A Better Priest

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Have any of you ever been passed over for a job that you wanted and went to somebody else? Well, the good news is they’re practically giving jobs away right now. Every company I try to contact, they say, we’re shorthanded, we can’t find anybody to work.

So I’m waiting for the media to come out and tell everybody there’s a shortage on jobs, so they’ll run out and hoard those. But I was passed over a couple of years ago for a job I thought I really wanted. We were at a point in time where Charla and I both sensed that God was wrapping things up for us, where we were serving, we were coming to the end of our time there, and He was getting ready to move us somewhere else.

And we felt like this for a little while, but I just couldn’t find any churches that I felt, and this is before I knew Central even existed, I couldn’t find any churches out there that I felt led to pursue. And I kept thinking, what’s going on here? And I heard about an opening in denominational work that I hadn’t really considered, but I thought, this sounds right up my alley.

So I put in my resume for it, and the more I found out about the position, the more excited I got about it and thought, gee, I really hope I get to do this. And we waited, you know, these things take a long time for people to make the decisions just because all the people they have to deal with. And so we’re going on for months and months.

I’m going, I hope I hear about this. I would love this. It sounds like something I would love doing.

And finally, I was contacted by a friend of mine who had friends that were on the search committee. And he said, I don’t know who it’s gone to. I hate to tell you this, but they’ve picked somebody else.

And I thought, okay, back to the drawing board. Here we are. And it was a few weeks later, I was at our state convention.

And I looked, I think I was there with the kids, as a matter of fact. That was fun. Kids went as messengers to the convention.

And I happened to be scrolling through Facebook when we were out in the display area. And I saw an announcement that they had publicly announced who they had picked for this job. And it was a friend of mine.

And I look up, and he’s standing about 20 or 30 feet away from me. And I walked over to him. I said, I just heard you got such and such position.

He said, yeah. I said, I didn’t know you applied for it. I said, I did too.

He goes, oh, I’m so sorry. I said, no, they absolutely made the right decision. I would have picked you too.

He thought I was going to be mad at him. I said, given the choice between you and me, I would have picked you too. And I was telling Charla about it later.

I said, the guy has literally written books, has a doctorate degree in what that area of ministry is. He’s written books about it. They would have been stupid to pick me when they could have had him.

He was a great choice. And sometimes, as much as we hate to admit it, there are people that are better suited to jobs than we are. A lot of people hated to admit that Jesus was better suited for the job of being our high priest than any human being ever could.

You look at the qualifications he’s got. There’s nobody that can hold a candle to who Jesus Christ is as our high priest. As we’ve been going through some of the things from the Old Testament that pointed forward to Jesus, not just the prophecies, but the pictures, one of the things that we need to look at is the concept of the priest. Because the priests, yes, they were there to do their function, and they were there to do their job, but ultimately what they were doing was really pointing to what Jesus Christ was going to be for us. And no matter how good any of them were at their job, there came a time when it was time to step aside and let the one who was really qualified do the job.

And we’re going to look at that this morning in Hebrews chapter 7. Because the book of Hebrews is full of these comparisons to Jesus and the Old Testament pictures. And when we get to Hebrews chapter 7, it talks about the role of the priests in the Old Testament, but it explains how Jesus was far better suited to being a priest than anyone else ever could have.

He does the job much better and much more effectively than anybody else ever could have. So once you’ve turned with me to Hebrews chapter 7, if you would stand with me as we read together from God’s Word. Hebrews chapter 7, and we’re going to read verses 18 through 28 today.

It says, For on the one hand there is an annulling of the former commandment because of its weakness and unprofitableness, for the law made nothing perfect. On the other hand, there is the bringing in of a better hope through which we draw near to God. And we talked about this a couple weeks ago about Jesus bringing in a better covenant.

The law was never intended to make us right with God. The law is sort of the training wheels to prepare us for the coming of Christ so we would understand when we look at all the commandments of the law and see how we fall short of those, we’re going to recognize how deeply in need we are of a Savior and that Jesus came to fulfill that. So we talked about the new covenant that he brought in.

Verse 20 says, And inasmuch as he was not made a priest without an oath, for they have become priests without an oath, but he with an oath by him who said to him, The Lord has sworn and will not relent. You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek. By so much more, Jesus has become a surety of a better covenant.

