Before we begin our sermon this morning and read our text, I just want to take account of where we've been these past couple of weeks. What have we seen? What have we learned? What have we heard from God's word? You remember last week I talked about the greater Sabbath rest that we should strive to enter into and which is found only in the person and in the work of Jesus Christ. We should strive to enter His Sabbath rest. The week before that, we talked about the great glory of the angels, but yet the greater glory of the Son of Jesus. And the first week that I was with you all, We got introduced to the book of Hebrews and the main argument, the main theme of the book, Christ is superior. He's a superior prophet, he's a superior priest, and he is a superior king. And so with all that being said, if you remember back to that first week, I kind of pointed out that the author of Hebrews, of those three offices, he talks about all three a fair deal throughout the entire book, but he focuses in on Christ's priestly office. That's the main focus of the book. And as I've studied this book for this sermon series, I've come to the conclusion that while the entire theme of the book of Hebrews can be kind of summed up in a really pithy statement, Christ is superior, the actual thesis, the main argument for the book of Hebrews is actually a bit more specific and a little bit more substantial. So here's my working thesis for the book of Hebrews. Christ is a superior priest who mediates a better covenant made up of greater blessings because he offered a perfect sacrifice. Therefore, because of all that, do not be led astray into unbelief. by returning to the shadows of the old covenant sacrifices. Instead, remain faithful in the face of trials and tribulations. That's the argument that the book of Hebrews is working through. The author of Hebrews keeps expanding and trying to prove that argument, prove that point over and over. And he does that by showing that Christ is a better priest of a better covenant that offers a better sacrifice. So there's no reason to turn back the old covenant sacrifices to their priests. And so that's the main point. So I wanted to reiterate that and kind of hone that in so that'll give a lot of context for the last couple of weeks. This morning we will focus in on one of the first in many instances where the author of Hebrews talks about Christ being a superior priest. And we shall see that in our text this morning, the author of Hebrew emphatically states that Jesus is greater than any other priest that has come before him. He's greater than any priest that has come before him. And so with that in mind, let's read Hebrews chapter four, starting in verse 14, and we'll end in chapter five, verse 10. Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God. Let us hold fast to our confession, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who is in every respect has been tempted as we are. yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. And he can deal gently with the ignorant and the wayward since he himself is beset with weakness. Because of this, he is obligated to offer sacrifices for his own sins. just as he does for the sins of the people. And no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was. So also Christ did not exalt himself to make a high priest, but was appointed by him who said, you are my son, today I have begotten you. As he also says also in another place, you are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death. And he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him. having been designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. Thus ends the reading of God's holy word. You know, as Americans, we are kind of an individualistic culture in society. Rugged individualism is a pretty common characteristic for an American, and that kind of has been hyperinflated in these last couple of centuries to where we're hyper individualistic. We don't like anyone representing us or telling us what to do or anything like that. But even still, we're kind of familiar with the concept of being represented by someone else, having someone else speak on our behalf. In a court of law, our attorneys, our lawyers, represent us and do the majority of the talking for us. Most of us would not be very good lawyers and would not get out of many traffic tickets if we didn't have a good attorney with us. At the Olympics, None of us right now are representing the USA on the world stage in athletics. We have Team USA. They represent us. They are our team. They represent our entire nation on that stage and in that context. And in government as well, we vote for elected officials. We vote for state senators, we vote for state representatives, and so we are literally represented by someone. We cast our vote in order for someone to represent our voice, speak on our behalf, have some of our authority, right? And so we understand this concept, but in the world of politics and law and sports, but in terms of religion, It's quite foreign for us as Christians, as Protestants, to have priests. So the concept of a priest is kind of foreign to us in many ways. If you remember when I talked back at the first message, I said that prophets represented God. They were God's legal covenant representatives. They were his covenant lawyers that he sent to the people