The "Let Us" Series From The Book Of Hebrews
#3
Let Us Approach God's Throne With
Confidence!
TEXT: Heb.
4:14-5:10
INTRO:
Fear can be a
devastating thing! When we are not
confident in something or someone we feel fearful, and this can keep us from
moving forward in life.
One really great example of this
was after World War II:
ILLUS:
A
Japanese soldier by the name of Shoichi Yokoi lived in a cave on the
In the same way many people view
God as a fearsome and frightening entity.
They either believe God doesn’t care, or doesn’t exist, or if He does He
in unapproachable. This is so far
from the picture we have of Christ in the Bible, in fact, the opposite is true –
Jesus Christ is not only approachable, He literally experienced our humanity,
including temptations to sin in order to become a perfect high priest to help
us, and to heal us from our sinful ways.
No human being other than Jesus
Christ can offer to mediate between God and man, if they are just another human
being they are flawed and don’t even know what it means to stand in God’s
presence – they therefore can’t qualify as our mediator. And God the Father is so perfect that we
could never stand in His direct presence as we are as sinners. Christ therefore became a living
breathing fully human being and experienced our humanity without sinning so He
could offer Himself up as both our mediator and sacrifice. In doing this He proved God’s love
toward us; He would “die for us while we were yet
sinners!” He also
understands our frailty and can be our perfect High Priest to enable us to come
into God’s presence “BOLDLY!” (KJV) or
with great “CONFIDENCE”
(NIV).
PROP.
SENT: The Bible teaches
us that we can enter into God’s presence boldly through Christ who has not only
paid the price for our sins, but acts as our perfect High Priest. It is possible to experience God’s love
and forgiveness, mercy and grace, and new life through
Christ.
I. Come With Confidence! Heb.
4:14-16
A. Relationship!
Heb.
4:14-16a
1. The conclusion of “Therefore…” here states categorically that we
have a great high priest in Jesus Christ!
a. Jesus never sinned, He was
100% human, and 100% God, this makes Him unique in history – and makes possible
for us to have a relationship with God through Him.
b. Why did Jesus willingly die in our
place? Because “He so loved the
world…”
c. He wanted us to have
fellowship with God, and the only way for that to happen was for the price of
sin to be paid fully for man.
d. Jesus bore that price though He
Himself was sinless and perfect.
2. What does this mean? It means that it is possible now through
Christ to be in right relationship with
God!
3. It also means that we can come into
God’s presence BOLDLY or with great
CONFIDENCE!
4. Christ bore our sins and our
humanity, by becoming one of us He changed forever the way we see God, and the
way God sees us!
ILLUS:
Joseph
Damien was a nineteenth-century missionary who ministered to people with leprosy
on the
One
morning before Damien was to lead daily worship, he was pouring some hot water
into a cup when the water swirled out and fell onto his bare foot. It took him a
moment to realize that he had not felt any sensation. Gripped by the sudden fear
of what this could mean, he poured more hot water on the same spot. No feeling
whatsoever.
Damien immediately knew what had happened. As he walked tearfully to
deliver his sermon, no one at first noticed the difference in his opening line.
He normally began every sermon with, "My fellow believers." But this morning he
began with, "My fellow lepers."
In a greater measure Jesus came
into this world knowing what it would cost him. He bore in his pure being the
marks of evil, that we might be made pure. "For this I came into the world," he
said (John 18:37).
--
5. How can we resist this kind of
love?
B. Restoration! Heb.
4:16b
1. God’s plan wasn’t just forgiveness
and freedom from penalty, it was intended to restore us to God’s favor through
Christ!
a. This is why we can come
boldly or confidently into God’s presence, we are now “sons and daughters of the Most High
God!”
b. Imagine the change of heart this
creates, especially when we know we are still flawed and sinful at
times!
ILLUS:
Tears glistened in the eyes of the
Salvation Army officer Shaw as he looked at the three men before him. Shaw was a
medical missionary who had just arrived in India, and the Army was taking over
this particular leper colony. These three men had manacles and fetters binding
their hands and feet, cutting their diseased flesh. Captain Shaw turned to the
guard and said, "Please unfasten the
chains."
"It isn't
safe," the guard replied, "these men are dangerous criminals as well as
lepers!"
"I'll be responsible. They're suffering enough," Captain Shaw said, as he
put out his hand and took the keys, then knelt and tenderly removed the shackles
and treated their bleeding ankles and
wrists.
About two weeks later Captain Shaw had his first misgivings about freeing
these criminals; he had to make an overnight trip and dreaded leaving his wife
and child alone. His wife insisted that she wasn't afraid with God being there.
