Exploring My Strange Bible - Book of Hebrews Part 5 - Jesus is your Priest

Episode Date: January 1, 2018

This section is about showing that Jesus is the human embodiment of the priesthood from the Old Testament. Why should we care about Jesus of Nazareth now in the 21st century? The pastor who wrote this letter is convinced that that matters a lot. In fact, the very meaning of Jesus’ life and the resurrection affects your ability to see that he is your priest. Learn more in this episode.

Tim Mackey, Jr. utterly amazing and worth following with everything that you have. On this podcast, I'm putting together the last 10 years worth of lectures and sermons where I've been exploring the strange and wonderful story of the Bible and how it invites us into the mission of Jesus and the journey of faith. And I hope this can be helpful for you too. I also help start this thing called The Bible Project. We make animated videos and podcasts about all kinds of topics in Bible and theology. You can find those resources at thebibleproject.com. With all that said, let's dive into the episode for this week. All right, we're continuing on in our series of explorations in the New Testament letter to the Hebrews. And in this teaching, these were lectures and teachings I gave many years ago,

this one is focused on Hebrews chapter 7, which begins a whole series of meditations that the author, the pastor of the letter gives, about showing that Jesus is the human embodiment of the priesthood from the Old Testament, but not your average Israelite priesthood, but rather this unique, one-of-a-kind priest that shows up in the book of Genesis named Melchizedek. That's what the whole set of chapters of Hebrews 7 and then onward into the letter are all about. So first of all, why should you care? Why should you care? Sitting here in the 21st century, the Jesus of Nazareth and what he did and his life, death, and resurrection was a fulfillment of the even more ancient priesthood of this guy named Melchizedek

in Jerusalem. What does that have to do with anything? Well, the pastor who wrote this letter is convinced that that matters a lot. In fact, the very meaning of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection hinges on your ability to see that he is your priest and that he's a priest in the line of Melchizedek. So what's up with that? Why is this so significant? Well, it's really significant. These ancient stories from Genesis actually illuminate a part of who Jesus is

and what he has done for us in a really, really neat way. So there you go. Prepare to really learn about ancient priests in the Old Testament and what this means for understanding Jesus. I think this stuff's really cool and I hope that by the time this is all done that you'll think it's really cool too. So let's open up and dive in. So today we're moving into a new set of chapters, chapter 7, 8, 9, 10. We're not going to do all that today, don't worry.

We're just going to land in chapters 5 and 7. But he's opening up kind of a new section of discussion and exploration of the character of Jesus, and that is that Jesus is a priest. He's the royal son. He's the Messiah. He's the creator God become human. He's the king from the line of David. And chapter 7, 8, 9, 10, he's exploring how Jesus is the long-awaited priest, the priest. We finished off last week at the end of chapter 6. Why don't you turn there, turn there with me while I turn my Bible right side up. All right, Hebrews 6. So we ended last week with a really cool passage, if you were here, about the promises of God to us in Jesus. And it was a really powerful conclusion. Look at chapter 6, verse 19. He said, we have this, these promises of God to us

in Jesus, we have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul. It's a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Now, some of us, we may have read verse 19, the sure and steadfast anchor, and our hearts are warmed. What a beautiful image, the anchor, the anchor of our soul. And then we come to this other stuff about curtains and high priest and the order of Melchizedek and our hearts are not as warm and fuzzy because we're like what does that mean what curtains what Melchizedek who's that what does this have to do with anything and so he's ushering us into this next whole part of the sermon exploring what it means for Jesus to be a priest to be our priest your your priest, and mine. And automatically we're at a disadvantage

because of the cultural gap between us and the writer and the audience because priests were very familiar to these people living in the first century. The Jewish temple was still standing, had an ancient, ancient practice. Coming into contact with priests was part of the rhythm of life for jewish communities and the early jewish christians as well and we don't i don't know does any i mean some of us might be know a priest or something you know maybe some of us grew up around in catholic tradition so we might be familiar kind of with what priests are and what they do the catholic it's different than early judaism and so what's the comparison but most of us don't come into contact with or have categories for priests. We just don't deal

with priests on a daily level. They don't, that's not a part of our lives. And so what we need to do first is kind of, is do some background work on what does it mean to be a priest, and what does it mean for Jesus to be our priest? And this is not just abstract history or something like that. This is the core part of Jesus's identity. If I say I follow Jesus, and if Jesus's role is one primarily of being a priest, I need to figure out what this means for me to connect and commune with this one who is my priest. Look at chapter 5, verse 1, and I think it's actually one of the most helpful definitions of what it means to be a priest in the whole Bible. Chapter 5, verse 1, the preacher, he says, for every high priest is chosen from among men and is appointed to act on behalf of men in relationship to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.

