take your Bible to the passage we just read together in the book of Hebrews chapter 4. And while you're turning there, I was trying to think of a way to connect what we're going to see God has done for us in Christ to what's going on in our lives right now. And finding good ways to tie the sermon to our life is always a challenge for every preacher. And sometimes we do it well, and sometimes we don't. And so I'm kind of hoping today the connection will be there. But how many of you men have already finished all of your Christmas shopping? If you're a man, this is only for men, this is a question only for men. How many of you men have already finished all of your Christmas shopping? Hold your hand up, okay? All right, let's give these brothers a hand of applause. And let's just acknowledge something, either they didn't buy any presents, or they're in a unique category. I actually did some research this week about the difference in shopping habits between men and women. And one of the very interesting things that came out in my research of this was that Christmas week for men is probably one of the most stressful, it is one of the most active, it is one of the most frustrating weeks of the year because they finally figured out, we've got five days to get it done. Women, on the other hand, you realize that 95% of women, according to this survey, which I kind of doubt, but 95% of women have all their shopping done before the final week of Christmas. Ladies, we men, very few of us can relate to that. Fact is, some of you finished your Christmas shopping in November. You were all done. You made your list. Some of you have been shopping all year. How many of you women shop all year for Christmas? Can I see your hands? Okay, just a few of you. All right, so maybe we just have an unusual church. But for men, this is a very stressful week, and you know how many men actually wait till Christmas Eve? A ton of men actually wait till Christmas Eve to make a run to the store to try to figure out what to buy. It is panic. It is mayhem. And the sad thing about it is some men are actually proud of this. If you ask them during the month of December, have you done your Christmas shopping? Absolutely not. It's like a point of pride. These men are knaves. You know what a knave is? I actually look up the word knave. The word knave means, so let me give you some definitions. Rapscallion. I don't use that word very often, but it's a good word. I'm thinking about sort of bringing that one into my vocabulary. Rogue. Have you ever called somebody a rogue? I haven't called somebody a rogue in a long time. Scallywag. That's an old word. I remember hearing that word in my house a lot. My parents would use that to my brother quite a bit. Certainly not to me. The word that I thought best describes is just a rascal. You know, we guys are rascals. We wait till the last minute. We run out. We panic because the thing we thought we were gonna get isn't there. Then we don't like to stand in line. So we do the online thing as much as possible and then we run in and we grab something and this may explain why 25% of people who receive our gifts on Christmas morning basically are silently disappointed at what they get. This is kind of a stunning thing to me. But it's actually true and people who do these kind of surveys talk about the silent disappointment of unmet expectations that culminate on Christmas morning. when you open up a gift that you thought was gonna meet your expectations or satisfy your longings or fulfill your anticipations and you get a gift that does none of those things and you are disappointed. We noted last week as we began our short Advent series on what is a Messiah and why do we need one that God had sent a gift to the world. and we met the shepherds who first received the news about that gift. God had sent a gift, he wrapped it in swaddling cloths, and he placed it in a manger somewhere in Bethlehem. And this gift was a long-anticipated, long-awaited Messiah. Everybody had ideas about what a Messiah was and what he would do. Everybody had anticipations, everybody had longings, and everybody had expectations. And Jesus comes to the world as God's gift, as God's anointed appointed champion. And the shepherds are the first to hear it, but it doesn't take long for the word to get about. And you know the story of Mary hiding it in her heart. You remember the story of Simeon the priest identifying and verifying what the shepherds had said, the magi that came from the east bearing unusual gifts, fulfilling the prophecy that the nations would come and bring tribute to God's Messiah. All of those events come together, this constellation of things come together around this gift that God sent into the world. And then it goes silent for 30 years as this gift matures, as he grows in stature and wisdom and in favor in the sight of God and before men. We have one brief story during that period of time when Jesus was 12. He goes to the temple and he talks there with the leaders of the temple and he astonishes them with his understanding of the scripture. And then one day, a man named John, the cousin of Jesus, standing in a river baptizing, sees Jesus walking on the side of the river and he points to those around him and he directs their attention to Jesus and he says, that one is God's lamb. That's the one that God has sent to take away the sins of the world. This is the one that is going to establish a kingdom and restore the fortunes of Israel. This is the one who is going to depose the enemies of his people. This is the one that is going to deliver us and free us from our bondage. This is God's Messiah. And initially, there is this early anticipation and this initial excitement, but about six months into this, John is disillusioned and he is discouraged. Because this Messiah that he pointed out, this Messiah whose shoes he wasn't fit to even tie, this one who he announced would come and baptize with the Holy Spirit, this one who God had vindicated when he said, this one is my beloved son on the day of his baptism, this Messiah that had come into the world was doing very little Messiah-like things. Herod. The puppet king of Rome was still on throne. John, his closest associate, his theological forerunner, his own cousin was languishing in Herod's prison awaiting execution. And this Messiah didn't seem remotely interested in deposing Herod