“Thanking God for His Understanding” Hebrews 4:14-16

Was there ever a time in your life when you thought no one understood you? That feeling of being completely different from everyone else, that sense of not belonging or fitting in can have a deep effect on someone. Years ago, Brian Wilson, the leader of the Beach Boys, wrote a song that had the chorus, “I guess I just wasn’t made for these times.”

We all want to belong, to have someone who “gets” us. One of the things I admired most about Edith Bunker in “All in the Family” was that she understood her family. She could see past the surfaces of Archie, Mike and Gloria and see what they were—people struggling to make their place in the world, and people she could and did love regardless of what they may say or do.

As the writer of Hebrews continues his look at how Jesus is superior to the Old Testament institutes and leaders, he comes to the point where he says that Jesus is the superior high priest. He introduces this idea by relating how Jesus is a High Priest who understands us and relates to us.

Background

Following his introduction, the writer demonstrates who Jesus is superior to angels and to Moses. He now looks at the role of the high priest and how Jesus is superior to Aaron and the Levitical high priest.

Almost every religion of the ancient world relied on priests to act as go betweens for men and their various gods. One of my commentaries mentioned why this was needed. The commentary noted that Jewish thought was that God was holy, meaning He was separate from our world, that He is Other. Greek Stoics saw the gods as having no emotions, because to have emotion meant that one could be controlled by others. Greek Epicureans saw the gods as detached from humanity, involved in their own pleasures and merriment. In each of these beliefs about God or the gods, the implication was that there was gulf between humanity and God. For the Jews, because God is holy, He cannot fully comprehend what it is to be human.

It is into this world of a detached God that Christianity introduces the idea of God becoming human and so identifying with people everywhere. God made flesh—Immanuel—gives Jesus an understanding of what it really means to be human, and the resurrected Christ took that understanding with Him as He was seated at the right hand of the Father.

The writer of Hebrews brings that idea into the role of Jesus as High Priest. Just as a high priest enters into the Holy of Holies to intercede with God on behalf of His people, so Jesus sits at God’s right hand to intercede for us, as John reminds us in 1 John 2:1-2.

And, just as the high priest was the voice of God to the people, so Jesus, through the work of the Holy Spirit, speaks to us and reveals God’s will to us.

All of this is built around the fact that gave up the glories of heaven to take on the task of being a person living in our world (cf. Philippians 2:5-11). Jesus being fully God and fully man who gave the supreme sacrifice for our sins makes Him the perfect High Priest. He is uniquely qualified to bring us to God. Which leads us to our central truth.

Central Truth: We thank God because He understands us.

Since we have a God who understands, we need to:

. . . hold firm to the faith (14)

The writer of Hebrews makes a bold statement in the beginning of this verse: “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God.”

In writing this description of Jesus, the writer tells us why Jesus is the superior High Priest. First, Jesus is great. This greatness is based not on what He has done or what people say about Him. Jesus is great because of Who He is. He is God made flesh. He is “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of [God’s] being” (Hebrews 1:3a). Declaring Jesus as great is to acknowledge Who He is and give Him the praise for which He is worthy and deserving.

Secondly, Jesus has traveled through the heavens. Paul wrote of three levels of heaven in 2 Corinthians 12. The thought at the time was that heaven consisted of the element that held the stars and planets on one level, that it held the work of the angels in a second level, and the third level was God’s dwelling place. By writing that Jesus has traveled through the heavens, we are told that Jesus has gone where no man has ever gone or will go. Jesus has returned to His rightful place and now resumes His part of the Godhead.

The result of Jesus’ greatness and His presence with the Father is the reason we must hold firmly to the faith we profess. Because we worship Jesus who is great and heavenly, because He is a great high priest, that is all the more reason why we should have a firm and secure faith, why we should remain in that faith and not waiver.

Who is like Jesus? Who can stand equal with Jesus? Why should we turn away from Him? Why should we doubt? Of course, the answer is, we shouldn’t. If anything, we should be encouraged in our faith and our profession because of Jesus as High Priest.

. . . remember Jesus’ role as our high priest (15)

It might be easy to assume that Jesus, who is great and in the highest heaven, is inaccessible and unaware of us. It might be easy to assume that God doesn’t understand us or really care for us any more. The reality is that Jesus cares deeply for us and is aware of what it means to live in our daily lives. Jesus is the superior high priest precisely because He was and is fully human.

Jesus knows we are weak. Weakness in this sense doesn’t mean we are helpless and incapable. As people, we can do great things. Look at the structures we’ve built, the arts we have created, the acts of good we have achieved over the ages.