That's a pretty simple, pretty clear definition, even if we may not be used to this kind of thing anywhere in our day-to-day lives. So you have priests. This is some sort of divinely appointed group or family, group of people. And what do they do? They mediate, they're go-betweens, between two parties, right? You have humans and you have God. And there's some sort of breach or gap between those two, and this is the group of people who act on behalf of humanity before God. Now, there just may be a...

Okay, I can grasp that intellectually, but we just don't have a lot of traction with this idea. At least we think we don't. But I actually think we do. We have something like this in many of our everyday transactions and just kind of life in general. So what do I mean? I'd like to introduce you to the concept of priesthood by showing you the engine of my car. Yes, right there. The engine of my car, I'm the proud, proud owner of a 1998 Ford or Honda Civic. Anybody Honda Civic owners? Yeah? They go. They just go. They keep going. So we're at 200,000 and going strong, like no signs of trouble, you know, and so it's going to go. So there's the engine of this car. Now here's what happens. I don't drive as much now

that we moved to Portland to ride my bike more, but, you know, we've had this car for years and I'm very comfortable driving it, you know, and I've no, just get in, turn on, turn on the key, what? Turn on, turn the key in the ignition, and it just works. I know how to do it. I don't for one second have a mental picture or start wondering and thinking about this right here. You know what I'm saying? When I drive my car, I'm thinking about the lights and other people.

I'm just driving. I'm using the car. It makes sense to me. But there are times when all of a sudden I'm very aware of this world of my car right here. And that's when it breaks down. And so then I open my hood or it won't start or something. And I look in there. And I get utterly bewildered and scared and frustrated.

Because I'm not mechanical. I'm not inclined that way. It's not intuitive for me. And I have no idea. This is a fearful world right here. I know where the blue thing is where I put the blue fluid to make my window clean. And the black cap up there on the thing where it says Honda is where I put oil. And there you go.

If I want anything else to be done to my car, I am not qualified. I'm not qualified. I just don't want to. And some of you are like this. Some of you, your idea of a good time is to spend a Saturday underneath the hood of your car. I have a different view of what's fun on Saturdays. And so I am more than willing to pay someone to work on my car so that I can do something else on my Saturdays.

And so I never think about this until something's wrong, until something's broken. And then when it does, I'm not the one to do it. I'm not qualified and I don't want to. So we have these places, brilliant, wonderful. I have one just down the street from our place now. They are temples, so to speak. Temples, they're sacred spaces,

i.e. they're set apart for a particular purpose, for the repair of broken automobiles. Go figure, you know what I'm saying? And so they're sacred in the sense that they're set apart for a particular purpose, for the repair of broken automobiles. Go figure, you know what I'm saying? And so they're sacred in the sense that they're set apart for that. You don't go eat dinner there, you don't have a cup of tea there, whatever. You go there for this purpose, get your car fixed, and there is a priesthood, so to speak, of individuals who are uniquely trained, they're qualified to repair the car, and they get to wear adult onesies, too, which, go figure. You know what I mean. You guys know what I'm talking about.

When I ride here to the office in the mornings, I ride my bike right past one, and near upper division, and they're always standing there in their onesies with, like, their cups of coffee there. Just like, you know, these, like, dudes in there. That's what they're doing at 8 a.m. every morning or whatever. And so that's where they are. They wear the onesies. And they're a priesthood of sorts.