of God in order to tell them, here's where you're breaking the covenant. They were his legal representatives. In the same way, priests serve as our representatives before God. They were the religious, the ceremonial, the sacrificial representatives of God's people before God himself. And so we, too, even today, need a mediator. We need a priest, someone to represent us before the face of God. But what's different between the priesthood that we see in the Old Testament and the priesthood that we are now a part of and are underneath is our representative isn't a normal man. And he's not here on earth. He's in heaven representing us. And so in our sermon this morning, we will see that there are actually three high priests mentioned in our text, and that the first two high priests, Melchizedek and Aaron, point to and inform us about the third. They teach us about the priestly ministry of the third high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the first two serve as types, as mere shadows of the true reality that is Christ and his priestly ministry. And the number one thing I want you to take away from this morning's message is this. Draw near to your high priest and his throne of grace. Draw near to your high priest and his throne of grace. Before we properly begin, I want to kind of give a running definition, a working definition for what a priest truly is. A priest is someone who is set apart by God for the holy purpose of representing the people of God before him. He serves as a holy emissary from humanity to the Lord in order to offer a variety of sacrifices and offerings, to pray and to intercede on the people's behalf. And like I said, if a prophet is God's covenant lawyer coming to us, a priest is our ceremonial representative going to God. So with that in mind, we start understanding what a priest is. And so priests also offered up sacrifices for the people in order to atone for sins. That word atonement means to cover over. And so for a priest to make atonement, they often had to shed blood. And this just isn't my opinion about what our text is about as well. The author of Hebrews himself states that, for every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God. They are chosen by God, set apart by him, in order to act on behalf of men for God. And Dr. Richard Gamble, the systematic theologian, helpfully summarizes this point as well. The high priest was a true intercessor, a true mediator between God and his people. And so with that in mind, let's dive into our sermon proper. First we see Melchizedek, the high priest Melchizedek. And the exact identity of this individual named Melchizedek is a topic of much debate. There's a variety of different opinions and positions on who this person actually is. Some say that he is a pre-incarnate Christ, that he came, was not in flesh, but appeared as a man before Abraham. There are others that are saying that he's just a normal human being that merely is a type, a shadow, a way for God to teach the people of Israel what Christ would be like. And I'm not going to preach on either of those positions because I have jostled in the three or so years that I've heard of this debate, I've jostled back and forth about every other time I've heard an argument. So I'm not going to touch that. What I'm going to focus on is what we can all commonly understand and agree. And I'm only going to pull what I know from the author of Hebrews' own interpretation of the figure of Melchizedek. You see in chapters 7 and 8 of the book of Hebrews, the author actually interprets what Melchizedek is and how he relates to Christ. But let's go back to the historical character to begin with. Melchizedek is first mentioned in Genesis chapter 14. And the book of Genesis tells us this. After Abraham returned from the defeat of Kedelet Amor, the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the valley of Sheba, that is, the king's valley. And Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High, and he blessed Abraham and Seth. Blessed be Abraham, by God most high, possessor of heaven and earth. And blessed be God most high, who has delivered your enemies into your hand. And so I want you to know first and foremost that Melchizedek is described both as a king and a priest. He's operating in multiple offices at the same time. So that's the first thing that should be striking to us because in the Old Testament economy, in the way that the Old Testament was set up, kings, priests, and prophets were all separate entities. They were all separate offices and kings were not allowed to do priestly duties. So this is kind of an exception and kind of interesting to point out. Another big thing is this man is a Canaanite. This is before. Israel has come in and conquered the land. This is before there even was in Israel a Jacob. To begin with, this is Abraham being blessed by a Canaanite, a Canaanite king who is also a priest of the one true God. That's a detail I bet many of us would just read over and just accept on first glance and like, oh, okay, that's cool. But that's really striking. That's really important to note. This random Canaanite is worshiping the one true God. And to Jews, this kind of revelation, this focused attention on Melchizedek would have been quite jarring because for them, A priest had to come from the tribe of Levi, from the house of