Amen. We come back to our journey through Hebrews and we are in the 5th chapter. We have over the past year seen the greatness of the salvation offered in Christ. We've seen that from a number of aspects. We've seen the fact that the covenant which Christ sealed is greater than the Old Testament covenant and He showed us that in many ways. That the mediator of the covenant solely, Christ, the new covenant, is a greater mediator than the mediators of the old covenant, Moses and angels, it being doubly mediated. So the author of Hebrews says you can recognize right off the bat if Christ is a greater mediator, if He is greater than Moses and He is greater than the angels, than the covenant that's mediated by him is greater than the covenant mediated in them." Now there's much that's said there, we're not recapping all of that. As I said we spent nearly a year looking at that, but we've come to a second part here where he's trying to make the argument now, or is making the argument that Christ is a greater high priest. Greater than Aaron, his priesthood is greater, he is greater himself than Aaron, but he's in fact from a different entire priesthood, isn't he? He's not of the Levitical priesthood, he is of the priesthood of Melchizedek. And so we recognize that there is something different about this great and mighty and faithful High Priest. So the people have been given a great Savior and King, a faithful High Priest. And the Incarnation is essential to all of that. And we've tried to make this point over and over again. It is because Jesus is truly God and man that He's able to accomplish this mission. And we've been looking at this for quite some time. But the author of Hebrews makes this very clear. And it brings up in our minds a bit of a paradox. Because what it argues is that Jesus had to become a man to accomplish something that He would not have been able to accomplish in His perfect divinity before the incarnation. Now that is a little bit of a staggering thing, isn't it, to think about. But the author's clearly making this argument. He says, he could not have been our perfect and faithful high priest if he had not been a man, suffered as we do, and chosen from among us. For a high priest must be chosen from among the people. And we're gonna see in the next couple of weeks that much is said about this, but it's important to recognize. Now you can look at this in many other applications as well. How is he the perfect sacrifice? Well, He must be divine. He must not be born with our sin nature. He must live sinlessly and perfectly according to the law, go to Calvary's cross spotless and sinless as a perfect oblation or sacrifice, but He must also be a man in order to die. He must be both God and man to fill all these pictures, these great pictures of prophet, priest, king, sacrifice. He must be God and man to fill all these things. And so again, Hebrews is explaining all this to us. It's a mission that has to be accomplished specifically by one who is God and man. And there's only been one ever who was God and man. And that's why we say there is no other way except through Christ. No one else could accomplish what Christ accomplished. It was for him to do, and he accomplished it. Only God can enter in this way and take on flesh And that's what the second person of the Trinity did. Jesus Christ became a man and became the perfect God-man. And so that's what makes him perfect as our high priest. And this is what this author has been pointing to over and over again. He needs to be human in order to be able to sympathize with our weakness, to have felt what it's like to be a human being, to be chosen from among men. He must be a man. But at the same time, he must be divine. Why has that already been argued? because an earthly high priest can only enter into the presence of God temporarily. Aaron could enter in once a year for a short time on Yom Kippur. But again, the point here is Christ can abide everlastingly at His Father's right hand because He's able to be there at His right hand and intercede on our behalf forever. And so that makes Him a superior, a perfect high priest. So all these things we've been looking at, And we're gonna see it a little bit more today. Now, why is all this important? Well, it goes back to the same point being driven home over and over again. If you turn away from Christ, to whom can you turn? The answer is there's nowhere else to turn, right? So if these people who are in the church, these Jewish Christians turn away from Christ to go back to the synagogue, what salvation can they find in Moses? None, because Moses was pointing to Jesus. And so again, all of this is to bring home there is one sufficient and perfect high priest in the things pertaining to God. He was foreshadowed by Aaron, yes, but he is perfectly fulfilled in Christ. And so therefore, turn to Christ. Do not turn away from him. He is the one in whom we find salvation. Now that brings us to this larger text in which the author of Hebrews wants to establish some important principles for us. He's already laid them out in the first few verses of chapter 5 that a high