Hebrews: With God
Guest preacher Cam Sardano from CoaH Forest Hills preaches from Hebrews 7:1-28. Discussion points: Melchizedek and Jesus are simultaneously kings and priests and embody righteousness and peace, salvation can’t be achieved through following the law or being perfect, Jesus will always provide salvation and hope.
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Scripture reader: [Hebrews 7:1-28] For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, met Abraham, returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him. And to him, Abraham apportioned a tenth part of everything. He is first, by translation of his name, King of righteousness, and then he is also King of Salem, that is King of Peace. He's without father or mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God, he continues a priest forever.
See how great this man was to whom Abraham the patriarch gave 10% of the spoils, and those descendants of Levi who received the priestly office have a commandment in the law to take tithes from the people, that is from their brothers, though they also are descended from Abraham. But this man who does not have his descent from them received the tithes from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises.
It is beyond dispute that the inferior is blessed by the superior. In the one case, tithes are received by mortal men, but in the other case, by one of whom it is testified that he lives. One might even say that Levi himself, who received tithes, paid tithes through Abraham, for he was still in the loins of his ancestor when Melchizedek met him.
Now, if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood, for under it the people received the law, what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek, rather than one named after the order of Aaron? For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well, for the one of whom these things are spoken belonged to another tribe, from which no one has ever served at the altar.
For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, and in connection with that tribe, Moses said nothing about priests. This becomes even more evident when another priest arises in the likeliness of Melchizedek, who has become a priest, not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent, but by the power of an indestructible life. For it is witnessed of him, you are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.
For on the one hand, a former commandment is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness, for the law made nothing perfect. But on the other hand, a better hope is introduced, through which we draw near to God. And it was not without an oath, for those who formerly became priests were made such without an oath. But this one has made a priest with an oath by the one who said to him, the Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, you are a priest forever. This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant. The former priests were many a number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, but he holds his priesthood permanently because he continues forever.
Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost, those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. For it was indeed fitting that he should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separate from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. He has no need like those high priests to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself. For the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests. But the word of the oath which came later than the law appoints a son who has been made perfect forever.
This is the word of the Lord.
Preacher: Good morning. Fantastic. Well. The promise I will make to you at the beginning is that we will not scratch the surface of all that that passage has. But my goal is that we will come to better understand Jesus, and as we heard in the reading that a better hope has been introduced by which we can draw near to God. And this is a chapter that is loaded to the hilt to encourage us this morning. The, the title I wanna use for the message is With God. With God is what we are going to focus on.
As I've considered this passage, it's reminded me of a wildly popular YouTube channel that some of you might have heard of, Mr. Beast. Does anyone know Mr. Beast? Yeah, one of the main themes of his videos is incredibly simple. Survive in this isolated location, like the woods, or a grocery store, or a bunker, or a jail or some other random place and win tons of money. And that's basically why he's so popular, cause he makes people do really unenjoyable things and they do it willfully so that they can get tons of money, and it can be agonizing to watch.
Have any of you watched one of these videos, where you're watching these contestants and they have this resolute resolve, I'm gonna be a millionaire by the end of this. They're gonna stay there forever, and by the end they're barely hanging on, and they're contemplating quitting every day. often the main reason, if you watch those videos, the main reason that they struggle to stay in that game, it's because they're sick of being alone. If you notice, they often start to miss their friends and family, and the moment they crack is as soon as they start to think more about who they're missing than where they are, and often when they see their friends and family is when they decide to quit.
And I think one of the reasons that Mr. Beast and his YouTube channel is so popular is because it communicates something deeply human about us. It communicates that we're created for a relationship. And we know this is true with one another and we know this is ultimately true with God. We hunger to be close to the one who loves us and and who we love and we all ache for the acceptance and the security and the relationship that God and only God can provide. Yet we also know this. Due to our sin, we try to fill this craving in our hearts with other things. Maybe it's following all the rules, and it's going to church and it's being a good person, or or maybe it's breaking all the rules. Right? As the the vision statement here, religious or irreligious, right? The freedom of being our own boss, not fitting into another one's another person's box, or maybe it's human relationships that we try to fill the void with, and it's friends and work and status and career and romance, yet what we inevitably discover is, whether it be one of these things or another altogether in our lives, none of these fill the craving that closeness with God can satisfy.