Aaron. That's who a priest was. Who is this random Melchizedek? Well, the author of Hebrews tells us. And so I'm going to list off and summarize what the author of Hebrews tells us in chapters seven and eight about Melchizedek. First, he notes that the name Melchizedek can be translated as king of righteousness. I want to remind us all that in the Bible, names carry significant value. Names oftentimes are used to describe the character of the person that they are attached to. Or they're used in an ironic sense. The character of the person that has a good name will have a bad name attached to it to kind of show some convolution there. And so the point being here is that Melchizedek can be translated as king of righteousness. So this seems to suggest the way that it's being used that Melchizedek was truly a righteous man, a righteous and upright king. Our Lord Jesus was also a righteous and upright man. To be completely honest, he was the only truly good, perfect, and righteous man that has ever existed. So this King of Righteousness points to the true King of Righteousness, the true Man of Righteousness. Next, the author of Hebrews points out that he's also called King of Salem, or in other words, King of Peace. You see, Salem is a transliteration of the word shalom, which in Hebrew means peace. So not only is he a king of righteousness, he's also a king of peace. There's another man who is known by a royal title associated with peace, and that is Jesus, the Prince of Peace, who brought peace between sinful humanity and a righteous and holy God. He brought peace where there was hostility between you and me and between us and God. He brought peace. Lastly, he's described as a priest of God most high. Again, there's much debate as to what that actually means. How is this random Canaanite man a priest of God Most High? But I don't want to focus on that. What I do want to focus on, and what the author of Hebrews points out, is that this proves that a man does not have to come from the tribe of Levi or the house of Aaron to be a valid and truthful priest. To be a true priest does not mean that you must come from the tribe of Levi, because if that was the case, then there was no way for Christ to be a priest. Christ is of the tribe of Judah, of the house of David. There would be no way for him to be a Levitical priest. Rather, he is a priest under the order of Melchizedek. The last thing that the author of Hebrews points out, I'm going to quote two different passages from chapter seven. He points out that the way that Melchizedek is introduced in Genesis 14 points to the eternality of Christ priesthood. Hear what he says. Melchizedek is without father or mother or genealogy. having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God, he continues as a priest forever. That's in Hebrews 7.23. The former priests were many in number because they were prevented by death from continuing in life, in their office. But Jesus holds his priesthood permanently because he continues forever. Consequently, he is able to save to the utmost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. The fact that Melchizedek arrives on the scene with no genealogy, we're not told when he dies, he appears to resemble something eternal. So this order of Melchizedek that has been brought up multiple times in chapter one and now here in chapter five, This Order of Melchizedek is an eternal order of priests. And it points to the fact that Christ shall remain in this office forever. There is no further priest needed. We have the one that actually accomplishes atonement. And he shall never fail, never stop interceding on your behalf. He exists as a priest forever. Having examined Melchizedek, now let's turn our attention now to Aaron, the second high priest mentioned in our text for this morning. At Mount Sinai, when God gave the law to the people of Israel, he called one man and his family to represent the entire nation of Israel and to serve as his priests. God told Moses, bring near to you Aaron, your brother, and his sons with him from among the people of Israel to serve me as priests. Aaron and his sons were separated from the rest of their tribe, from the rest of the nation of Israel. If you were with us last evening service, I was able to explain what holiness meant. And holiness means being separated from that which is common and that which is unclean and sinful. And so the tribe of Levi and specifically the house of Aaron was separated. They were called to a holy purpose. to minister before God himself. They had to serve as priests, so they were separated. They were not allowed to take an inheritance of the land. Their inheritance was the Lord himself. That's what he told them. Their ministry of serving as priests was their gift from God. We see now that Aaron is called a priest, a high priest, meant to serve for the people. I want to focus now, rather than on Aaron as an individual, I want to focus on the priestly garments that God had ordained for them to make for them. The high priests of Aaron and after him wore these beautiful garments. I'll tell you about them in a little bit, I'll list them all off, but I just Googled real quick, how much monetary value would the high priestly garments have in today's value? And this is a conservative estimate of just the raw materials, just the raw materials of the fabric