priest must be appointed to the task. He cannot appoint himself. He represents man and the things pertaining to God. He offers gifts and sacrifices. He has to have compassion on those who are ignorant and going astray. He himself is prone to the same weakness, if you will. And so Christ was tempted, of course, without sin. And so all of these things are things that the high priest must do. So we come to verse five, and let's just read it really quick. Read through verse 10. Actually, we'll read through verse 11. So also Christ did not glorify himself to become high priest, but it was he who said to him, you are my son, today I have begotten you. As he also says another place, you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with vehement cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death and was heard because of his godly fear, though he was a son, yet he learned obedience by the things which he suffered. And having been perfected, he became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey him." called by God as high priest according to the order of Melchizedek, of whom we have much to say and hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing." All right, as we look at this this morning, I want us to look at two points. We're focusing on verses 7 and 8, and the points we want to look at is, first of all, he offered up prayers. And it's the idea of him offering up that's important. And second of all, he learned obedience. He learned obedience. And that's going to be another one of those points that we're like, well, can God learn something? So this is a really important thing for us to think about. So to begin today's text we want to note that the text we are looking at and next Sunday is really one large sentence in the original Greek. It's easier for us to deal with by dividing it up because there's so much content here and it's important that we see what all this says because it points to a very high and important Christology. We need to recognize who Christ is, what He came to do, what He accomplished, and why we should be so thankful to Him if we are in Him. So it begins with the word who. in my translation here, verse 7, who, that's referring to Christ, to Jesus, not to Melchizedek, but to Jesus, who, and then we immediately get a time marker, who, in the days of His flesh. Now this is to help us understand when this author is talking about. So we can immediately rule out, if you want to place this, Christ's pre-incarnate glory, because He wasn't in the days of His flesh then. And at the same time, we would recognize that he's not meaning now that he's in heaven, although he is still, if you will, shares in our human nature, doesn't he? Even today, right? He is God and man. Much of the promises of Hebrews relies on the fact that he is still God man. He is still fully God, fully man, truly God, truly man, that he is still this great savior. And so again, We recognize that while we could say he's still in the days of his flesh in one sense, that's not what the author means here. He means in his incarnate life on earth. So in other words, after his incarnation and really up until I think his resurrection is what's pictured here in his exaltation, that it's referring to this time. this is the time that the author means. In fact, I think it was Spurgeon who said it wouldn't really be right to talk about Jesus now in the flesh, even though, yes, He is still human in the sense that He has a body, right? He is fully man, fully God, but in the flesh is a reference to His time here and the temptations and trials that He was under. And so again, We see this language showing his time of incarnation on this earth, his earthly life. And so the author wants to bring this to mind. So what did he do during this time? That's the question. What does he want us to think about? Well, it says he offered up. He offered up prayers and supplications. That's one thing he did. If you ever think about the life of Christ, are you surprised by how much time he spent in prayer? It's amazing. The disciples seem to be surprised oftentimes. The very beginning of Mark's gospel, they're looking for him. All the city has come to this healer. They can't find him. He's gone. They go out and they find him in the wilderness praying. They're like, what are you doing out here? The whole town has come to you. But Jesus goes out to pray. Over and over again, we find this in his life. He is always praying. Now on the one hand, that might really surprise us. Because we think, you know, he himself fully God, why would he need to pray? But then we think about what we're learning throughout this text. He is the perfect faithful Israelite. He is the perfect man of God, if you will. He came to fulfill all righteousness. And so what is part of the call to righteousness? It is to be a person of prayer. A person who recognizes our need of God. And Christ certainly recognized that, recognized his need of his Father's guidance, recognized his need of God's strength and help in his humanity. And so again, we're not surprised to see it in that sense that Christ is ever in prayer. And