or delivering John. The anticipations. the longings, the expectations, none of them were being met by this Messiah. And so in Luke 7, John sends word through two associates to Jesus and they come and they say, listen, John has a question. And by the way, that's the question you have at times, that's the question I have at times, are you the one? Are you the one we're supposed to be looking for? Because if you are, you aren't doing anything that we anticipated. You are not delivering us from our oppression. You are not removing from us those over us who are persecuting us and pressuring us and keeping us in bondage. And you are not delivering us from our bondage. I mean, how many times have you wanted to ask that question? You just never did. Never came out of your mouth, but it maybe resonated in the echo chamber of your soul. And you said to God, God, I thought if I followed Jesus, I would have victory over my sins and my sins continue to plague me. You ever asked that? Maybe you have struggled in some area of your life and you have begged God and you have asked God and you thought, Jesus, you were supposed to deliver me from this. And I still struggle mightily. Maybe you thought, you know, Jesus, you were supposed to heal me of this. And here I am in a sickbed, and I pray, and I have the prayer of faith, and I read Scripture, and I claim the Psalms, I claim the passage in Scriptures where it talks about your ability to heal. I believe confidently that you can, but here I am in my sickbed, and it doesn't matter how often I pray, and how fervently I pray, and how deeply I come beseeching you in faith, I am still in this sickbed. Maybe you struggle in some area of your own mind and your own soul, and there is this darkness that comes upon you and you cannot seem to cut through the darkness with the light. And you come to Jesus and you say, I thought you were supposed to fix this. I thought you were supposed to deliver. I thought you were supposed to change. And even though you don't say it, and even though I don't articulate it, we have the same question that John had in Luke 7. Are you the one we were looking for? Or should we look for another? If you haven't asked that question, then you either haven't been saved long enough, or you have just shut your mind to the realities that go on in your life or in the life of those that you love. And you remember what Jesus said. Jesus sent back word to John, and he said to John, John, I want you to know something. You tell John that the dead are being raised back to life, the blind are being given back their sight, The deaf have their ears open and the good news is being preached to people who are in desperation. And what that tells us, as we saw last week, is that when God sent the gift of the Messiah, the Messiah he sent us was going to do something very different and far greater than just meeting our own little personal or even national expectations, anticipations, and longings. This Messiah was gonna do something far greater than delivering from a little prison cell where a little puppet king had placed one of his servants. He was going to reverse an ancient curse. He was going to redeem an ancient people, and he was going to remove and destroy an ancient enemy. And the gospels actually want you to pick this up. They want you to feel the tension. When you read the four gospels, they want you to wrestle with this tension. The thing you want Jesus to do right now, and the thing that God sent Jesus to do, that when he does it, you will be so glad he did. That's the tension the gospels create in us. And so that's why I thought it would be good for us as a church to ask and answer the question that reflects the tension. What is this Messiah and why do we need him? And so, Luke begins by saying, as we saw last week, that this Messiah is actually a greater prophet than Moses. He is exponentially greater than Moses in every way. He could do things Moses wanted to do but couldn't. He could actually open the eyes of people who were spiritually blind. He could actually open the ears of people who were spiritually deaf, and he could actually enliven the heart of people who were spiritually dead. So they could enter in to a rest that Moses could never offer. And this is why this Messiah, Great prophet says to you, come unto me all ye who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. And that's Luke's message. Matthew and John are going to point out, we'll see this next Sunday, that this Messiah is a greater king than David. He is exponentially greater. Matthew is going to be able to see him as the son of David, and John is gonna actually identify the son of David as the son of God. He is an exponentially greater king than David. And John and Matthew's exhortation to us would be, receive him and follow him. But this morning, we want to listen to Mark. Mark introduces us in very short order to the good news of Jesus the Messiah. That's how he opens the book. and then he begins on a journey. Mark is like, when you open up Mark, Mark starts you on a path, and he is relentlessly pushing you to a destination. How many of you have ever been on a tour, or you've been on a trip with someone who is your guide, and your guide says to you, now I want you to stay close, and I want you to stay with me? How many of you have ever been on one of those trips? I've had the privilege of leading trips to Israel many, many times, and every guide has their little trick to keep people together. You'll see some of them have an umbrella that they, so I always wear these loud, ugly shirts. The loudest color, the loudest, ugliest shirts, and I will oftentimes say to people now, if you get lost, just look for the shirt. Remember the color, and you'll be able to spot it anywhere in the streets of Jerusalem, and just make your way to that color. And so, but stay with us. And you're on this tour, and your guide is moving. And so here we are, we're moving through the streets of Jerusalem, and we're moving along, and people are getting distracted. Oh, let's just buy a t-shirt. No! It is not God's will for you to buy a t-shirt today. Get with the group. Stay focused. And they're walking along, and they're walking along, and they see this, oh, Villa Dolorosa, not today. It's not. That's tomorrow. You stay with the group. And you're like this goat herder. Actually, sheep would be a better analogy. Like the