Because when they're there, their sole purpose is to use their qualified status to do this exact job. When I open the hood of my car, there's a large gap of fear and lack of knowledge between me. I need someone to come between me and my car when it's broken. Not when I'm driving, it's fine, but it's broken. This is priests, it's priests. And so if you think about it, we actually come into contact with this idea of go-betweens who do something for us that we don't want to do or couldn't do on our own. This is like every day for us. do or couldn't do on our own. This is like every day for us. And so whatever, like here at Dwarf Hope, we employ half of the priests of the coffee bean here, apparently in the city or something like that. It would be something similar. We often worship at the temple of the coffee bean. But

that's the idea. Unique people, uniquely trained for specific, specific tasks. And so underneath this idea is that the priests are repairing something. Something's been broken. And the idea of priesthood is really core to just the storyline of the whole Bible. Something has been deeply broken and distorted with how, as human beings, we relate to the creator God and how we relate to each other. We've become morally compromised. The engine's broken, so to speak. We need someone

who's qualified to do something about that. And in the story of Israel, that group of people were called priests. They somehow represent broken, morally compromised people before the justice and holiness of God. And they do it through... Now, can just anybody become a priest? Could you waltz into ancient Israel, Jerusalem, temple? Hey guys, here I am. I want to be a priest. Can you just do that? You could not do that. It would be Portland-like to try

and do that, but you wouldn't be able to. Look at verse 4 of chapter 5. He says, no one takes this honor on themselves to become a priest only when called by god just as aaron was in in the the people of israel one particular tribe and one family was selected this uniquely qualified group of people to be priests of the family of aaron of the tribe of what of levi the tribe of leo 12 tribes of Of the family of Aaron, of the tribe of what? Of Levi.

The tribe of Levi. Twelve tribes of Israel. One of the tribes, Levi. One of the families, Aaron. Select group. These are the go-betweens that represent the people before God. And so it was very scandalous then. Imagine this. Put yourself back in that first century.

And you hear about this Jewish prophet and healer and teacher coming through your village, and he comes and he heals a paralyzed man, and then he says in front of everybody, he says he sees the faith of those who bring him, and he says, son, your sins are forgiven. And we think, oh, yeah, Jesus forgives sin. He's Jesus.

That's what he does. No, no. What is people's reactions when Jesus publicly announces that someone's sins is forgiven? What do the leaders of Jewish culture do? They're totally ticked off. They're scandalized. They're angry. You don't just do that kind of, there's only one group of people who are uniquely qualified to represent God and pronounce forgiveness, and that's the family of Aaron of the tribe of Levi in the temple in Jerusalem. You don't, who's this guy waltzing around pronouncing, acting like he's a priest? He's acting like he's a priest. On what authority? Let's keep, keep reading. Verse five. authority. Let's keep reading. Verse 5. He says, so also Christ, he didn't exalt himself to be made a high priest. Rather, he was appointed by the one who said to him, and then he quotes from

two places in the Old Testament scriptures here. He quotes Psalm 2. You are my son, today I have begotten you. And he says in another place, you are a priest forever according to the order of lo and behold who? Melchizedek. So the author of Hebrews, he turns to the scriptures, the Psalms, many of which in the shape of the book of Psalms are songs pointing forward to the coming of this king, the king from the line of David. He quotes Psalm 2, which spoke of this king, the king from the line of David. He quotes Psalm 2, which spoke of a king who would come from the line of David, who would be the son of the one true God and call the true God his father, and he would reign over a kingdom of

all nations. But he would not just be a king, the book of Psalms says. Psalm 110, the second passage he quotes, says that this king coming from the line of David the Messiah would also be what? How you guys doing? Yeah, okay, it's warm. This Messiah king, he would also be what, according to the second quote? The priest, a priest, but not a priest according to the normal line of priesthood in Israel, that's the tribe of Levi, the family of Aaron, this is a new kind of priesthood according to the order of Melchizedek. This is deeply scandalous to say this kind of thing and for Jesus to claim this kind of thing concerning himself. It would be like come this fall, there would be some presidential candidate who just starts running

like he just runs his own thing. Ralph Nader or something like that. I don't know who kind of does that. But it would be just like, on what authority? Who do you represent? On whose authority do you try to claim to be president? My own authority. And the ancient authority of this ancient priesthood of Melchizedek. What is that about?

