Jesus Is . . .! Part 8 Series

Jesus Is . . .!

Hebrews 5:1-10

July 23, 2017

Have you ever admired someone who was famous and you tried to imitate them? Maybe it was a musician and you played like they did, or a singer and you tried to sing like them. Or it could have been an athlete and you tried to throw or swing a bat just like them. Maybe it was someone who you looked up to at work, and you began to speak or act like them.

Sometimes we can be successful and do a pretty good job of imitating someone. Sometimes we fall on our faces when trying to do this. On a number of occasions in the Bible we hear Paul telling us to imitate me, as I imitate Christ. Imitating Paul is pretty tough, let alone trying to imitate Jesus.

I mean, I don’t think there are too many of us who have walked on water, and I’m not referring to frozen water? How many of us have turned water into wine . . . or healed the sick, or brought the dead back to life?

So, sometimes it can be difficult to imitate Jesus. But as we look at Hebrews 5 this morning, I want to point out a few things Jesus did, that I believe we can do, which will help us move further along in our relationship with God and help us to imitate Christ on a more regular basis.

We’ve been spending time moving through the book of Hebrews and today we are looking at the first 10 chapters of Hebrews 5.

Last week we learned an important truth, Jesus understands our weaknesses and temptations! Jesus was tempted in every way as we are, yet was without sin, and the power in this is the fact that we can

16 approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. – Hebrews 4:16

That’s a great and powerful passage which reminds us we can always approach His throne of GRACE so that we can experience the power of His grace and mercy!!

Now, the writer of Hebrews has spoken of Jesus as higher than angels, higher than Moses, and higher than the High Priests. In fact, he stated — Jesus is the Great High Priest. That theme is going to be repeated throughout the next few chapters.

Today we’re going to look at Jesus as our High Priest — what He did and what it means to us.

The New Testament teaches that God became one of us. That his Son, Jesus, the Christ, who has existed from all eternity, who created the world Himself, left the majesty and perfection of heaven and entered human history by being born in a stable in the little town of Bethlehem.

He became one of us so that we could become one with God. The barrier that stood between humanity and God — our willful disobedience, our rebellion, our selfishness, our greed, our pride and, our sin — were forgiven, we were cleansed, our sins were washed away, once and for all, because of Jesus.

Now, there is nothing standing between you and God. You may say, "Well, I'm a sinner." That's true. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But Jesus paid the price for our sins.

Some of you might say, "But you don't get it. I sin A LOT. The same sins, every day, day after day, even when I promise I won't do it anymore and even when I try not to, I still sin all the time."

That makes you human and it makes you in need of God's grace.

The good news is that God's grace is available. Forgiveness is yours through Jesus Christ. We can approach His throne of grace with confidence, and we can be sure to receive mercy and grace. That's what Jesus came to make available to all who are willing to call upon His name.

If you want to be forgiven, if you want to be clean, if you want to be spiritually connected to the God of the Universe, you can. Jesus makes it possible. All you have to do is say YES to Jesus, proclaim you believe in Him.

That's great news.

Here's how this great news gets even better.

Life in God is about more than just having the penalty of your sins wiped away. It's about having the presence of your sins washed away, too. It means experiencing the power to overcome those negative tendencies and destructive habits that haunt us.

Jesus came not only to pay the price for our sins, he came to show us how to live. In Jesus we see what it means to be fully human and fully alive in God. In Jesus we see the perfect example to follow.