I think as the author of Hebrews is looking to this, he's saying, you can point to any time in Christ's life and see that he is a man who offered up prayers and supplications. He did it throughout His ministry. Everything that's recorded for us, He was praying along the way. Jesus was a man of prayer. And we see that over and again, and we often use the application here. If Christ, the second person of the Trinity, needed to be praying in His earthly walk, how much more do we need to be praying in our earthly walk? But again, He was at prayer. This praying, this picture of His dependence on the Father is not a fiction. It's not there as just something he's running through. You know, well, I need to set a good example for the people who are going to follow me. It's not just that. Because notice what it says. He offered up prayers and supplications with vehement cries and tears. Now think about that for a minute. That's not running through the motions. Earnest cries and tears. And my friends, I dare say many of us have been in those valleys. We know exactly what's being pictured here. where we are driven to our knees in prayer. I mean, we're to be a people always in prayer, but there are times in which we are in those valleys of despair and we are praying with vehement cries and tears. If you are in that valley now, you know that feeling of that drive to just go to the Lord and cry out to Him and call out to Him and seek shelter in Him and help in Him and strengthen Him and comfort in Him. Maybe you've come through that valley. By God's grace, those are valleys we come to in life. If you've not been in it or are not in it, eventually you're going to be in one of those valleys. That's just what it means to be a human being. We go through trials and travails. In this world, Jesus says, you will have trouble. He's told us that. We're going to have these times where we have vehement cries and tears, and we're to offer them up to the Lord. We're to offer them up in prayer to Him. That's what Jesus did. Now one of the great comforts we find here is when we're in those moments, we might think to ourselves, how can I pray to God? How can He understand any of this? He's never shared in the troubles and trials that I've gone through. But this scripture wants us to remember that we have a intercessor at the right hand of God who says, I've been through trials and travails and temptations. I've been through valleys. I've known human frailty and weakness. Christ did it without sinning. We want to make that abundantly clear. But as we cry out to God, we cry out to a mediator and high priest who says, I have also cried out vehemently with tears. I have cried out. I know what that's like. Now I think there are probably many places where we would find examples of Christ being moved to pray in this way, but clearly the place we would most think of is Gethsemane. In that moment where Christ is driven to this almost desperate prayer, we get it clearly in his own language. Father, if it be possible, take this cup away from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done. I mean, again, it says in the Scriptures that He prayed so earnestly, right, so intensely that His sweat was like great drops of blood. The Scriptures are telling us this was an intense moment, an intense moment in which Jesus was turning to His Father for help. for strength, for all the things that we are called to turn to him for. And again, lest we say, well, Jesus is fully God, why would he need those things? This is why Hebrews is telling you he became a man, that he would be tempted and tried and he would go through all these weaknesses that are common to us that he might share in our experience in such a way that he could be our perfect high priest. So that when we are crying out to him and saying, I don't know how I can bear this anymore, I need help, I need strength, I need comfort. One is right there ready to offer it because he's experienced the same things. He recognizes the trials that we face as human beings because he has truly been a man and is a man. And so again, all these things are important. He offers up, this word in the Greek, profero, it's a word which means to offer up like a sacrifice. He offered up these prayers unto God, these prayers and supplications, and he did it with urgency, with vehement cries and tears. And who did he offer them up to? Obviously his father. To him, it says, who was able to save him from death. Now that's interesting, isn't it? For two reasons. First of all, it gives us a clue into what Christ might have been praying. He prayed to the one who could save him from death. Now again, this is made more complicated by what's said right after it. It says, and was heard. That means, and his prayer was answered. And we say, wait a minute. We know that he was praying that the cup would be taken away from him, but How was that prayer heard in the sense that He was saved from death if He was praying to the One who could save Him from death? Well, first of all, we have to recognize that there's more than one way to understand being saved from death. But before we get