We read in Hebrews 4:14, “Let us, then, hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we have a great High Priest who has gone into the very presence of God…Jesus, the Son of God.” (GNB)
We live in a world where it is so easy for us to be ensnared and in bondage to various sinful habits. Outwardly we may appear to be living a carefree life, but the truth of the matter is that, deep down we know that we are in enslavement to the passions and desires of this world.
The Lord’s promise to us is that, irrespective of the kind of things that we are entangled with, He is able to deliver us out of them all, and set us free from every kind of bondage.
Knowingly or unknowingly we have become slaves to many things in this world. Bondage don’t happen in a day, it is a slow and deliberate process. Some people have relinquished their faith in God and backslid-den because of these enslavement.
In Hebrews 4:14 we are exhorted to “hold firmly to the faith we profess.” For instance if we are travelling on a bus with a bag of rice and the bus ticket in our hand, it is obvious that we will be more careful with the ticket than with the bag of rice. If we lose our bag of rice we can always buy it back for the same price, but if we lose the ticket we may have to pay a fine ten times more than the ticket itself. So also in life, we often find ourselves holding on tightly to worldly things and lose out on the more important spiritual things, not realizing that we disinherit a lot when we do so.
When we don’t focus on our relationship with God and on matters pertaining to Him, we will find that our prayer time, Bible reading, fellowship with other believer’s starts to dwindle and so does our faith in God. Since our faith is the fundamental element that overcomes the world, we are being admonished to ‘hold firmly to our faith.’
How do we hold on to our Faith?
The Great High Priest
In Hebrews 4:14 we read that,“Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession....”(RSV)
In the Old Testament we read about the role and functions of a ‘High Priest’. The duty of the High Priest was to enter the ‘Most Holy Place’ once a year to offer sacrifices for the sins of the People. The presence of God is ‘Most Holy’ and so the High Priest who entered the ‘Holy of Holies’ did so with reverential fear and always with the offering of a lamb that was to be sacrificed and it’s blood shed for the sins of the people.
Jesus became the ‘Great High Priest’ who took on Himself the sins of the world by shedding His blood on the cross for each one of us. Since Jesus is the ‘Great High Priest’, He is now at the right hand of the Father in heaven, interceding on our behalf. We are the beneficiaries of Jesus’ constant intercession on our behalf. No other person can intercede to the Father on our behalf.
Jesus is the only one who can do that, because He alone has gone up to the Heavens and is beholding the face of the Father. All other High Priests who lived earlier died but Jesus was the only ‘Great High Priest’ who rose from the dead and lives on into eternity.
No matter how many times we sin and go back to God for forgiveness, it is the Lord who is constantly interceding for us to be set free from all our sins and bondage.
The only Mediator between God and Man
We read in 1 Timothy 2:5, “For there is one God, and there is one who brings God and human beings together, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself to redeem the whole human race.” (GNB)
There is only one God and the only person who is the intercessor between God and man is Jesus Christ.
At the beginning of creation we see the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit at work when God says ‘Let us make man in our own image’ Genesis 1:26. Jesus was there, before the creation of the world, but the only reason He came down to the earth was to take on a human form, live a sinless life and give His life as a ransom for the sins of the world. There was no one else who could live that sinless life.
When the Angel Gabriel brought the news of the birth of Jesus to Mary, we see how Mary magnifies the Lord. In Luke 1:46 we read, “And Mary said, My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,” (ESV) It was obvious then that Mary being a human being herself, also needed a Saviour as much as anyone else did.
The Sinless High Priest
In Hebrew 4:15 we read, “Our High Priest is not one who cannot feel sympathy for our weaknesses. On the contrary, we have a High Priest who was tempted in every way that we are, but did not sin.” (GNB)
Jesus is also the Great High Priest, because He alone was sinless. All other High Priests who lived before Jesus, were all sinners and so it was imperative that they take along with them a lamb to slaughter first for their own sins and also for the sins of the people. Jesus on the other hand being a sinless High priest was able to enter the most holy place with His own blood.
We may wonder how Jesus could have been tempted in every way just like us. All temptations we face can be broadly classified under these three main categories.
1 John 2:16 we read,“the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” (Webster)
In Luke 4:13 we read, “When the Devil finished tempting Jesus in every way, he left him for a while.” (GNT)
It is obvious from the above mentioned verse, that Jesus underwent temptations several times all throughout His life here on earth, and it was not just the three that are recorded in Luke chapter 4. It clearly mentions in Luke 4:13 that the Devil only left him for a while, so Jesus too was tempted many other times too.
