Since We Have a Great High Priest

In one paragraph

This message walked through Hebrews 4:14 through the opening of chapter 5, with Pastor Carl tracing what it means that Jesus is our great high priest and what that reality calls us to do. The sermon also set up the Lord's Supper, connecting the priesthood passages directly to the communion table. It is part of First B's ongoing study through Hebrews. Pastor Carl opened by stepping back through...

Read together

1. Hebrews 1:6 command for all angels of God to worship the firstborn Son
2. Hebrews 1:13 God commanding Jesus to sit at His right hand until enemies become a footstool
3. Hebrews 2:1 exhortation to pay closer attention so we do not drift away
4. Hebrews 3:1 exhortation to carefully consider the apostle and high priest, Jesus
5. Hebrews 4:14 therefore since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens
6. Hebrews 4:15 high priest who sympathizes with our weaknesses, tempted in all things yet without sin
7. Hebrews 4:16 draw near with confidence to the throne of grace to receive mercy and grace
8. Hebrews 5:1 every high priest taken from among men appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins
9. Hebrews 5:2 a good priest can deal gently with the ignorant and misguided since he himself is beset with weakness
10. Hebrews 5:3 the priest obligated to offer sacrifices for sins as for the people so also for himself
11. Hebrews 5:4 no one takes this honor to himself but receives it when called by God even as Aaron was
12. Hebrews 5:5 Christ did not glorify himself to become high priest but was appointed by the Father
13. Hebrews 5:7 in the days of his flesh Jesus offered prayers and supplication with loud crying and tears
14. Psalm 2 quoted as God saying to Jesus, you are my Son, today I have begotten you
15. Psalm 110:4 you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek
16. Isaiah 8:17 I will put my trust in him, quoted in Hebrews 2
17. Jeremiah 31 prophecy of the new covenant that was coming, referenced during communion
18. Isaiah 40:31 those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength and soar on wings like eagles, used as benediction
19. Matthew 16:15-18 Jesus asking who people say he is, Peter confessing him as the Christ the Son of the living God
20. 1 Peter 2:23 while being reviled he did not revile in return, entrusting himself to him who judges righteously
21. 1 Corinthians 11:23-25 Paul transmitting what he received about the Lord's Supper, Jesus breaking bread and taking the cup

Talk about it

1. Pastor Carl walked through several 'let us' statements in Hebrews and noted the difference between a direct command and a hortatory subjunctive, where the speaker includes himself alongside the people he is addressing. How does it change the way you receive an instruction when the person giving it says 'let us' rather than 'you need to'?
2. The sermon described the Old Testament high priest as someone who had to prepare carefully before entering the Holy of Holies, with a rope tied to his foot in case God struck him dead. What does that picture do to your understanding of what it means that we can now 'draw near with confidence to the throne of grace'?
3. Pastor Carl said that Jesus was tempted in every way we are, yet without sin, and that temptation itself is not sin. He also suggested that Jesus may have faced temptations we never face. How does knowing that Jesus genuinely walked through temptation, rather than being somehow shielded from it, affect the way you bring your own struggles to Him?
4. The sermon pointed out that every Old Testament high priest had to offer sacrifices for his own sins as well as for the people's, and that this was the core problem with the old system. Why does it matter that Jesus, as our great high priest, had no sin debt of His own to carry before He carried ours?
5. Near the close of the sermon, Pastor Carl read that Jesus 'offered up prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears' and kept entrusting Himself to the Father even through suffering. Where in your own life right now do you find it hardest to keep entrusting yourself to God, and what from this passage speaks to that?