to that, I want you to remember what Jesus said in John 12, 27. He knew He came into the world for this moment. In John 12, 27, He says this, Now is my soul troubled, as it was later in Gethsemane? And what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? But for this cause came I unto this hour." In other words, how could I have to be saved from this moment when I came into the world for this moment? Christ came into the world to save sinners, Paul said, of whom I am chief. Well, how was he to do it? He had to go to Calvary's cross. He had to give his life as a sacrifice for sin. And so if that were to take place, he could not ultimately be saved from this hour in that sense. He had to go to Calvary's cross. He recognizes that. So we might ask, why in Gethsemane does he cry out in this way? Take this cup away from me. Because this cup is a frightening cup. This cup that pictures the wrath of God, if you will. that he is going to bear on behalf of his people, that is not, again, a fiction. This is not something that you just go, oh yeah, no big deal. Jesus understood what he was going to endure on Calvary's cross. He recognized it. It was natural to say, if there is a way, if there's any way possible that I might have this cup taken away, but nevertheless, he says, not my will be done, but yours be done. Ultimately, his prayer was to ask that the Father's will be done. And again, that's what we see. He knelt down and prayed, Luke says, Father, if it is your will, take this cup away from me, nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. Then it says, then an angel appeared to him from heaven, strengthening him, and being in agony, it says, listen to that, being in agony, he prayed more earnestly, again, Vehement, earnest, these are very similar words. Then his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. Again, we want to recognize, we read through these texts so often that we don't think about what it's telling us about that moment for Christ. The urgency of the moment, the seriousness of the moment, the earnestness of the moment, the agony of the moment. All of that is shown to us in these texts. And they're important to think about. Jesus is praying to the one who is able to save him from death. Now, what does that mean? Well, we need to start with the fact that, yes, God is able to save him from death. God could say, you know what? These human beings are not worth it. Let's not do this. Now, this is what they agreed to from eternity past. There's no question here. It is the will of God that Christ will come and go to Calvary's cross. It is Christ's desire to do the same. But again, God is able to save him in that way. But again, we've already heard that's not what Jesus wants. First of all, he says, shall I be saved from this hour? No, it's for this hour that I came into the world. I wouldn't ask to be saved from this hour, from this moment. And ultimately his prayer is that God's will be done. If it's your will, take this cup away. Nevertheless, whatever your will is, that's why I've come. That's why I've come. Let your will be done. And so Christ is crying out for that. So there's two ways we can understand this idea of the one who is able to save him from death. The first is that Jesus would not die. Well, we know that's not biblically and theologically possible. Jesus came into the world to die. So that's not what's being discussed here. But there's another way you can think of being saved from death, from the state of death, that he would be delivered out of death. Now, where do we see that? Well, let's turn to Psalm 16. Now, we would know that this is a mixtam of David. This is a psalm of David. And it's attributed to David. And all Jews knew these were the words of David. But we have Acts 2 and Pentecost and a sermon preached there by Peter in which Peter says, I'm going to quote Psalm 16, but I'm going to remind you that it's not speaking of David. Peter says, how do we know it's not speaking of David? Because it says that this one's body will not see corruption. And brothers, we know where David is buried, Peter says. And his body is there till this day. So this is not speaking of David. Let's listen to Psalm 16. Preserve me, O God, for in You I put my trust. O my soul, You have said to the Lord, You are my Lord. My goodness is nothing apart from You. As for the saints who are on the earth, they are the excellent ones in whom is all my delight. Their sorrows shall be multiplied, who hasten after another God. their drink offerings of blood I will not offer, nor take up their names on my lips. O Lord, you are the portion of my inheritance and my cup. You maintain my lot. The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places. Yes, I have a good inheritance. I will bless the Lord who has given me counsel. My heart also instructs me in night seasons. I have set the Lord always before me. because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore, my heart is glad and my glory rejoices. My flesh also will rest in hope for you will not leave my soul in Sheol, nor will you allow your Holy One to see corruption. You will