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.
Hebrews 5 tells us about Jesus our High Priest. It also shows us what a life lived right looks like. It shows how Jesus fulfilled his purpose in becoming our high priest, and it shows how you can fulfill your purpose by following his example.
So, we 're told to imitate Christ, but that’s not always easy. You may not be able to imitate his miracles, but you can imitate his attitude, the attitude in which he approached his relationship with his Father.
I want to show you 3 ways we can achieve our full potential in God by following the example Jesus set for us.
First of all ~ Seek God's Call For Your Life.
In respect to Jesus being our high priest, the writer of Hebrews says...
4 No one takes this honor upon himself; he must be called by God, just as Aaron was.
5 So Christ also did not take upon himself the glory of becoming a high priest. But God said to Him, "You are my Son; today I have become your Father."
6 And he says in another place, "You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek." – Hebrews 5:4-6
Before we get too far along, you may be wondering - - just who is Melchizedek? Well, I’ll talk more about him in a couple of weeks in chapter 7. For today, know that he was a mysterious character in the Old Testament, a priest who made a brief appearance in Genesis 14. He symbolizes Christ, and we'll talk about that in a couple of weeks.
The writer is saying - - Jesus didn't come to do his own will. He didn't come to choose his own path. He came to do what the Father called him to do. Jesus said ~
30 “I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me. – John 5:30
Jesus also said, 24 “My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to accomplish His work.. – John 4:24
Jesus came to do God's will, not his own. This is an example each one of us can follow.
God has a plan for your life, a calling for you to follow. Part of your mission is to discover that calling, and then spend your life doing it. We may find our calling, God’s plan, in a number of different areas . . . it could be in our job, or career path, it may be within our family, or in a ministry we are involved in. It could be in a number of different areas.
When we don’t know what God is calling us to do and be, we need to stop and seek God’s plan through prayer and discussion. Ask God at every turn, "What do you want me to do? Who do you want me to be? Don’t obsess about it, yet talk to others you trust about it as well. Maybe they see something in you, you don’t see. And they very well might be speaking for God when they share a plan with you."
God doesn’t want to keep His plan for you a secret. That would be crazy. He wants you to know what it is and He will reveal it to you.
Often times when God reveals His plan to you, our response is “No Way!” I can’t do that!! But understand, God’s dreams for you are bigger and better than anything you can come up with on your own. We tend to look at things in finite ways, and God looks at things in terms of eternity, in the Big Picture.
When God calls us - - - He wants you to do more than the ordinary. He wants you to be extraordinary. He wants you to make a difference, make an impact in the lives of others.
No matter what job you have, there is a calling built in to it — a way in which you can build God's kingdom by making a difference in the lives of others.
Jesus came not to do his own will, he came to do the will of his Father who sent him. This should be our objective, too.
A 2nd thing I noticed in Hebrews 5 is the call to make our devotional life a top priority.
The writer of Hebrews states...
7 During the days of Jesus' life on earth, He offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the One who could save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverent submission.
When you read the gospels, you’ll notice Jesus, even though He was God, spent a great deal of time in prayer, talking to the Father. Note these passages ~
35 And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. – Mark 1:35
16 But Jesus would withdraw to desolate places and pray. – Luke 5:16
14 After He had sent the crowds away, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray; and when it was evening, He was there alone. – Matthew 14:23
When Jesus was facing death in the garden of Gethsemane - - He prayed...
42 Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done. – Luke 22:42
Jesus was able to find strength, renewal, power through prayer. A devotional life, a life of prayer was so vital to our Lord. Now, if the Son of God needs to pray in order to fulfill His purpose on earth, imagine how much more we need to pray.
I believe we don’t make enough use of prayer. God has made himself available to you and me; we can call on Him anytime, day or night, and He will listen. We can bring our requests to Him, as well as our worries and our fears and our frustrations. We can bring our joys, our victories, our celebrations, as well as our grief and needs. We can engage in conversation at anytime, and He will be there. And yet, so often, we face life's most difficult situations alone. It doesn't have to be that way.