Also, there were many priests because they were prevented by death from continuing. But he, because he continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood. Therefore he is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

For such a high priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens, who does not need daily as those high priests to offer up sacrifices, first for his own sins and then for the people’s. For this he did once for all when he offered up himself. For the law appoints as high priests men who have weakness, but the word of the oath which came after the law appoints the Son who has been perfected forever.

And you may be seated. So it compares the two. It compares Jesus as the high priest under this new covenant with the priests under the old covenant.

And we need to understand what the role of a priest is. And if you’re like me and you were raised up Baptist, The idea of a priest is sort of foreign to us, right? I had, as a kid, I had neighbors who were Catholic, and I was fascinated by the idea that they would go and talk to a priest. Now, I didn’t understand all the theological implications of it, but I was kind of fascinated by this idea just because it was so foreign to me.

But the idea of a priest now in that system, just like in the Old Testament system or really any religion that uses priests, they’re sort of a go-between. Ideally, they’re a go-between between God and the people. They’re somebody to stand in between God and the people, and they advocate before God on behalf of the people.

So they’re the ones that go in before God and plead on behalf of the people. Sort of like Moses when he would go into God and say, please don’t destroy Israel. So a priest would advocate on behalf of the people.

The priest in the Old Testament would go to God with the sacrifices and the offerings so that God might not destroy the people that they represent. They would also represent God to the people. They would bring the message of God and tell the people, this is what God says, this is what God wants you to do, this is how you’ll be right with God.

They were sort of the mediators between the two. They would offer sacrifices to atone for the people’s sins because we need to be made right with God. And so in the Old Testament, they would offer the blood of bulls and goats.

They would offer rams. They would offer all sorts of things. It’s all spelled out in the Old Testament, all the things that they would offer.

today in the Roman Catholic Church they offer the mass which is a sacrifice they believe the literal body and blood of Jesus Christ is being offered to atone for the sins of the people the idea of a priest is somebody who’s going to offer the sacrifices to make us right with God their job ultimately the job ultimately of a priest is to keep somebody in a right relationship with God because we can’t do it on our own we we mess it up can any of you go a full day without sinning because if you say you can you just lied and there you know as soon as I wake up in the morning the attitudes and things that are in my heart are already sinful so I can’t go a day without sinning I’m fortunate if by the time I put my feet on the floor getting out of bed if I haven’t done anything sinful or thought anything sinful we are sinners and left to our own devices we are going to continue to be sinful.

And we’re going to continue to do things that mess up the relationship that we have with God. And so a priest is needed. Somebody is needed who can keep us in that right relationship with God.

But the book of Hebrews tells us that a human priest is only partly effective in that role. We do need a priest. Again, that may be news to some of you. We do need a priest, But a human priest is only partly effective in that role.

What these priests did prepared us so that we would understand what Jesus came to do when he came and how he would do it better. Because think about it, if Jesus had come and just kind of stepped out randomly into time and space, come into the world and said, and nobody’s ever heard anything like this before, and Jesus said, I’m here to make you right with God. I’m here to go between you and God.

I’m here to be your mediator. And God hadn’t spent thousands of years preparing the Jewish people to understand this, they would have said, are you crazy? Which they did that anyway.

But nobody would have had a clue what he was talking about. It would have been like when our missionaries go to countries where the culture does not have this idea of blood sacrifice, does not have this idea of atonement. And they have to start, they can’t just start by explaining the gospel and what Jesus came to do.

Many times they will have to go back to the book of Genesis and explain the story of God’s creation and then the fall and how we’ve been separated from God and they will have to lay those foundations for the gospel. The priests were in part that foundation so that we would understand when Jesus came, He was coming to be that mediator that would go between us and God. He was coming to do for us what we could not do for ourselves.

And again, Hebrews 7 explains how He does it better than anybody else ever could. So what is it that makes Jesus a better priest? We’re going to see a few things in here this morning that make him a better priest than Melchizedek, than Aaron, than any of the high priests that were putting him on trial better than anybody who claims the priesthood today.

Jesus is superior to all of them. And the first reason is that his ministry is eternal. Jesus’ ministry is unchanging. See, the Old Testament priests served unless they messed up.

