but why is he weeping? I believe he's weeping for the same reason. In all three instances of his weeping, it's the same.
He's standing before the tomb because the death of man is the most tangible evidence of the curse of man, because God said, "If you break this command, if you do not obey," he says, "you shall surely die." And death has reigned over mankind from then on until now. And so in the presence of death, not specifically Lazarus' death, Jesus is weeping over mankind, I believe.
The second time we see him weeping is as he is riding his donkey into Jerusalem, and as people are parting, saying, "Oh, we're going to be delivered. Finally, the Messiah is going to come, overthrow the Roman government." And yet Jesus is weeping. If you only knew what would bring you true peace.
The peace you were referring to was not an overthrow of Roman government or easier life, or establish Israel as the greatest kingdom, because that's what they were looking for, and they completely missed the point. Only if you really knew what would bring you peace. But because you did not recognize the coming of Christ, and why he came, he said, "Judgment is coming." And it is over this judgment and destruction of Jerusalem that he was weeping over them.
And so here, when Jesus is crying out with tears, those tears wasn't simply because he was having a hard time. He was crying out and tearing, praying, and offering supplication because he put himself in that position to save us. What a strange, strange scene. As I was preparing for this sermon, I was meditating and thinking about this.
Why would you do this for anybody? Why would anybody do it? It's a strange thing to see somebody whose object of honor and worship to be in that position. You remember years ago when Kobe Bryant messed up his Achilles? That was a very strange scene. Some of you guys who are Lakers fans may remember.
Because Kobe Bryant came into the league as a 17-year-old, cocky as ever. I think he's much more humble now. People say he was cocky. He was…17-year-old Kobe was unbearable because they were comparing him to Michael Jordan, the greatest basketball player ever, period. Truth, fact, right? And they were saying, "Kobe Bryant is the next Michael Jordan." And so he's coming around 17 years old and, you know, people are trying to contain him and they wouldn't give him, you know, playing time, you know, early on because he was too raw.
But eventually he got to playing time and then, yeah, he became a superstar almost immediately. And all we've known of Kobe is making spectacular shots. And as the years went by, even the unbelievers were beginning to say, it's like, "Maybe he is the next Michael Jordan." And that's all we've known of Kobe.
That's all we've known. And then all of a sudden, he breaks his Achilles and he's in that locker room, humbled. All of a sudden, he has no words. He's at the end of his career and there's nothing he can do to work himself, to will himself. There's no mamba mentality that was going to save him from his broken Achilles.
And it was a very, very strange scene because we've never seen that in Kobe because he was always on a pedestal. As long as we've known him, he was always on a pedestal. He was the one bailing, you know, Lakers out. He was the one winning championships. He was one on the table, you know, flashing his jersey number.
But as strange as that scene was, the son of God crying out in tears, pleading to save him from death, is a mystery that will take eternity for us to realize. Why would the son of God do that for us? And that mystery should keep us asking and in wonder and worship for all eternity.
That is a love that you and I cannot possibly begin to comprehend. We can say it's like this, it's like my mother's, it's like my grandfather's, it was like this. But all of that are grossly, grossly imperfect in comparison to what Christ has done. He says, "Jesus prayed to God who was able to save him from death." He prayed to God in Mark chapter 14, 37 to 38.
In his humanity, just like any of us, when we are suffering, we are looking for partners and other people to suffer with us or at least sympathize with us. And that's exactly what Jesus did. He says in verse 37, "Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for me for one hour?" You know, I don't believe Jesus was trying to disciple them at this moment.
I think Jesus, in his suffering, genuinely wanted the support and sympathy of his friends. Those were his closest companions. And as he was crying out to God, he wanted his friends to join him. "Could you not pray with me? Didn't I tell you what's coming? Didn't I tell you what's about to happen?
I'm about to be crucified. The very people that I came to love are going to whip me and beat me, and they're going to nail me to the cross. Could you not pray with me for one minute, for one hour?" He says, "Your spirit is willing, but your flesh is weak." Every single one of us.
We may have good intentions. We may have desire, but we will always fall short in our flesh. We may have every intention to be holy. We may have every intention to be gracious. We may have every intention to be a better father, to be a better son, to be a better husband, to be a better wife.
And we may have that intention, but only God could save us from our own sins. And he says, "Because of his piety, he heard him." What does it mean, "he heard him"? Because he was crucified. What does it mean, "he heard him because of his piety"? The word for piety literally means, and the NIV is the only one who translated it this way, "because of his reverent submission." In the NASB, it says "piety," in the King James, it says "fear," but literally, it means "reverent submission." Instead of demanding security, demanding, and Jesus, if anybody was justified to demand that he be delivered, it would have been Christ.
None of us, no matter what we had, there is no way we can ever come to a holy God, demand anything. How can you be unfair? Don't ever pray that prayer. Don't ever come to a holy God and say, "God, you're unfair." And if God says, "You want me to be fair?" My children ever say, "It's unfair, okay, let's be fair from now on." This is how much it's going to cost to live in my house.