What's going on there? Welcome to Hebrews chapter 7. Let's go there. Hebrews 7. Who is Melchizedek? That this coming Messiah, he'll be a priest according to that line. To do that, the author of Hebrews needs to turn to the one other place in the whole Bible where this obscure Melchizedek is mentioned, and that's what? It's the book of Genesis, chapter 14. Look at the first sentences of chapter 7 here. He says, For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of God Most High,

he met Abraham after returning from the slaughter of the kings, and he blessed him. And to him, Abraham apportioned a tenth of everything. All right, let's stop real quick here. He's just summarized the story for you in Genesis chapter 14. But let's just back up. Let's go there. We'll put up here on the screen because what he's drawing out here is really, really significant. The author of Hebrews thinks if you are going to recognize Jesus as your priest, and if Jesus is a priest according to the order of Melchizedek, you should

know something about this Melchizedek figure, because it helps you understand how Jesus is your priest, what he can do for you as your priest. So he appeals to the story. So the story of Abraham, he's already gone into the land of Canaan. And there were a bunch of kings of cities that got together and they made war on a bunch of kings of other cities, right? Nothing much changes, right? Ancient world and modern, there you go. So kings do what kings do. And they end up kidnapping Lot. Excuse me, I just gave it away. I was going to say Abraham's nephew, his name is Lot. Lot, okay. So they kidnapped Lot. And so Abraham's ticked. He's like, you don't take my nephew. And so he gets 318 soldiers and they go and they raid and ambush this little coalition of kings.

They beat them and they get all their plunder and so on. And so Abraham comes and he's, you know, all of the kings that he rescued and so on, and they're all happy to meet him. And so he rescued one of these kings right here. After Abram returned from defeating Kedor laomer and the kings allied with him, the king of Sodom came out to meet him, i.e. to thank him in some way. And they met him in the valley of Shaveh, that is in the king's valley. So this king is coming out to meet Abraham and then he's intercepted by some other king who gets there first. And who would that happen to be? This is Melchizedek. But then Melchizedek, king of Salem, he got there first and he brought out bread and wine. He greets Abraham, weary from war and so on, brings bread and wine to refresh him.

And he was a priest of God Most High. He blessed Abram, saying, Blessed be Abram by God Most High, creator of heaven and earth, and praise be to God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand. And Abram, who recognizes he's in the presence of greatness, of a very significant figure, he gives him a tenth of all of the plunder

from the war. And that's the story. And so you understand Jesus so much better after reading this story. What? Does this have to do with anything? Okay, so there's a few things. One, so this guy Melchizedek, he's a priest. He's a priest of God Most High, which is a name attributed to the God of Israel. In other words, he's a priest of the same God that later the Israelite priests will serve. But is Melchizedek an Israelite? No, the Israelites don't exist yet because Abram hasn't had any kids by this point. So no, he's this Gentile priest of the one true God and he's a superior to Abraham.

Like he pronounces a blessing on Abraham and Abraham gives him a tenth of everything. Who is this guy? And why does Psalm 110 say when the Messiah comes, his priesthood will be a priesthood like this guy? Hmm. The plot thickens. Okay. So none of us woke up thinking about this. You know what I'm saying? Like, and I recognize most of us, like, don't even care about this. So let's just be real. So that's okay. I'm trying to generate interest here. Because for one reason or another, the author of Hebrews, and I think a good reason, but you have to read through the end of the chapter.

For good reason, this is significant for understanding who Jesus is to you. So just follow me. Trail of breadcrumbs. Just follow me here. All right. Why is this guy significant for understanding Jesus' priesthood? Let's go back to Hebrews here. He's going to bring some elements about Melchizedek out of this story.

Halfway through verse 2. He says, Melchizedek, he is first of all, by the translation of his name, he's a king of righteousness. Melchizedek means king of righteousness in Hebrew. Then he is also king of Salem, which is another word, not for the capital of Oregon, not Salem, Oregon, and not Salem, Massachusetts. This is another word for the city of Jerusalem, right? In the land of Canaan at that time, Salem, Jerusalem, it's just another name. And Salem is the Hebrew word connected to the word

for shalom, peace. He's the king of Salem. He's the king of peace. And we go, oh yeah, that's cool. Jesus, king of righteousness, king of peace. I like that. It's good. It's a good one. Keep reading. Verse three. He is without father or mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God, he continues as a priest forever. Now, where do you see that in the story? So, what? I don't, okay, I see the king of peace and so on.