What strikes me is the fact that we live our day to day lives, so easily without God. Oh, He’s there, He’s with us, but I don’t think we realize He’s with us. As long as things are going relatively well, we’re good without an active devotional life. When life gets a little tough, we may throw out a gratuitous prayer or two, but nothing much. It’s only when life becomes overwhelming that we start to offer prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears! Just as Jesus did. But in all reality, we need to do this in good times, calling out to God, knowing Him and growing in Him, as well!!
If you want to fulfill your potential as a human, make your devotional life a top priority. And I’m not just talking about reading a devotional article. That may be a start, but it’s also to read scripture and talk to God in prayer. Talk to God all day long, not long winded prayers, just short, quick and direct prayers. Talk to God about what’s going on, pray for yourself, for others, for situations as they arise. Then stop and listen for God’s responses as well! I assure you, He's listening. You will not always get what you want, but you will get more of God all the time, and that’s always a victory. And as you approach God regularly, you will experience more power, more grace and more mercy which will help you in your time of need.
Lastly, here’s a 3rd way to help us reach our full potential in God. And this is not necessarily easy! Be Ready to Grow Through Suffering and Obedience.
The writer of Hebrews says something very interesting, and maybe a little confusing at first glance. He's talking about Jesus, and he says...
8 Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from what He suffered.
9 And being made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey Him.
What does this mean — He learned obedience? And He was made perfect?
Does this mean at some point he had been disobedient and at some point he had been imperfect? No, that's not what the writer is saying.
Here's what it means: Jesus came to this earth to be fully human. He was, literally, one of us. He didn't float from place to place on a little cloud, and there wasn't a choir of angels singing in the background each time He spoke.
He subjected himself to the same limitations you and I have. When he was tired, he needed to sleep, when he was hungry he needed to eat, when he worked with wood he sometimes got a splinter, and so on.
Just as he learned from his mother how to walk and talk and from his father how to drive a nail and build a shelf, he learned the Scriptures, he learned how to pray, and he learned how to do God's will.
Jesus acquired knowledge and experience by living as a human being. Through experience He came to know the cost of being obedient, even in the midst of suffering. There were those temptations, which increased with His obedience to the Father, so Jesus learned obedience in that manner.
In the course of doing God's will, he endured times of suffering — during his time on earth and certainly during the time of his death. His suffering and his obedience made him perfect.
The lifelong perfect obedience of Jesus provides the basis for eternal salvation to all who call Him Lord and Savior.
God has placed a call on your life. He has designed a mission especially for you. You grow into that mission through obedience and suffering.
You might say, "But I don't like to suffer." Well, no one does, but it's part of the human experience. Everyone suffers: people who believe in God, people who don't believe in God, people who try to do God's will, people who run from doing God's will — suffering is a universal reality.
But God's power works in your life in a special way. He uses the moments of suffering, endured with "reverent submission" to His will (that's the phrase the writer used to describe the attitude of Christ: reverent submission), to make you perfect in fulfilling His call on your life.
For those who live a life without God, suffering makes no sense. It's something to be avoided at all costs, even though it can never be avoided.
But for those who live in reverent submission to God, suffering becomes God's tool for making you the person he designed you to be, and helping you do the job He called you to do.
We avoid suffering at all cost. And we should! Nobody raises their hand and shouts out “PICK ME” when asked who wants to suffer. But if we’re willing . . . we will grow in Christ, we will grow more perfect and more obedient because we experience His grace and mercy in our time of need as well.
Jesus has given us an example to follow. In the same way that He sought to do the will of God, not His own will … the same way that He lived His life in reverent submission to God, making prayer and fellowship with God a top priority … the same way He learned obedience through suffering … we are called to follow in His footsteps.
Here's what I hope you'll take away today: A commitment to focus on doing God's will, a commitment to focus on spending more time in His presence, a commitment to face suffering and difficulties with a teachable spirit — an attitude of reverent submission.
When God became one of us, this is what He did, and it's time to imitate Him