show me the path of life in your presence's fullness of joy at your right hand are pleasures forevermore." Now again, This is written by David, but Peter says these are the words applicable to Christ. This is a prayer, if you will, of Christ, the words of Christ. And notice there again in this, Jesus says this, you will not leave my soul in Sheol, nor will you allow your Holy One to see corruption. Now, as I said, Peter says this clearly can't be David because his body is still buried somewhere, right? We know where, he says in those days. but Jesus does not stay in the grave. Right? Jesus is buried, as the Heidelberg says, to show that He truly died. And we've talked about what happened during those days. There are some difficulties there, but again the point is He arose. He arose. He triumphed over, if you will, death and it could not hold Him. It could not keep him. Death could not hold him. The grave could not keep him. He arose and his body did not see corruption. It's not David this is referring to. It's David's greater heir this is referring to. This is referring to Jesus. It was the prayer, the hope that Jesus had that these words would be fulfilled. I'm going to go and be buried into the tomb as Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days so the Son of Man will be in the earth. But again, he arose. He says, I'm only going to be there for a short time. This is my earnest expectation. I'm praying out and calling out to God. I know you will not leave my soul in Sheol and you will not allow my body to see corruption. And so again, we come back to our text for today. He says the same thing, he cried out to the one who could save him from death, and who did save him from death, and he was heard. He was heard. Now why was he heard? It's interesting, in my translation it says here, because of his godly fear. And that's a good translation, but that word for fear means something like holy reverence. Because of his reverence, because he trusted in God. He trusted in God. He knew in all earnestness that God was not going to leave him in the grave, but that God would raise him up. Now that is a model for the trust that we are called to have in growing measure, right? We don't have it perfectly. That's why in Hebrews 11, where we will come to at some point down the road, it says that when Abraham offered up Isaac, he knew that Isaac was the one through whom God had made the promise. And he reasoned, it said, that if he slew him, if he sacrificed him, that God would necessarily raise him from the dead, because God's word must be fulfilled. Now that is incredible faith, isn't it? When we talk about having the faith of Abraham, that's what's being talked about. That kind of faith that said, God is telling me to do this, but He's also made promises, and both must be true. If I sacrifice my son, God is still going to use him to bring forth the promise. That is faith. And so again, here is one who has eulabia, that is this reverence, this holy faith and reverence. Jesus is a model of this. Now I want us to move quickly on to our second point that he learned obedience because as you read this text it says, in the days of his flesh when he'd offered up prayers and supplications with vehement cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death and was heard because of his godly fear, though he was a son yet he learned obedience by the things which he suffered. Now we want to start there with though he was a son. This is referring to his position as the only begotten son of God. His unique position. Though He was a Son, though He is the incarnate Word, the second person of the Holy Trinity, though He is the Son of God, yet even then He learned obedience. And I say this should kind of perk up our ears and challenge us, right? Why would the Word say this? God is omniscient. God cannot learn anything, right? How can we argue that this argument that Christ learned obedience? Well, the first thing we want to recognize is that it's not talking about knowledge that is gained in the sense of he learned something he didn't factually know before. As we went Wednesday night through Pilgrim's Progress, you'll remember talkative is one who has a religion that is all talk, right? He has all the facts, all the knowledge. He can list out everything. But he hasn't experienced anything, right? He has no experience of saving, of salvation in Christ. He has no regeneration by the Holy Spirit. There is nothing there. It's just knowledge. It's just talk. It's all head knowledge. There's no reformation of the heart. You know, Bunyan himself talked about a period of outward reformation, but no change in the heart. That's very much what he's picturing in talkative. And yet here is an important distinction. You can have facts about something, but that not be experience. You can know about something. I can have done a lot of research on hunger. And I can tell you, oh, this percentage of children are in hunger today around the world. And there are many adults in hunger. And here's what happens to them biologically day by day as they enter into hunger. And here are the medical