What? So what on earth is he talking about? Mothers and fathers and genealogies. What is happening? What's happening here? Okay, so again, remember, who is uniquely qualified in Israel to be the group of priests, the tribe of Levi, the family of Aaron? So you can't just waltz around being a priest of the one true God, but apparently this guy can. Now, some people have misunderstood this thing of saying without father, without mother, without genealogy, thinking, oh, like, he didn't have any parents. He's like an angelic, he's an angel figure, or like, he was unborn,

he's eternal, or something like that. But that's not what he's getting at at all here. He says he's without genealogy. See, if you're a priest in the ancient world, it's all about your family. What family are you from? Especially in Israel, tribe of Levi, family of Abraham. You can't just be a priest if you don't have the right family. Genealogy means everything to these people in this world of ancient priests and so on. And lo and behold, you know, lucky for us, there actually is a genealogy of priests in the Bible itself, of Levi. Did you know this was in there? It's a good bedtime reading of 1 Chronicles chapter 6. There you go. So, there you go. That's it. So, this is the genealogy of Aaron and Levi, of the family of priests. If you can't trace your ancestry to here, you don't get to be a priest. You can't be one in

Israel. You're not qualified. But this Melchizedek, he's a priest of the same God that those guys represent too. But Melchizedek doesn't have a gene. Do you read a genealogy anywhere in Genesis 14? So somehow qualification for this priesthood of Melchizedek is not based on family lineage, on your mother or your father or your genealogy. That's what he's getting at here. It's not mentioned because in this priesthood, that doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter. Look at what else he says based off of Genesis 14. He says, Melchizedek has neither beginning of days nor end of life. Now, I would not have picked that up from the story in Genesis 14. Where's he going? Where's he going with this? So as he's going to say in just a second here, there were loads of priests in Israel. Loads, tons of them.

Why? Because they're mortal, broken humans trying to represent before God other mortal, broken humans. And the problem with the priests is that they're supposed to repair this brokenness between God and the humans, but they keep dying. And they keep being sinful, broken humans themselves. And so everyone dies. Is there anything about Melchizedek's birth or death

in connection to his priesthood anywhere in the story in Genesis 14? No, no. It's like his priesthood doesn't depend on there being a priest who lived in, it's like the priesthood lives on. And so he says at the end of chapter, of verse three here,

he says he resembles the son of God, he continues as a priest forever. It's okay. Some of your translations might have, he continues as a priest perpetually. I think that's a more accurate translation of what's happening here. In other words, Melchizedek's priesthood lasted apparently as long as he lived. And so it's not mentioned when he lived, was born, it's not mentioned when he died, and it creates this role of a priesthood here, this priesthood. Melchizedek lives on, I think, in the same way that kind of Elvis lives on when you play his music or something, right?

Every time you read the story of Genesis 14, you're reminded of this priesthood. It's very different than the Levi-Aaron priesthood because those priests come and go. They live and die. They're broken, mortal human beings. But this Melchizedek, he's mysterious and he was apparently a priest as long as he lived. Can you imagine what would happen if a priest came along over whom death had no power? Then they would be able to last in this priesthood for how long?

See, forever, where he's taking us here. Which is precisely what he said in Psalm 110. Look at chapter 5, verse 6 again. He quoted Psalm 110 and said, The Messiah is a priest according to the order of Melchizedek for how long? He's a priest forever. And so he sees in Melchizedek a resemblance of a priesthood that points to the

priesthood of Jesus. It's perpetual. It's ongoing. It's not based on family lineage. How you guys doing? I know this is an ancient history lesson so far. We'll get, we'll get there. This has cash value at the end. Well, not really, but better than cash value. You'll see what I mean. In the section that follows next, we won't, we won't read through all of chapter 7. That would take too long. We'll summarize. In verses 4 through 10, he basically makes this point. He says, Melchizedek, now this priest Melchizedek, he was superior to Abraham, right? Abraham gave him a tenth of everything, and Melchizedek blessed Abraham. Levi and the whole line of priests come from Abraham. Therefore, Melchizedek is superior to them. And if Jesus is a priest, according to the order of Melchizedek, what's

his relationship to Israel's priesthood? He's superior to it. He's superior. This is what he goes on to say. Look at verse 11. He says, if perfection had been attainable through the priesthood of Levi, because under that priesthood the people received the law at Mount Sinai and so on, what further need would there have been for another priest to arise according to the order of Melchizedek rather than the one named according to the order of Aaron? Burning question from all of us, I know. For when there's a change of the priesthood, there's necessarily a change of the law because Israel's relationship to God was based on the sacrifices and offerings of the priesthood who came from the line of Levi in the family of Aaron. But the one of whom all this is spoken, Jesus, he belonged to another tribe