The Old Testament priests could do things to disqualify themselves from ministry. As a matter of fact, the Old Testament priests could do things that would disqualify them from life. There are examples in the Old Testament of the priests doing something so egregious that God just said, okay, I’m taking you out of here before you do any more damage.

And they would end up losing their lives. These men were priests in the Old Testament who served until and unless they messed up. Or until and unless they died.

But you’ll see in verses 20 and 21 that we read where he’s talking about an oath, and you may not know what he’s talking about there. they were just sort of priests because they were born into it. And they were there until they messed up.

But Jesus serves with a promise. This oath that he’s talking about is not an oath that was sworn by the priests. This oath that he’s talking about is an oath from God the Father.

That God the Father has sworn an oath. He’s made a promise that Jesus Christ is going to be there as our priest. He’s going to be there interceding for us. He’s going to be there advocating for us no matter what.

How can we know that’s true? Because God promised. Not that God needs to promise.

If God says it, that’s the way it’s going to be. But to show us how serious he was about this, God promised. Sort of like the other day, Benjamin told me, I said, I need you to promise me that you’re, I need to trust that you’re going to do X, Y, and Z, whatever it was.

He said, I’ll pinky promise. What? Okay.

I sort of felt like E. T. reaching out fingers here.

I don’t know. This is something I think my mother taught him, pinky promising, because that’s not something I do. Okay, and so we do this, and he says, and I don’t break pinky promises, and he didn’t.

I’m like, well, that’s good to know, but why can’t you just tell me yes and not break that? God doesn’t need to pinky promise us, but he did. He said, I’m going to swear an oath.

He was not made a priest without an oath like these others. He was not just made a priest and a priest unless and until. He was not just made a priest for a little while, but there is an oath that’s been sworn.

He, with an oath by him, said to him, the Lord has sworn and will not relent. God has promised this, and he says, God will not go back on his word. He’s not going to relent.

You are a priest forever. Speaking of his son, Jesus Christ, God the Father promised, not just promising him that he was going to serve as a priest, but promised us that in Jesus Christ, we would have a priest, we would have a mediator, We would have an advocate. We would have somebody going to bat for us who would never walk away from his ministry, who would never be disqualified from his ministry, who would never fail at it.

But he will be there today, tomorrow, the next day, every rainy day, every bad day in this lifetime, in the generations to come. He is there and will be there until the end of time advocating for us with our Father. He’s not going to go away.

His ministry on our behalf is so certain that the Bible here calls him the surety, the guarantee of God’s covenant in verse 22. Jesus has become a surety of a better covenant. How can we know that God’s going to fulfill his promises to forgive us?

How can we know that God is going to fulfill his promises to always be with us? How can we know that God is going to fulfill his promises that one day he’s going to receive us to himself because he gave us his son to prove it? Jesus is the surety.

He’s the down payment. He’s the proof and the guarantee. And unlike these Old Testament priests, there is nothing.

And if you feel like I’m repeating myself, I am, but it’s because the Bible keeps going on this point in verses 23 and 24. Unlike these Old Testament priests, there’s nothing that can remove Jesus from his priestly office, not even death itself. It says here in verse 23 that there were many priests.

There had to be many priests that served in the Old Testament because they kept dying. And a dead priest isn’t going to do much good for you to stand between you and God because He can’t fulfill His ministry. And so they’d have to get more because one generation of priests would die and they’d have to get more.

But Jesus Christ is not stopped by death from being our high priest. As a matter of fact, it’s His death that made Him our great high priest because He died and He rose again to conquer death. And because He died and He rose again, He lives to die no more and He’s able to forever and ever and ever serve as that high priest who stands in the gap and keeps us right with God. Not even death itself.

You know, for each of us, there comes a day when we, if the Lord delays His coming long enough, each of us has an appointment with death, even those of us in ministry, and one day our days of ministry will be over. Not so for Jesus. He will always be there.

His ministry is eternal. And that alone is enough to make Him superior to every priest who has ever walked the face of the earth. But there’s more. Sometimes I say that I feel like one of those guys on the infomercials.

But wait, there’s more. Call now. We see in verses 25 and 26 that his ministry is meaningful in a way that nobody else’s was.