But here's the good news. If you recall from last week, Hebrews 6 ended by holding out for us a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain. Meaning a hope that goes where God is. A hope that brings us close to Him, a relationship that's better than any game show prize, and what Hebrews 7 is meant to do is to show us why we can have that hope. And it unpacks the the key to the relationship of this hope and it's because we have a priest named Jesus. Just to recall, a a priest in the Bible is someone who has access to God. And who allows others to relate to God as well. And Hebrews 7 is unpacking why Jesus is the type of priest that can give us this relationship with God that we desperately desire.
So the question I wanna just kinda hold before us, and we're gonna dive in. Is how can we really truly know that God is with us? That's the question I want us to think about together. How can we really truly know that God is with us and we're gonna see the answer unpacked in several facets of the priest we have in Jesus. And my goal as we kind of unpack what is kind of a a complex passage is to have the simple response that in our hearts, we are just deeply encouraged by the type of priest we have. That's my goal is that we're deeply encouraged today. So let's go ahead and start, we're gonna break it up into three chunks.
The first 10 verses comprise the first part of our chapter, namely the story of a priest. So look with me at verses 1 through 10 where we see the story of a priest, and that's Melchizedek. And he's kind of a funky figure, even his name is kind of odd. And he only shows up twice in the Bible. Genesis 14, in Psalm 110, in the Old Testament, and he shows up in the New. He's not very well known. But the author of Hebrews feel like he is worth knowing right now, because he communicates some very important things that help us better understand Jesus.
So here's the first thing about Melchizedek, is he is similar to Jesus. That's the first thing about Melchizedek we need to understand. He's similar. Look at what verse one points out. It says, for this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, he met Abraham, returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him. So without going into too much detail of the background in Genesis 14, if you notice, verse 1 highlights two things about Melchizedek that are also true of Jesus. He's both king and priest. And this should kind of stick out like a sore thumb, because in the Bible, priest and king are two important offices, but they're often not intermixed. But with Melchizedek and with Jesus, they are. He's a king and a priest, a king who rules over people for God, and a priest who allows people to relate to God. He's king and priest, and that's similar to Jesus.
Secondly, look at verse two. Look at what it highlights about Melchizedek's name. You see what it says? And to him, Abraham apportioned a 10th part of everything. He is first by translation of his name, King of righteousness. And he is also king of Salem, that is King of Peace. So notice in verse two, his name, Melchizedek, literally just means righteousness, or to be right with God, right relationship with God. And the name of the city that he's king over, Salem, is Peace. So righteousness and peace characterize Melchizedek. Doesn't that remind you of somebody? Doesn't that remind you of Jesus, the one who is the ultimate righteous king, who came and made it possible for human beings to have peace with God as our priest? So just like Melchizedek, Jesus embodies righteousness and peace.
That's the second thing, and here's the 3rd. And this one is the last similarity that the author wants us to see. Look at verse 3, it says, 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 forever. So in Genesis 14, Melchizedek just kind of comes onto the scene. He's not really introduced, he just kind of comes into the story and then he goes out of the story. And in scripture, oftentimes important people, you follow them from their birth all the way to the death, but because Melchizedek just kinda comes in and out, it sticks out, right? We don't get his genealogy, his family history, his birth, his death, we don't have his bio. But it doesn't mean he didn't have one. But rather, in not having this account of his life, his beginning and his end in the story, the author of Hebrews is saying that resembles what Jesus is like in reality. Does that make sense? So in the story, Melchizedek doesn't have a beginning and an end. In reality, Jesus doesn't.
So here's another way to put it. Melchizedek helps us to understand in a literary sense that Jesus is eternal in a literal sense. And in the story, there's this dynamic that the author finds helpful to just drive home the point that Jesus is a forever priest. His priesthood has no end. So his role and his name and his background all help us to understand better Jesus. OK.
Here, here's, this made me think of something, kind of embarrassing that happened to me. I was at a conference last year and I struck up a conversation with somebody. And I started to realize in the conversation that this person, because of their work, they probably knew some people I was very close to. So I eagerly brought up these connections that I had, these people that I had similarities with, and what I didn't realize is this person I had just met had very severe disagreements with the people I knew. So it was not the right decision to bring them up. And you can guess the tone of the conversation shifted pretty dramatically, and I kind of put myself in a hole. And I had eagerly brought out the similar relationship that we had, not realizing that because of the differences, I shouldn't have brought it up at all.