from which no one has ever served at the altar. It's evident that our Lord, our Lord Jesus, he was descended from what tribe? Not Levi, from Judah. And in connection with that tribe, Moses said nothing, nothing about priests. Jesus goes waltzing around acting like a priest, priests. Jesus goes waltzing around acting like a priest even though he does not have the right to be an official priest in Israel. It's because the priesthood he stands on and represents is more ancient and superior to the priesthood of Levi. How? Why is it superior? This is where the cash value starts to come in here, I think. Verse 15. This becomes even more evident when another priest arises in the likeness of Melchizedek. He has become a priest, not on the basis of like legal requirements

about your family lineage and descent and so on. No, no, no. He's become a priest by the power of an indestructible life. It's such a great description of Jesus. Jesus is uniquely qualified to be a priest on behalf of broken, mortal, sinful humans because his life is indestructible. He conquers death, and his gift and how he works as a priest on our behalf is based in his power that he is an author of life. He's not a mere human. For it is witnessed

about him, you, the Messiah, Jesus, you are a priest for how long? Forever, according to the order of Melchizedek. You see, on the one hand, the former commandment about the Levi priesthood, that's all set aside because of its weakness and uselessness. You see, the laws made nothing perfect. It's kind of dense, but this is really profound what he's getting at here. What are priests for? Priests mediate on behalf of broken people like us, screwed up, sinful people, and they stand in this gap between us and God's holiness and his justice. But see, if the priests are just as morally compromised as we are, like, they can't do anything. And if all they do is offer animal sacrifices, what does that do? That doesn't actually solve the problem. It's like

putting a band-aid on a broken arm. Like, what is that going to do, right? It's like slaughtering an animal. That's not going to heal the brokenness of the human heart. And so that priesthood is set aside when the superior priest comes. On the other hand, a better hope is introduced through Jesus, and that's the priesthood through which we draw near to God. In the next section, he says it was with an oath. God swore an oath that the priest from Melchizedek would come. Go down to verse 23 with me. You see, these former priests, they were many in number, all kinds of them, because they were prevented by death from

continuing in office. They keep dropping like flies. They just keep dying. The priest, the priest. But see, Jesus, he holds his priesthood for how long? Permanently. Because he continues on forever. It's sort of like the priest of Melchizedek. I can think of it as like a help wanted sign. Help wanted, you know, priest who will never die and who will always be available to intercede on behalf of broken humans, you know, and apply within. And no one's qualified. The priesthood creates the possibility for such a priest, but no one ever comes until Jesus comes. And he fills this role so perfectly because he is the creator God become human. He is perpetually available as the author of life to stand as a priest to mediate on behalf of really screwed up people like us. This is good news for us. Yes? Yes. Yes. Verse 25. As a consequence then, he is able to save to the

uttermost those who draw near to God through him since he's always living to make intercession for them you guys it was fitting that we should have such a high priest he's holy he's innocent he's unstained he's separate from sinful people and he's exalted above the heavens he doesn't have any need like those other high priests to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people. Jesus did this once and for all when he offered up himself. And so the law appoints humans in their weakness as high priests, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, it appoints a son who has been made perfect forever. Amen and amen. Okay, we made it to number seven, right? So, how are you guys doing? I know this is dense. I know this is dense. But there's something really profound here. And it's where he ends, I think,

the real punch is in verse 25. We have this priest, this unique priest who's qualified to fix our car in ways that no other priest has ever been qualified before. And the deep mystery of the gospel is that the priest who comes to intercede between us and God is in fact the God become the priest to whom he represents us. Does that make any sense? Do you see that? He's the author of life. Become a priest on our behalf. And there are deep implications for this.

Jesus is a priest. Okay, that's cool. He's my priest. No. Remember, because underneath this assumption is that we need a priest. And that assumption is the deep storyline of the Bible, and it has radical implications for us. We're not okay.

You and I are not okay as we stand, left to our own devices. That's the claim. That's what's underneath the claim, that we need a priest. Our moral compromise of our hearts and our minds is so deep, it's so endemic to us as individuals and as communities and as societies. We're so broken. We cannot do for ourselves what needs to be done. The engine's too broken.