It doesn’t mean that the Old Testament priests didn’t do anything or that they didn’t accomplish anything or that they were just playing at what they were doing. No, they were serving God and they were being faithful, but what they were doing merely pointed ahead to what Jesus was going to come and actually accomplish. There’s a meaning to his sacrifice and to his ministry that nobody else can come close to.

The ministry of the Old Testament priests, it brought people a degree of peace with God. So they would come and they would offer these sacrifices, but they didn’t just do it one time, did they? They were out there practically every day offering sacrifices for somebody, and we as God’s people would have had to go multiple times.

There were some offerings that were made once a year. There were some offerings that were made every time we did a particular action or a particular sin. Sometimes not even a sinful action, but just one that violated the ceremonial law and we’d have to go and get ceremonially clean and right with God.

There were sacrifices being offered constantly because the blood of that sacrifice that was offered by the priest, it brought people a degree of peace with God. They could be right with God for a little while. It might cover the sin for a little while, but there was always another sin.

There was always another falling short and another sacrifice had to be offered. They were able to bring us some degree of peace with God, but Jesus Christ brings full and lasting salvation. That’s why verse 25 tells us He is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him.

He’s not able just to save us a little. He’s not able just to save us until the next time we mess up. He’s not able to save us just until God figures out that we really do fall short after all.

He’s not able just to save us and then it’s up to us to keep ourselves in that position. Jesus Christ is able to save us to the uttermost. He’s able to forgive every single sin, not just the ones we’ve committed, but past, present, and future He covers it all. What about bad days that we all have?

Yeah, we’re saved to the uttermost even then. What about when we inevitably disappoint God? Have you ever felt that way?

As soon as you did something or said something or thought something, you just had that overwhelming feeling, I’ve let my Father down. I hate that. That’s the worst feeling.

Even on those days, we are saved to the uttermost. Because it’s not dependent on these little sacrifices that have to be offered over and over and over by some human priest. But God the Son became a man and offered Himself. He was the priest and He was the sacrifice. He was offered once for all to cover our sins.

He’s able to save us completely and forever in a way that no human ever could. Also, the Old Testament priests had another problem. They were supposed to intercede before God for sinners.

They were supposed to go to God on behalf of other sinners, but they were sinners themselves. And so before they could even approach God, they had to do something to deal with their own sin. There was this stumbling block between them and God before they could even deal with our stumbling blocks.

Jesus doesn’t have that problem. He has access to the Father that these priests could only dream about. And with that access, He goes and He pleads our case before the Father continually.

It says here in verse 26 that this high priest Jesus, He was fitting for us. He was exactly what we needed. He’s holy.

He’s harmless. He’s undefiled. He’s separate from sinners.

That means He doesn’t share in the sinfulness that we have. He doesn’t face those stumbling blocks. He was tempted in every way that we are, but without sin.

And the Apostle Paul calls Him He who knew no sin, but was made to become sin for us. Jesus Christ doesn’t have to go to the Father dealing with His own sin before He can deal with ours. He just goes and deals with ours.

And He’s become higher than the heavens. He’s right there in the presence of His Father. pleading our case.

And so you and I through Jesus Christ have a meaningful connection and relationship with God that we could not have otherwise. Because guess what? If we were to look to some other human priest, whether it was in the Old Testament or whether it’s today, if we look to some other human priest, they are also sinners like we are.

And they need the same high priest that we need. To go through them is just to add an extra step. The one we really want in our corner is the one who is holy Himself and is sitting there at the right hand of God the Father.

making intercession for us. He’s right there higher than the heavens so that He can minister on our behalf. We see that His ministry is not only eternal and it’s meaningful, but it’s effectual as well in verses 27 and 28.

See, the Old Testament priests needed to deal with their own sin, as I said, before they went in and made the sacrifices. It says in verse 27, they went in and made sacrifices first for His own sins and then for the people’s. Jesus has no sin.

100% of his effort in this area is put toward dealing with our sin because he has no sin of his own to deal with. In the Old Testament, priests needed to offer sacrifices repeatedly because the offerings were never enough to last. They could never save us completely because they would never last. Verse 27 tells us that Jesus only needed to offer himself one time. It says, he does not need daily as those high priests to offer up sacrifices first for his own sins and then for the people’s like they had to?