Here's the thing with Melchizedek, that is not the case in this conversation that we're having, because Melchizedek not only has similarities with Jesus, but far from being at odds, there's another characteristic that Hebrews is about to highlight that shows us even better why he's been brought up. And it's this, he's not only similar to Jesus, but secondly, he's also superior to Abraham and Levi.
And we'll just look briefly at verses 4 through 10. He's superior to Abraham and Levi, and we wanna see that in two crucial ways, OK? The first way is this, he received tithes from them, or, or gifts. He, he received tithes from them, as verse 4 states, see how great this man was, to whom Abraham, the patriarch, gave a 10% of the spoils. Now, this is really significant. And here's why, because in the law, the Levites were commanded to receive the tithes. And the people of Israel, the fellow descendants of Abraham, were supposed to give tithes to Levi. Yet Abraham and, and by extension Levi, these men who are normally supposed to receive gifts, they gave a gift to Melchizedek. So the author is saying, man, this guy who wasn't even a descendant of Abraham, he wasn't even a Levite, he received a tithe from both of them. That's a big deal. He's superior to them.
And secondly, we see that not only did he receive the tithe, but he is the one who blessed Abraham. Verse 6, if you read with me, it says, but this man, who does not have his descent from them, received tithes from Abraham and blessed him, who had the promises. Now if you remember in Hebrews 6, it brought up the promise of Abraham and his faith, if you recall. And here, it is saying that, man, Melchizedek is the guy who blessed that guy, who's great. The one with whom God made the promise to make him great and to bless him and everyone else through him.
What Galatians 3 says is the gospel, that the guy who received that was blessed by him. This would be like me and you buying Jeff Bezos a Christmas present. I mean, the guy owns Amazon, he doesn't need anything, he receives free two-day shipping, right? But this is this dynamic where Melchizedek is even greater than Abraham, and he blesses him, and that shows that he's better.
So these first 10 verses, we've made it through, I think probably the hardest part of our chapter. These first 10 verses, they teach us that Melchizedek is a priest like Jesus. And this all helps us, the reason it's brought up is to understand why it's so revolutionary that we do not only have a priest like Melchizedek, but that he has come. So look with me at verses 11 through 19, where we see the arrival of the priest. So we talked about the story of a priest, now the arrival of the priest, right?
Look with me at verse 11, we see this really important question that helps us understand. It says this. Now if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood, for under it people received the law. What further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the Order of Melchizedek rather than one named after the Order of Aaron. So this question is two parts. Firstly, we need to contemplate if perfection was attainable through the Levitical priesthood in the law, was that possible to be perfect?
So, we use perfect somewhat often in English, and that's the word that's here, but to get at what Hebrews is using the phrase to convey. It's this idea that we're fully forgiven of sin and made fit for God's presence. So you can remember it as forgiveness and fitness to be in God's presence. The ability to be with God, you need to be perfect in a state of perfection. Yet, we know from the story of scripture, this perfection that we desperately need is what the Levitical priests were unable to provide, which is what the second half of the verse makes clear. And the reason it makes it clear is cause someone had to come and replace them, and that is Jesus.
Look at verses 12 and following. It says, for when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well. For the woman who these things are spoken belonged to another tribe from which no one has ever served at the altar. For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, and in connection with that tribe, Moses said nothing about priests. So Jesus, the author is highlighting, is not just more of the same. He's not just the next person who's the serving as a priest in the order of Levites. He's totally different. And this is kind of a cool connection. It, it's so different that he's not just there cause he's in the family. He's not just hired by the company because his uncle owns it. He's there because he's the most qualified candidate for the job.
And that's made obvious by the fact that he's part of a totally different tribe, a tribe that wasn't wasn't supposed to necessarily serve as priests. It was actually the tribe of kings, which, if you recall is the connection we made earlier. So he's from Judah, but he's so qualified to be a priest that he's a priest as well. As verse 16 goes on to point out, he has become a priest, not on the basis of legal requirement concerning bodily descent, but by the power of an indestructible life. What was on Jesus' resume that allowed him to help us relate to God? It's the fact that he is the one, the only one who has existed eternally as God and has beaten death as a man. Jesus Christ, he's a king by his royal life, and he's a priest by the power of his indestructible life, and as a king priest, just like Melchizedek, he is the one who's come, and he's the one who makes it possible for us to be with God. That is Jesus.