The next morning when she went to the front door, she was startled to see the
three criminals lying on her steps. One explained, "We know the doctor go. We
stay here all night so no harm come to you." That's how these dangerous men
responded to an act of love. Christ came to set fettered people
free.
-- James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers,
Inc, 1988) pp. 118-119.
2. Christ becoming our perfect high
priest and dying for our sins and restoring us to favor with God creates a
boldness and confidence that far exceeds our own knowledge of the flawed
characters we know we really are!
a. When we come to God we
don’t do so based on how WE feel, but we come based on how GOD feels about
us!
b. This is an important
distinction!
c. Yes, we know we still mess up
– and when we do we still need to repent; but we belong to God through Christ’s
sacrificial work and God our Father sees us through the blood of Christ, not the
weakness of our humanity.
3. This kind of knowledge that Christ
died for us, paid our way back to God’s favor should invigorate our value and
our love in the eyes of God.
a. And by the way, this should
not lead to being sloppy about sin, when one realizes what Christ has done and
is so moved by this act of love it creates a desire to NOT SIN in our heart, but
to live up to what Christ has made us, sons and daughters of
God!
b. If it leads to being casual about
sin or not taking sin seriously in our lives then we have not truly appreciated
what Christ has done for us, in fact, we are cheapening the sacrifice of Jesus
for us!
4. When we come boldly into His
presence now we know we can find mercy and help – precisely what the Hebrew
writer says in Heb.
4:16b
a. We need not fear coming to
God!
b. We can even come boldly
now!
II. Christ With Cleansing Heb.
5:1-10
A. Representation! Heb.
5:1-3
1. If you were going to stand in the
presence of the Supreme Court of the
a. Now take that even further,
if you are going to stand before the Judge of the universe, God Himself – you
will want the finest representation possible as
well!
b. Unfortunately, there are no human
beings qualified enough to stand in as your representative from Earth! And I wouldn’t recommend you
representing yourself in the great court in eternity! (Layers often refer to people who decide
to represent themselves as “having fools for
representation!)
c. Jesus however becomes our
representative before His Father, and this is the greatest representative you
could ever hope to have!
d. Jesus and Jesus alone is capable of
allowing you to pass the test before God, and even find favor and approval from
God the Father!
2. Doesn’t it make sense to have the
best source possible when facing the greatest test for
eternity?
ILLUS:
Steve
Winger from Lubbock, Texas, writes about his last college test a final in a
logic class known for its difficult exams:
To help us on our test, the professor told us we could bring as much
information to the exam as we could fit on a piece of notebook paper. Most
students crammed as many facts as possible on their 8-1/2 x 11 inch sheet of
paper. But one student walked into
class, put a piece of notebook paper on the floor, and had an advanced logic
student stand on the paper.
The advanced logic student told
him everything he needed to know. He was the only student to receive an
"A." The ultimate final exam will
come when we stand before God and he asks, "Why should I let you in?" On our own
we cannot pass that exam. Our creative attempts to earn eternal life fall far
short. But we have Someone who will stand in for us.
-- Leadership, Vol. 15, no. 4.
3. There is a way to stand
confidently, and boldly in God’s presence!
His name is Jesus Christ – and He is the chosen representative for all
humans to come to God with confidence, there are no
others!
B. Revelation! Heb.
5:4-5
1. There have always been people in
history that have claimed they will save the world, they will build great
empires, they will solve mankind’s problems.
a. Some of them disguised their
ambitions in the early stages by appearing to unite and strengthen their
countrymen, people like Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Alexander the Great,
Napoleon, etc..
b. However, all of these turned out to
be despots, bent on usurping power over others, flawed and full of sin that
drove them in the end to be exposed for who they really
were.
c. God never picked any of them
– although some claimed that right in their early stages of
power.
2. There is only ONE who was chosen by
God in all of history to bring restoration to mankind; and instead of amassing
power for Himself, He willingly died for everyone else, including accepting the
penalty of sin though He Himself never sinned!
a. Just as in the Old Covenant,
one did not appoint himself as high priest; it was revealed by God who would
serve in this role!
b. Any attempts to usurp that role
ended in death!
c. The author of Hebrew states
the same here for Christ, “No one takes the honor
upon himself; he must be called by God, just as Aaron was.” So Christ also did no take upon Himself
the glory of becoming a high priest, God called Him, chose Him, and revealed
Him! There was no other name
throughout time!