All of us may go through these seasons of temptations. At certain times we face so many struggles and then we will have a period of peace. When we go through these stages of severe temptations, we must recognize that Satan is at work and draw closer to God so we can escape all his evil plans.
Jesus is the only Great High Priest, because He alone went through all the temptations and overcame every one of them and was able to live a sinless life. Therefore, He is the only one who can help us in our times of weakness and temptations. If we run to Him, He will give us the strength to resist and overcome every temptation.
For example, if we were looking for coaching in Administrative Service, and we had two options, one center run by a person who failed the exam and the other run by one who cleared all the exams, it is obvious that we would choose the one who succeeded. So also, the only one who can help us overcome every temptation, is the Lord Jesus who Himself overcame every single temptation while He was here on earth.
As long as we live on this earth, we will be subject to all kinds of temptations, because Satan is constantly on the prowl, seeking whom he can devour. Every time we face temptations we run to the one who is the over comer of all temptations and we seek His help with much prayers. The more the temptations, the more we pray.
As we grow in the Lord we will find that we will face a lot more struggles and temptations. But, we have the assurance that the Lord is with us and the Bible says that a man who overcomes temptation is a blessed man. If one wants to measure the strength of the wind, one needs to go against it. When we are confronted by temptations we must confess that the Lord who is in us is far greater than the one who is in the world and we will definitely not succumb to temptations.
We must read the word, hear the word and confess the word by faith. The word of God is full of promises that we need to personalize and confess daily in our lives so that we will grow in our faith.
In Hebrew 4:16, we read, “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” (Webster)
There are three parts of the verse that we will look at: The Throne of Grace, Grace and Mercy.
It is only when we do something against God and His word that we feel guilty. When Adam and Eve were in relationship with God they could freely come and commune with God but when they disobeyed and ate the forbidden fruit, they hid from God because of the sense of guilt and fear that overcame them.
Whenever we sin, and Satan accuses us we should not fear and go away from God, but rather boldly approach the ‘Throne of Grace’because the Lord is willing to forgive and pick us up every time we fall. We have a Great High Priest who is interceding for us and He is willing to lift us up every time we fall.
The question is ‘What can we obtain at the Throne of Grace?’ The answer is grace and mercy. If we were to define mercy and grace we could say it this way. Mercy is God not punishing us as our sins deserve, and Grace is God blessing us despite the fact that we do not deserve it. Mercy is deliverance from judgment. Grace is extending kindness to the unworthy.”
Mercy is the Lord being kind and compassionate to us and not punishing us and sending us to hell as we deserve but redeeming our lives. God’s Grace is the unmerited favor of God that qualifies us to go to heaven. God’s grace give us forgiveness and makes us His children.
A toddler who is learning to walk, may fall many times but we encourage the child to walk, but as the child grows older things change and we don’t expect the same behavior. So also a young believer may struggle to overcome temptation and may fall many times, but as we grow in the Lord we must be aware of all the darts of the evil one, and must overcome temptation and be victorious.
David did a great sin in taking Bathsheba and killing Uriah but the Lord calls him ‘a man after His own heart’. It was not because David never sinned, but because he confessed his sins and the Lord in His grac e and mercy forgave him. No one can say we are without sin. But we can come with boldness and ask the Lord to forgive us and help us to be victorious because the Lord is interceding for us.
We have a Great High Priest who is at the Father’s right hand interceding for us. He is the Great High Priest who overcame all temptations and was the perfect sacrifice. Therefore, we can approach the Throne of Grace boldly. Every area of our life that we are in bondage to, could be the lust of our flesh, the lust of the eyes or the pride of life, if we can confess our sins and come to the Lord with a repentant heart, He is willing to give us the victory over every bondage in our lives. He will transform us to be over-comers.
Let me close with the definition of mercy and grace that I love so much – Because of God’s mercy I am kept from going to hell – But because of the grace of God, I am qualified to get into heaven. Don’t lose heart; the bondage breaker is our Great High Priest and we can always run to His ‘Throne of Grace’ and receive both mercy and grace!
Pastor F. Andrew Dixon
www.goodnewsfriends.net
Transcribed by : Sis. Esther Collins