And look at what verse 19 says is the result of all this. It says, for on the one hand, a former commandment is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness, for the law made nothing perfect. But on the other hand. A better hope is introduced through which we draw near to God.
As I've considered the meaning of this, that this kind of king, this indestructible priest has come, it's reminded me of something very random from when Carrissa and I were newly married. When we first moved into our apartment, this was in Ohio at the time, we decided we're gonna wait to open up our wedding gifts, even the ones that had arrived before the wedding date. We wanted to wait until we were married. So we're opening up these wedding gifts and one of them was a vacuum cleaner. You know, I never thought I'd be an adult, until I was excited to get a vacuum cleaner as a present. is anyone with me there? OK, and this was not just any vacuum cleaner, OK, this was a lithium-ion battery cordless vacuum cleaner. and we opened this up, we're wicked excited about it.
And here's the crazy thing. It literally was broken. There was this little latch on the, on the thing that you get the, the container that gets all the dirt in it, that wouldn't latch, so it wouldn't stay on and it just was useless. And I will tell you what, it was some of the most disappointment I've ever felt. everything's going great and then this happens, right? So, OK, what do you do? You immediately hop on Amazon. And you order the new one, right? And the new one came, it's probably 2 days, but it's too long. And here's the amazing thing guys, the new one, it worked perfectly. That's right, it worked perfectly. And you know what I did with the old one? I packed it up and I shipped it back, and I never used it again.
Why do I bring up the vacuum cleaner? Because in the same way, when Jesus comes, he communicates the same exact thing about the old and the same exact thing about the new, and it's so much better than what a vacuum cleaner does. Since Jesus has arrived, this priest like Melchizedek, he demonstrates the brokenness, the inability of the priesthood of Levi to make us clean and able to be with God. The law was never intended to provide perfection, but to point us to our need for it and the only one who could. And on the, on the one hand, it has been set aside, but on the other hand, we know that we have a better hope, because Jesus has come, and he truly provides the cleansing we need to be in God's presence. And to not have to wonder if we can be with God.
Before we move on too quickly, I just want to ask a question. Do we live like this? Or do we try to continue using the old vacuum cleaner still? Maybe we try to relate to God as though he and his word are a helpful source of wisdom. We say, if I can just get some wisdom for this big life decision or to manage my finances or to be a better spouse or parent, I'll be good. And that's the way we relate to God. Or maybe it's in a transactional way. OK, maybe you've done this mental calculus in your head. I'll do this for you and you do this for me, God. I'll be nice, honest and decent, you give me a good job in the dreams that I have, right? Or maybe you're here and you relate to God in a way that is filled with guilt and with a tormented conscience. You know that God is holy. You don't struggle with that. You struggle with being all too aware that you are not, and you feel the need to beat yourself up and put yourself down and to start resent yourself and even to resent God. Maybe that's the way you relate to him.
Here's the thing y'all. None of these can ensure that God is really truly with us. It's broken. We need a better solution. A better answer And this is exactly what Jesus provides. He provides us with a better hope to be in God's presence and to experience a love like no other, and even though he knows the depths of our sin. He has done something. To make us cleansed and able to be in his presence. And that is not new information for us if we've been in church for any length of time, likely. But it's information that takes all too long to go from our heads to our hearts, doesn't it?
I wanna conclude with the last section. Which gives us three aspects of Jesus that I think will go far in helping our hearts be satisfied in this better hope before we leave today. So what we're gonna conclude with this last 8 verses, and I want us to three things about our high priests that are so important, why Jesus changes everything. Why Jesus changes everything.
Firstly, we see that he is a priest who has pledged, so he will always provide for us. Look at verse 20. It was not without an oath, for those who formally became a priest were made such without an oath, but this one was made a priest with an oath by the one who said to him, the Lord has sworn and will not change his mind. You are a priest forever. This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant. What does that mean? It means that the father has made the son a forever priest by his own pledge. God's unchangeable word stands behind his unchangeable son. It's like a friend or a family member you can always rely upon, who's always gonna pick up the phone and always come through. Jesus is even more reliable than that. He doesn't just provide us with a flimsy forgiveness that can easily be lost, but one that's firmly founded. Therefore, he can and will always provide for us the salvation we need. We never have to wonder if his provision is still valid. He's pledged, he will always provide.