This is how much your car costs. This is how much it costs to raise you. "You want to be fair?" It's like, "No, I don't want fair." You don't want fair, you don't want justice. You definitely don't want that when you come before God. Sinners can only beg for mercy.
Sinners can only beg for grace. If there's one person who could have asked and demanded justice was Christ. Yet as he came before God, he humbled himself in reverent submission. What does it mean that he heard him? Clearly it wasn't that he saved him from the cross because it was the Lord's will.
It was God's will to crush him. Our problem of mankind, even though so much of our prayer is to make this life better, is not the length of our life. Whether you die when you're 80 years old or 90 years old, whether you die when you're 15 or 10, that's not the problem of mankind.
Whether you live a healthy life or a difficult life, whether you live nicely in a nice home or whether you're homeless, because all of this is temporary, that is not the problem of mankind. The quality of life, the length of life is not our greatest problem. It's the second death that the Bible describes.
In as much as it is appointed for all men to die once, after this comes judgment. So when Jesus pled with his Father to save him from death, he's not simply talking about the cross. It's the effect of every sinner who dies with sin. And when he says he was answered because of his reverent submission, he's talking about his resurrection.
That he didn't stay dead. He was resurrected and his name was exalted high above every other name. When we recognize that, when we recognize our greatest problem is our sin, our prayers are all answered already. Our prayers are all answered already. Now we may struggle with these trivial things, that in the path of eternal life, I want to have a better seat.
It's like somebody who's been saved from Titanic and you get on this boat to get to safety and then you're wrestling with who gets to have the nice window view as you're headed home. That's how our prayers are sometimes so trivial. Because sometimes we're fighting to see who gets to sit in the captain's seat, who gets the window seat, who gets to get the better snacks, all on the way to safety.
When we recognize that our greatest problem is not the length or the quality of this life, but it's our sins and the effects of sin. And this is the reason why Christ came. Why we see this strange scene of our Savior humbled, crying out in tears, pleading for safety.
Hebrews chapter 5, 9 through 10, it says, "And having been made perfect, he became to all those who obey him the source of eternal salvation, being designated by God as high priest according to the order of Melchizedek." Now we'll get a bit more deeper into Melchizedek when we get to chapter 7.
But here when it says, "He was made perfect," he wasn't made perfect because he was imperfect. The word perfect, "Heleos," basically means God's appointed purpose to be brought to completion. Christ humbled himself, emptied himself, became nothing, and through his suffering, obedience, he became the perfect Savior for us. There's only one person that qualifies to be our Savior.
One person. And his name is Jesus Christ. And if we look anywhere else for refuge, anywhere else for rest, anywhere else for help, it is no different than Jesus going to his friends. Couldn't you stay for one hour? They may have good intentions, they may be loving and gentle, they may be kind, but they cannot save us.
Only Christ fulfills that purpose. All of his suffering, all of his humiliation, all of it was ordained for this purpose. As Christ learned obedience through suffering, he became the source of salvation for those who obey him. He learned what obedience looked like in the flesh, made weak. In every way, he was tempted.
And you could see it in his prayer. Can this cup pass from me? We could look at that and say, "Jesus, how can you pray that prayer? You put yourself in this. You volunteered, you prophesied, you've been preparing your disciples for this, and yet in his flesh, just like any of us, can this cup pass from me?
Not my will. In his flesh, he experienced temptation to the point where he made no sense. That prayer made no sense to everything that he did up to this point, but that's how tempted he was. That's how weak he was. That's how humble he became. Yet without sin, not my will, your will be done.
All for the purpose to be able to say to us, "Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden. Come to me," because he is gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Are you restless? Are you restless? You know, restlessness is revealed in all kinds of ways.
Depression, anxiety, anger, frustration. Restlessness is found and expressed in all kinds of ways. But in the end, it's because there is no rest in Christ. Only Christ can save us from ourselves. Let us draw near to the throne of grace so that we may find help in times of need.
Let's pray. And as our worship team leads us, let's take some time to pray and come before the Lord in honest prayer and honest confession of where we are. If our hearts have become hardened and the revelation of his suffering for us doesn't sound any different than hearing bad news on the news.
There's indifference, there's hardening. That already shows that we've drifted away from God. And if that's where we are, ask the Lord, soften our hearts. What has caused our hearts to be callous when we hear the suffering of Christ and it does nothing other than to add more information, to plug up holes that you didn't understand about the cross.
And it doesn't cause you to have affection for him. That already is a revelation that our hearts have drifted so far from God. Let's be honest before the Lord in honest prayer and ask the Lord, "Lord, soften my heart. Not only that I may understand, but that I may be impacted, that the revelation of Christ's suffering would cause me to desire to offer my body as a living sacrifice." So again, as our worship team leads us, let's take some time to pray.