3. This is why we must learn that it
is ONLY in the name of Christ that we can come to God and find
favor!
a. God has set this up, it does
not matter if it is logical, or politically correct – God said only through His
son and this name shall mankind be
saved!
b. The early church and leaders
clearly understood this, we read in Acts 4:12
“Salvation is found in no one else, for there is
no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be
saved!”
c. All roads DO NOT lead to
God! (People often say this, “all roads lead
to God … but I’ll bet if they got in their car on one side of town and did not
use a GPS device or maps and simply drove any road in any direction they would
discover that all roads don’t lead them to their
home!)
4. But coming to God through Christ
gives you great favor, favor you would not get otherwise in any other way, by
any other means!
ILLUS:
There
was a soldier in the Union army, a young man who had lost his older brother and
his father in the war. He went to
The
little boy took the soldier by the hand and led him around to the back of the
White House. They went through the
back door, past the guards, past all the generals and the high ranking
government officials until they got to the president's office itself. The little boy didn't even knock on the
door but just opened it and walked in. There was President Lincoln with his
secretary of state, looking over battle plans on the desk. President Lincoln looked up and said,
"What can I do for you, Todd?"
And
Todd said, "Daddy, this soldier needs to talk to you." And right then and there
the soldier had a chance to plead his case to President Lincoln, and he was
exempted from military service due to the hardship he was
under.
Such is the case with our ascended
Lord. We have access to the Father through the Son. It is the Son who brings us to the
Father's throne and says, "Daddy, here is someone who wants to talk to
You."
-- James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited (Wheaton:
Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 1988) pp. 72-73.
C. Reconciliation! Heb.
5:6-10
1. Jesus did not simply come and
throw around His power as the Son of God, instead He laid down those powers
willingly and prayed, submitted, and lived out a life of Holy living by the
power of the Holy Spirit – the same power available to us as
well.
2. Jesus learned obedience through
suffering; all of this He did not have do, He was already God – but He knew that
without become fully man and dying for us there would be no reconciliation with
God. He also knew no one else could
do this.
a. So He willingly accepted this
role out of love to redeem mankind from its own foolish
ways.
b. What the first Adam destroyed,
Jesus who in the New Testament is called the second Adam restored! Jesus succeeded where Adam and Eve
failed.
3. THERE IS NO OTHER RELIGION ON EARTH
WHERE GOD HIMSELF PAID THE PRICE, SUFFERED AND DIED FOR
US!
a. In other religions you have
to try and find God, you have to follow certain rituals and paths. In some religions those gods never died
for man, their gods are elusive – you can only hope to find nirvana eventually,
or if you worked hard enough maybe you’ll get paradise,
etc.
b. Only in Christianity does God take
the penalty of sin, only in Christianity does God die for us, and only in
Christianity does God in Christ actually defeat death and rise again from the
dead.
c. Only in Christianity does God
take the bullet for us!
ILLUS:
In
the 1993 hit film In the Line of Fire, Clint Eastwood played Secret Service
agent Frank Horrigan. Horrigan had protected the life of the President for more
than three decades, but he was haunted by the memory of what had happened thirty
years before.
Horrigan was a young agent assigned to President Kennedy on that fateful
day in
In the climax of the movie,
Horrigan does what he had been unable to do earlier: he throws himself into the
path of an assassin's bullet to save the chief executive. Secret Service agents are willing to do
such a thing because they believe the President is so valuable to our country
and the world that he is worth dying for. Obviously they would not take a bullet
for just anyone. At
4. With all this in mind, how can you
not feel confident to come into God’s very presence, and feel bold about doing
so?
a. There is great resource in
finding compassion, mercy, forgiveness, help and love, joy, and peace in coming
to God through Christ who is a high priest touched with our feelings of
weakness!
b. We don’t come to God in Christ with
fear of being pushed away, or of God having little interest in us – we can come
confidently because we know that with Christ as our sacrifice and high priest we
can enter confidently, even boldly into God’s presence and we will not only be
heard, but ministered to as well.
5. God loves us, and desires our best,
our cleansing from sin, our healing and hopes
restored.
a. In times of blessings we can
come grateful before Him.
b. In times of distress we can come
confidently before Him knowing we will find mercy and help in our time of
need.
6. So – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence,
so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need!”
Heb.
4:16
CONCLUSION: We are not only invited into God’s
presence freely through Christ, we are encouraged to come “boldly” (KJV) – “confidence” (NIV) into God’s presence. In spite of who we are, when we come
into God’s presence through Christ our high priest and sacrifice we actually
enter into God’s presence with God desiring to grant us mercy and grace to help
us! It is not earned by our
“goodness” – it is given by Christ’s work on our behalf. Are you coming boldly to God, are you
confident of your heavenly Father’s love for you? “LET US GO
WITH
CONFIDENCE…”