And then look at verse 23, where we see that secondly, he is permanent, so he will always pray for us. He will always pray for us cause he is permanent. As verse 23 says, the former priests were many in number because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, but he holds his priesthood permanently because he continues forever. The former priests, the Levites, they were mere men. They were only able to serve as long as they were alive. They had to die at some point, right? Yet Jesus is not just a mere man. He is not a mere mortal temporal priest who does what he can while he lives, but he's gonna die. No, he's the immortal, indestructible son of God, and he's forever, permanently our priest.
Look at verse 25. The result of this, consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him. That phrase To the uttermost is jam packed with meaning. It's this idea of totality, of fullness, of completion, of perfection, of permanence. Jesus is a to the uttermost savior. And this is immensely great news, brothers and sisters, because here's the thing, as Dane Ortland points out so helpfully, we are to the uttermost sinners, are we not? And we need a to the uttermost savior. We don't just need, Christ doesn't just merely help us, he saves us. The gospel is not good news. God helps those who help themselves. It's the God saves those who are dead. And we know he saves us. Look at what the conclusion of that verse says, because he always lives to make intercession for them. This is what Jesus is doing right now. During the snow apocalypse, Jesus is seated at the right hand of God, pulling for you and I here on earth. Right now, he is pulling for us in heaven, praying to the Father for us, so that even though we can have and do still sin, his once for all sacrifice is always enough.
And what this means is that our forgiven status before the Father is not a cup that will soon be emptied out as we exhaust it with our sin, but an ever overflowing fountain. No matter how often we sin, Jesus is our permanent to the uttermost savior. If you're anything like me, you struggle to believe that. You struggle to rest in that. I struggle to rest in that. If we're honest, maybe it's this, our present guilt and shame, our sin and weakness, they feel far more real to us than are to the uttermost savior. Do you feel like your addiction is too strong? That your anxiety is too pervasive, that your issues are too numerous to believe that you can really have a priest like that who can forgive you and save you.
Here's the good news. You and I, we can truly find comfort and safety in God's ability to save us and draw us close to Him, not because our sin is small. But because our Christ is great. Our salvation is contingent not on our sin being smaller than we thought, but in our Christ being bigger. He's not only a priest, he's the priest. So as the adversary of the devil accuses you, remember that your Christ is interceding for you right now. And he saves to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him.
And we'll conclude with this aspect of Jesus. He's not only pledged, so he always provides, or permanent so he always prays, but lastly, he's perfect, so he already paid for us. He already paid for us. You know one thing that my family loves to do around the holidays is puzzles. I frankly don't like puzzles at all, but they do. But I do know that one of the most maddening experiences about a puzzle is when you cannot find that one piece, right? The one piece that fits, the gap. There's a need, and we don't have the piece to fill it, to complete the picture. That feeling of needing that piece that fits and completes is what the end of our passage tells us. Jesus meets. Not as another piece of the puzzle, but as a priest.
In verse 26 it says, it was indeed fitting that we would have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, exalted above the heavens. Jesus fits the need we have as sinful people because he is a sinless priest. Holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, exalted above the heavens, and because he is this kind of priest, look at what 27 and 28 say, he has no need, like those high priests to offer sacrifices. Daily, first for his own sins, then for the sins of the people, since he did this once for all, when he offered up himself, for the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a son who has been made perfect forever.
Jesus Christ is a perfect priest who never needed to offer a sacrifice for himself, and because of that, he's not only our priest, but he is our payment. And Jesus paid for our sins, brothers and sisters, sisters, making it possible for us to be in God's presence. He fills the hole of our need, so we don't need to frantically look to other things to do so. We have the one who fits. And through his death, resurrection, and ascension, he has proved he is no sinful and weak way to get to God, but the only way. Because of that, he changes everything.
Have you placed your faith in him? Is the priest your priest? If he isn't, I hope you would even today turn from trusting in yourself and other ways of getting right with God and turn to him, make his sacrifice, your security, your satisfaction, your salvation, and if you have questions, I, one of the elders would love to talk to you. And as Jesus is our priest, to go back to our question. We can really truly know that we're with God. Because he is just that great. Let's pray to our great high priest as we conclude.
God, we just thank you so much that we have Jesus, and that he is the kind of priest that your word says he is. God, I pray that your spirit, whose delight is to show us your Son, would fill our hearts with wonder at who he is, would fill our hearts with a a repentance from the other things beside him that we look to. And that would freshly remind us right now that we have everything we need to be with you. And to live our lives for your honor and glory. God, I just pray as we conclude in worship that we would worship you in light of this. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.