and the gold and the stones and all that. $65,000 just for the raw material. That's not counting actually crafting it and embroidering it and making it this wonderful thing. all for one man to represent the people of God. So we're given the specifications for the high priest garments in Exodus chapter 28. The Lord told Moses, you shall make holy garments for Aaron, your brother, for glory and for beauty. You shall speak to all the skillful, whom I have filled with a spirit of skill, that they make Aaron's garments to consecrate him for my priesthood. And these are the garments that they shall make a breastpiece, an ephod, a robe, a coat of checkerwork, a turban, and a sash. They shall make holy garments for Aaron, your brother, and his sons, to serve me as priest." And once again, I want to point out that the way that holy is being used here is not really talking about moral purity in the way that we typically talk about holiness, like someone being holy. for us usually means like they're pure in their character and their conduct. But again, the way God is using this word is that it's separated from the common, from the mundane. It's set for a holy purpose, to worship, to be used for the worship of God. And so these six articles of clothing were meant to represent and teach the people of Israel something about the office and the responsibilities of the high priest. So first we have the breastplate. The breastplate was made of blue and red and purple and even golden yarn. It had four rows of different kinds of precious stones built into it. So 12 stones total. And each stone was engraved with a name of a tribe of Israel upon it. And this breastplate was meant to represent that the priest was representing the entire nation. all of the tribes, the entire nation of Israel upon his chest before God. He was their representative. Likewise, the ephod was made of the same yarn, red, blue, purple, and gold, with two shoulder clasps upon it. And on each clasp was a black onyx stone. And engraved on there was six names and six names. So again, this is meant to represent that the high priest, when he goes to minister and serve before God himself, he's bearing the people on his back. He's bearing the weight of their sins in order to make atonement for them. He represents them. The robe was made of all blue silk, On the bottom of the robe was an alternating pattern of golden bells and yarn that were formed in such a way to look like little pomegranates. The turban had a gold plate upon it, and engraved on that gold plate was the phrase, holy to the Lord. The high priest was to wear this the entire time that he did his priestly duties. He was holy to the Lord, set apart to represent God's people before them, to make atonement for their sins. And again, these great garments that were beautiful and meant to be holy, they were just representing something. They themselves were not holy. but they were meant to teach the people of Israel, and they teach us now the importance and the responsibilities of the office of priest. Unfortunately, Aaron and his sons after him were not truly holy in themselves. These beautiful garments of holiness couldn't change what was actually within them. They were not holy in and of themselves, but God considered them holy in a sense so that they could serve as a tool and as a teacher for the people of Israel. Now the glorious garments and the entire priesthood of the Aaronic High Priest, all of them didn't do anything, but they all pointed to the one priest, the one truly holy priest that could actually represent mankind before God, who actually could take away our sins. These glorious garments served as mere shadows of the reality they pointed to. Let me explain what I mean when I keep saying shadows and types throughout both this series and this sermon in general. But let me explain what I mean. If I was to drive down the highway like I just finished doing, and I was hungry and I saw a road sign that said McDonald's and I went to, I pulled off the road and I went to that, the actual like highway sign that said McDonald's and I expected to be well fed there, I would be sorely disappointed. That sign does not actually point to what I truly need. Likewise, a shadow, if you look at my shadow, it moves when I moves, it looks like me, it's connected to me, But it's not truly me. It doesn't have my weight and my substance. It merely represents me. In the same way, the entire priesthood of Aaron and his glorious garments. were just shadows, were just signs that pointed to Christ. And so having examined the priesthoods of Melchizedek and Aaron, let's now look at the priesthood of Christ. First we see at verse 14 that we have a priest who cares and sympathizes with us. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness. We also have a high priest who is truly holy and sinless. The rest of verse 15 reads like this. But one who is in every respect has been tempted as we are. yet without sin. And not only that, not only is he able to sympathize with us, not only is he able, is he perfect and sinless, but he is active. He's an active priest. In his life, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death. We know from the gospel accounts that Jesus was a devout man of prayer. He prayed by himself often. He taught his disciples how to pray in the Lord's Prayer. And lastly, and most importantly, as he was hanging on the cross, after having been beaten, mocked, crucified, whipped with a cat of nine tails, spat upon, beaten by both Jew and Roman alike, What did he pray to God the Father in the midst of all that? Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Father, forgive them. That was his prayer. As the creatures that he made, little things of dust, struck him, mocked him, slandered him, hated him. He prayed, Father, forgive them. He prayed for mercy and grace on those who hated him. He prayed for his enemies. And lest anyone here today begins to think too highly of themselves, starts to look down upon the Romans and the Jews in the first century, let me remind you all that you and me, we all were once enemies of God. Hear the words of the Apostle Paul from chapter two of the book of Ephesians. You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. You and me were children of wrath, children of disobedience, enemies of God. We hated God in every thought, in every word, in every deed. And what did Christ do for you? What did he do for you? He prayed for you. He died for you. He made atoning sacrifice on your behalf. He bore your sins upon his shoulders. He had your name upon his chest when he ministered before God's throne. Your name. He represents you and he intercedes for you. Only the priestly ministry of Christ can make the relationship between God and man right again. Only he can make your relationship with God in a right standing. He is God the Son, second person of the Trinity, who took on flesh, lived perfectly according to the law on your behalf, and died the death you so rightly deserved. He laid it down as a sacrifice for your sins. And so Jesus is both the high priest and the sacrifice He is the high priest who is greater than Melchizedek, for he truly is a righteous man and truly is a prince of peace, and is that perfect priest of God most high. And he is a greater priest than Aaron, who was merely considered holy by God in order to make shadowy sacrifices that could never truly atone for sins. The blood of bulls and goats cannot wash away the sins of a man or a woman. But Christ's blood, his truly holy life laid down for you could make atonement. His blood truly does cleanse. So my question for all of you this morning is this. Will you be like the original audience of this letter? Will you shrink back in fear and doubt and unbelief in the priesthood of Christ? or will you run and throw yourself at his mercy seat, at his throne of grace? Will you trust in his priesthood and in his sacrifice? As our text this morning reminds us, Jesus is the source of salvation for all who would obey him. Will you place your faith in him and run after him? While it is true that none is righteous, no, not one, and the wages of sin is death, there is still hope for the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. And if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. That's what it means to obey him. In the simplest sense, do you have faith in him and in his sacrifice? So I call all of you to draw near to your high priest and his throne of grace. And I just have two kind of practical ways that you can do that. First, follow the example of this little church right here. We had the pastoral long prayer towards the beginning of service. Every evening service, we spent half of it praying to God. In your personal life and your life here in the church, come to your intercessor. Come to your high priest. He hears your cries and your pleas. He cares for you. So come to him in prayer. Another simple way to draw near is what you're doing right now, coming to the Lord's Day service. Because it's here, through the preaching of the word, through the sacraments of baptism in the Lord's Supper, through prayer, through song, we draw ourselves nearer and nearer to God. He gives you sanctifying grace here. That's how we can draw near to him. Come to church and pray. That's the two simplest ways. I can't summarize it any easier. Draw near to him, to these ordinary means of grace. This morning we have seen that there are three priests mentioned in our text. The first two, Melchizedek and Aaron, pointed to the greater high priest that is Jesus Christ. They served as shadows and types, gave an insight into Christ and his priesthood. I just want to remind us all one last time before we close. Draw near to your high priest. He loves you, and he has grace upon grace to pour out upon you. His blood truly washes us white as snow. It really did pay the debt of death you so rightly owed. So come to him. You don't have to bring anything. Praise be we have a great high priest like that. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you, Lord, for being with me. Lord, as I stumbled my way through that, I pray, Lord, that you would, even with my brothers and sisters here, remind them of your grace, remind them of your mercy, Remind them and place in their heart a deep appreciation for your sacrifice on the cross, where you served as both high priest and as sacrifice, where you offered up yourself to atone, to cover our sins, to wash us white and cleanse us. You say that if we have faith in our heart that you are Lord, that we believe that you were raised from the dead, that you will save us. Help us, Lord, to have that simple faith, and it is in your holy name we pray, amen.