That's what's underneath this here. And so there is only one qualified person to heal the broken arm, and it's not with a band-aid. It's not with animal blood. It's by giving his own, the author of life gives his own life. He absorbs the death that we have all collectively and individually created in this world. He absorbs it into himself. he conquers it, and in the resurrection he offers life to those who turn to him in faith. We need a high priest because we're not okay. And this is not a popular idea in our culture, really. So in the hodgepodge of American style religious pluralism, you know, it's sort of a, okay,

you've got your way, I've got mine, all the roads lead to the same mountain, you know, this kind of way of thinking. And so Jesus is one way, but we're all trying to connect to God through different religious traditions and so on. And so I respect that that view exists in our culture, and maybe some of you hold that view. But I respectfully also have to say I disagree. And not because I'm trying to be a jerk or because I think I know everything, but the scriptures are trying to tell us that we're so broken

that there's only one possible way for us to find healing and reconnection to the one true God. There's only one person who's qualified, and that is the one true God himself. Come among us to do for us what we could never do for ourselves. And that's scandalous in our culture, and I totally realize that. And so maybe some of you have the many roads to lead to the top of the same mountain view, and I'm glad, we're glad you're here. Welcome to Door of Hope. But we're gathering around something different and something that is, I think, scandalous,

but also it's freeing. Because what it means is that if I'm left to wander up to the top of the mountain on my own steam, I'm in a world of trouble. I'm too broken. And so are you. And let's not kid ourselves. We need a high priest

who can do for us what we simply cannot do for ourselves. See, that's what's underneath this. And this is very, this is very powerful. This is about the good news of God coming to do for us what we could never do. And so I think this cashes out in lots of different ways. And so we come weekly. We're a community of Jesus. We're a community of the good news. And we gather around this core truth that we're going to be absorbing week after week for the next month here. We have a high priest. We have such a high priest. He's tailor-made, come exactly to meet us in our moral brokenness and in the brokenness of our lives. And he actually has the power to heal the broken heart.

He can actually fix the broken engine. He's the author of life. And so there may be different ones of us here. We're gonna, you know, we do every week. We transition into this time and space for worship. And the whole idea of a priest is that he comes to meet you. And if Jesus is perpetually alive and here to meet us, it means that he's here to be your priest now.

And that he's available and present and that he's real. And we believe that as a community. And so this may come to us in different ways. You know, there may be some of us and we're wrestling with the idea that I would even need such a thing as a priest. You know, like I thought I was just doing pretty good, you know, being a human being. And the gospel comes along and says,

no, we all suck at being human beings. We're horrible at it. And we're ruining each other in God's world while we try. We need a healer. We need a priest. And so some of us just need to sit with that hard truth to wrestle with it. There's only one priest available and he's calling me out to come to him.

And so for some of us, that's what we need to do with the time that remains. There may be others of us, and we believe that Jesus is our priest, and when we think about this and we come to him, we just, here comes all the guilt and the shame because I know that I'm broken as a human being, and I don't seem to know what to do about it. And so the good news comes and it says we have such a high priest. He's here to meet us.

He's here to mediate between you and God because he is God come to meet you in your brokenness. Some of us need to sit in the good news of God's grace tonight. There may be others of us who, you know, we're just struggling. We need wisdom. We're in a challenging season of life. And I love verse 25 because he says this priest, he's always available. He always lives to make intercession for us. Jesus, somehow he cares about your life more than you do. You know what I'm saying? He's already always interceding for you

because of what he did on the cross. And so some of us need just to come meet with Jesus as we gather here tonight in time of worship so he can be your priest in your time of need and confusion. And so that's what we're going to do with the time that remains. The bread and the cup are available. The bread and the cup speak of Jesus's priestly action on our behalf, giving his own life for us. If you want to pray, you know, with friends on the side, that's always open. If some of you need to pray with someone or have someone pray for you, our prayer teams are here on the riot. But this is our time. It's your time to meet with your priest. And he's here. And he's alive. And we believe he's real and that he'll come and meet us. Amen?

Hey, you guys. Thank you for listening to Exploring My Strange Bible podcast. We're going to keep on exploring the letter to the Hebrews in future episodes. So onward and upward. And we'll see you next time. Thank you.