For this he did once for all when he offered up himself. Once was enough. Once was all he needed.

If you do it the right way, it only has to be done once. So why would we go through somebody who has to make sacrifices over and over and over and it’s never enough? Has to make atonement over and over and over and it’s never enough?

Tries to bring us some degree of peace with God, but it’s never enough. Why would we go through another person when Jesus Christ offered Himself and it was enough. If we want to be right with God, Jesus Christ and what He did was enough.

He’s not plagued by human weakness. It says in verse 27 that He’s perfected. Or maybe that’s 28.

Verse 28, that He has been perfected forever. For Him to be perfected, it doesn’t mean that He started out imperfect and God made Him perfect. Jesus Christ is God the Son, the second member of the Trinity.

He’s always been perfect in the sense that God is perfect. This word that we see perfect in the Bible often means completed. And what this means is that Jesus Christ, by the time He went through the agony of the cross, and He shed His blood and He suffered and died, He went through all of that for us, and then He was buried, and then He rose again in victory three days later, proving His ability to forgive sins, proving that He was everyone and everything He claimed to be, proving once and for all that He was the Son of God and the Savior, proving His victory over sin and over death, and then ascending again back to the Father, after He’d gone through all of this, His work was completed.

And He stands complete with all that we ever need to be right with God. Our high priest, in contrast to all the other human priests who have ever lived, our high priest is complete with everything that we need. He’s got it all right there.

He’s done all the work. He’s accomplished everything that’s necessary. And He’s perfected forever.

So that no matter what happens, no matter who it is he remains enough for us it doesn’t matter in this sense how far you’ve run from God it doesn’t affect God’s ability to save one one bit how far you’ve run from him how low you’ve gone how many times you’ve messed up people will say you you don’t know what I’ve done I don’t have to God knows what you’ve done God knows how far you’ve wandered and he still says that Jesus Christ is enough. This morning, if you’re looking for a relationship with God, this morning, if you realize you don’t have that relationship with God, that He’s distant and He’s far away and you need peace with Him, you know you’ve messed up, you know you’ve disappointed Him, you’re carrying around the burden, the weight of this guilt and this sin, and you know that you’re not right with God. And you’re looking for the way to get there, how to be right with God.

And maybe you thought, Well, if I just go to church, maybe God will see that and give me extra credit and maybe that’ll work. Maybe I’ll give money. Maybe I’ll start trying to do good things.

Maybe I’ll start checking off all the boxes and saying maybe that’ll be enough. It won’t. Jesus Christ is enough.

If you’re looking for a relationship with God, if you’re looking for peace with Him, you’re not going to find it through a human priest. You’re not going to find it through a human religious leader. You’re not even going to find it through a religious organization. Now we will preach Jesus Christ who is the one who can get you there.

But it’s not Central Baptist Church that is going to get you into a right relationship with God. It is not Jared. Let me repeat this again so we can make absolutely sure.

It is not Jared that is going to get you into a right relationship with God. It’s Jesus Christ. He is the high priest who stands complete with all we need for that relationship. He’s the greatest priest we could ever have.

And that makes him the only priest we ever need. And so this morning, if you want that forgiveness, if you want a relationship with God, you want to be unburdened from the weight of that sin. Every time you’ve disobeyed and disappointed Him, you want to be unburdened from that.

You want to let go of that. And you want to have peace with Him. Be reconciled with Him.

There’s one way and only one way to have that. Now that’s not my opinion. That’s not the church’s opinion.

That’s what Jesus Christ said when He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. And no man comes unto the Father but by me. He said it, not me.

Take it up with Him. All right, if you want that, there’s one way to have it, and that’s through Jesus Christ. And this morning, if you’ll recognize that you’ve sinned against him, that you have disobeyed him and disappointed him, and that that sin separates you from him, and you’ll recognize, you’ll believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross. He shed his blood and he died in your place to pay for your sins as the only way that you can have that forgiveness and that peace with God, and that he rose again three days later to prove it.

you recognize all that, then you can ask God this morning for forgiveness. Not because you’ve earned it, not because you deserve it, but because Jesus Christ paid for it. And because Jesus Christ is there at the right hand of God the Father pleading your case as the greatest priest you could ever have and the only one you could ever need.