And yet, despite that, we are weak when it comes to standing against Satan. The devil knows our weaknesses and exploits them often. Because we have sinned in the past, we are prone to sin in the present and in the future. When it comes to spiritual warfare, we are weak, and we need to turn to Someone who understands and yet withstood Satan’s temptations.

That Someone is Jesus.

The writer reminds us that Jesus sympathizes with our weakness. He knows what it’s like to live in this world. He knows the struggles along with the joys. Jesus knows what it is to be living in our world because He Himself walked the same path, lived the same life. When you and I have experienced one of life’s trials, we understand when others are going through them, and we can sympathize with them. In the same way, Jesus sympathizes with us. He has compassion and a deep love for us.

Part of Jesus’ awareness of our weakness is that He, too, has experienced temptation, the same temptations you and I have experienced. One of the things we tend to forget when we read this verse is that, while Jesus was tempted as we are, He experienced far worse temptations than we ever have. Because we all too often give in to temptation and sin, Satan never feels the need to bring the full force of his temptation against us. Jesus, on the other hand, never succumbed to temptation, so He endured far greater efforts on Satan’s part to lead Him to sin. Jesus not only understands our temptations, but He also knows what it is to stand against Satan and win.

In fact, the only thing that Jesus cannot empathize with us is what it is to yield to temptation. He knows the pressure, but He doesn’t know what it is to sin. And for that, we must be grateful. Had Jesus ever given in to Satan’s temptations, He could never have fulfilled God’s demand of a perfect sacrifice for our sins. Because Jesus doesn’t know what it is to sin, He alone is able to enter through the heavens to be our great High Priest who sympathizes with us and knows what we struggle with daily.

. . . approach God with confidence (16)

During the reign of Ahaz in Judah, the kings of Israel and Aram allied themselves to attack Ahaz and conquer Judah. God sent Isaiah to the king to tell him he had nothing to fear, that God would give the victory to Judah (cf. Isaiah 7). God, through Isaiah, told Ahaz to stand firm in his faith, and then God asked Ahaz to ask God for a sign to confirm what God had told him.

Ahaz refused, saying, “I will not ask; I will not put the Lord to the test” (Isaiah 7:12). In truth, Ahaz had already made plans to ally himself with Egypt. Instead, God told Ahaz that He would provide a sign—the virgin will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel (cf. Isaiah 7:24-17).

I am reminded of this in light of what the writer of Hebrews tells us in 4:16: “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Because Jesus is our great High Priest, and because He sympathizes with us in our weakness, we now have greater access to the throne of God. Unlike Ahaz, how refused God’s invitation, we must take advantage of this invitation. There is no need to come to God with timidity and doubt; we can instead come with a confidence that Jesus, acting as our High Priest, is there to stand with us before the Father and the throne of grace. We have nothing to fear; we will be heard and given what we need.

And the writer tells us why we should approach God’s throne. We will receive mercy and find grace in His presence. The mercy will remove the punishment we deserve for our daily sins, the grace will cover us with forgiveness. All of this is a result of God’s great love and Jesus’ ministry before the throne itself.

And the reason we receive mercy and find grace is to help us in our times of need. “Times of need” can be a number of things. It can be a time of crisis, yes, such as unexpected health news or financial woes. But it can also be the times we seek His guidance and His will, because these are also things we need. It can be a time of intercession on behalf of loved ones. There are many needs in our lives, from the seemingly small to the great, and all can be addressed as we enter into the presence of God through Jesus our High Priest by the work of the Holy Spirit, transforming our inadequate words into God’s hearing.

God has provided the way for us to enter His presence, enter it with confidence and free of fear. Let us commit to take full advantage of this invitation and this gift from the loving heavenly Father.

Conclusion

A friend of mine who had been raised in the Catholic church once told me that he had a respect for the Catholic faith in that it has a reverence for God that seems sometimes lacking in Baptist faith. He said the reason for the saints in Catholicism is because the reverence for God is such that the mainstream Catholic feels unworthy to enter God’s presence on his own. He or she instead seeks intervention through the saints.

While I understand and respect my friend’s opinion, I believe this passage lets us know that reverence for God—which is stressed at the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer—does not preclude us from coming to God with confidence and with the same familiarity of a child to his or her Father. We should not approach God’s throne with a casual attitude, but we should neither approach God’s throne with an attitude of fear and dread. Respect, yes; reverence, yes. But we should always come into God’s presence with a confidence that comes not from our own doing, but by the actions of Jesus Christ, the great High Priest who sympathizes with our weakness. By His own experience, and by His blood, we are purified, we are sanctified and we are enabled to stand before the throne of grace to receive mercy and find grace.