conditions that result from being hungry and malnourished. And we can go through all these points. But if I've never missed a meal, I don't know the agony and the pain of hunger, do I? Jesus obviously has all knowledge, all wisdom, no question about that. The argument of Hebrews is what he did not have in his divinity was humanity. He did not have a common experience with mankind in being weak and tempted and tried. He had not experienced any of those things. He couldn't. As God, He has all resources. He has need of nothing. But in His humanity, He had need of things. He had to eat. He had to drink. He had to sleep. He had all these things. He could die. And the scriptures show us this truth. The Bible tells us He was tempted and tried as we are and yet without sin. This is not a point to skip over but the entire point of the Incarnation. He had to be made like us. He had to be tempted and tried like us. He had to have weakness like us. None of which He had in His divinity but all of which He had in His humanity. Again, only the perfect God-man can have all these things that are needed. So when we say that he learned something, he didn't learn anything knowledge-wise, he gained experience. He gained experience. He gained what it was like to be tempted. He knew what temptation was. He knew, as a theological argument, what it meant to be tempted. He knew what all these things were, but he hadn't experienced it. He had not experienced temptations and trials. He had not experienced weakness. He is, right, all-powerful. But He came into the world and He experienced these things. And the Scriptures tell us that having experienced them and yet without sin, He is able to be our perfect High Priest. Why? Because He didn't sin, He was able to go to Calvary's cross and be the perfect sacrifice for our sin, the perfect Lamb of God, but also because He's experienced them, He can minister on our behalf as our High Priest. Now this is gonna be exposited in the chapters to come, isn't it? But again, the point is recognize the glories of what's being told here. He came into this world and he gained this experience. And in that way, he became our perfect high priest. He understands our weakness. He understands our challenges. When we, you know, those vehement cries and tears, that wasn't something he experienced in heaven. That was something he experienced in his walk here, crying out in his earthly weakness. And so again, when we cry out, we can say we can have confidence that he fully understands what we're going through because he's faced whatever it is. Say it's death, our own or the death of a loved one. We're in that valley. We think, how can anyone, How could God empathize with us, and yet we go back to Gethsemane and we say, oh, that's how. Because Christ was there, right, realizing what was to come, and yet in that moment, cried out with vehement cries and tears, and trusted in God, and gave us, if you will, a model. It's more than that, but at least a model of what we need to do in our valleys of despair. Turn unto Him, cry out to Him, and literally cry, if need be, to him. And so all of these things are shown to us. He learned this, if you will. He gained this experience that he could not have had in his divinity. He gained it in his humanity. And as the God-man, now is the perfect high priest. Perfect high priest. Now, why is this important? Because we need a perfect high priest. That's the point. This isn't just like a bonus. We needed it. We needed the perfect sacrifice and we needed the perfect high priest to reconcile us perfectly to our heavenly father. There was no hope for our reconciliation. There was no hope for our salvation outside of this plan, outside of Christ coming and doing this. There was no other way. If there was another way, God would have done that. God would not have sent his son to the cross to endure all of that. If there was another way, he sent him because this was the only way. For this reason, I have come into the world, he says. Paul argues in Romans that the gospel is the explanation of how God can be both just and the justifier of those who come to Him in faith. The reason God couldn't do it any other way is sin had to be paid for. It had to be accounted for. It had to be put to the charge of someone. And if it wasn't going to be put to our charge, it would be put to the charge of another. And this is what David said, blessed is the man whose iniquities are not accounted unto him, but are accounted ultimately to another. Christ came, He took our sin upon Himself, and now we stand by faith in His perfect righteousness before God. That's how we're reconciled. We're reconciled because we have a perfect sacrifice offered on our behalf. We have a perfect King who reigns right now at the right hand of the Father. We also have the perfect High Priest who entered into that heavenly tabernacle. and there at the right hand intercedes on behalf of His people. My friends, these are essential doctrines to understanding how we can have confidence that we are saved in Christ Jesus, that He is able to do what He said He came to do and what He actually did.