sheep herder keeping people moving, and that's Mark. When you start reading Mark, Mark is like moving and he's moving you because he has a destination. And where he wants you to go is the very place you don't want to go. Mark wants to take you somewhere you don't want to go. And he is relentless. He tells you the story along the way, so you get the picture, but he's not messing. I mean, he's moving, and so all through the book, it's immediately this, and immediately that, and immediately, and Mark is moving you, and he is taking you somewhere, and instinctively, you know you don't wanna go there. This Messiah is on a mission, and it's gonna take you to a cross, three times in Mark. Jesus stops the whole show. and looks at his people and he says to them, I am going to Jerusalem where I'm going to suffer and I'm going to die. And the whole point to that is that he would be a priest. That is his priestly function. All along the way in Mark, Jesus does priestly things. He consecrates people with the Holy Spirit. John said he's gonna baptize with the Holy Spirit. He actually forgives sin. He gets in trouble for doing this. He heals and He cleanses people who have been defiled by sin. That was a priestly duty in the Old Testament. He makes intercession. He prays for His disciples and He makes an atonement. All through Mark, Mark is making you aware of the priestly ministry of Jesus Christ. And so if we're going to understand Jesus as a better priest than Aaron. Let's begin this morning by asking a simple question. Who and what were the priests in the Old Testament? And Hebrews chapter five, verse one, describes who they were and what they did. If you think about the car you drive today that's parked out there, you might not be entirely happy with it. You might wish it was a different color. You might wish it was a different model. Some of you might wish it would actually start when you try to start it. But if you went back to the early 1900s and somebody handed you the keys to a Model T that went all of 15 miles an hour at top speed. Unless you were a car buff, and unless you intended to sort of, you would kind of look at that car and say, really? This is it? That's what I'm driving around? I mean, you know, man, this is the 2020s. And nobody drives Model T's or Model A's around unless they're car buffs. But if you lived back then, that was an awesome thing. It was the thing. I mean, if you looked out your window and you saw this, you could buy one of these cars in any color as long as it was black. And you could drive just about anywhere for about, you know, A day, it might take you a day to get somewhere, but it was awesome. Nobody would look back in the early 1900s at a Model T and say, oh, that's really not, I mean, come on. You expect me to get into that like we would today. And so if you go back to the Old Testament, that's exactly how people in the Old Testament viewed the priesthood. It was an awesome office. It was an amazing thing. These were men who were chosen by God. They were appointed by God for their entire life. They were consecrated to God for his exclusive use and service. They were examples of what God wanted the entire nation to be. God said to Israel, you are going to be a nation of priests. and to help you understand what a nation of priests does, I'm gonna give you a tribe of them. You're gonna have a whole tribe of them to help you understand what you're supposed to be as a nation. They were incredible people. They shared, however, in the sins and the weaknesses of those they served, and that's why they had to offer sacrifices for their own sins. And they had five duties. Five things they were supposed to do. They were supposed to offer sacrifices. That's what you see in Hebrews 5, verse 1. to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. So they were to sacrifice. They were to sanctify people for God by cleansing them of the impurity and defilement of sin. That's why in the Old Testament sometimes somebody would come to a priest and they would take a branch of hyssop and they would either dip it in blood or they would dip it in ritually dedicated water and they would sprinkle the blood or the water on the person and declare that person not just physically healed but ritually clean so that they could enter in to the presence of God. So they sacrificed, and they sanctified, and then they interceded. They prayed for people. In Exodus 28, verses 6 through 14, the ephod, the garment the priest wore, had 12 stones that he wore, and he prayed continually and constantly as he offered incense, and then later as he went into the holy place, he bore the name of Israel on his person. Our great high priest bears our name. We sang about that this morning. Graven on his hands, he interceded. And then he instructed, it was the role of the priest to instruct the people in the wisdom of God. Ezra chapter 7 verse 10 describes Ezra as a priest. a ready scribe in the Torah, in the wisdom of God, and then they were to bestow blessing from God upon the nation. You remember Aaron in Numbers chapter six has this great blessing. The Lord bless you, the Lord keep you, the Lord cause his face to shine upon you, and the Lord give you peace. That's what a priest did. They sacrificed, they sanctified, they interceded, they instructed, and they blessed so that an entire nation could worship joyfully and live authentically and display God accurately and witness credibly and attractively to the nations around them. But these priests were limited They couldn't really do what needed to be done. And eventually, as you read the Old Testament, this nation of priests defiled themselves repeatedly. They disregarded the God of the covenant. They disobeyed the instruction in the Torah. And consistently, they were defeated by their enemies, and actually, at some point, they were driven out of the land. And there were many reasons for this failure, but at the heart of it was a failure on the part of the priests. Why did this office not accomplish its purpose? And the writer of Hebrews tells you in chapter 7 verses 27 and 28 that the reason this happened is that all of those priests were marred by sin. They had to offer daily and they had to offer first for their own sin before they could offer for the sins of others. They were marred by sin. They were touched by human weakness. Notice how they are described in verse 28 of chapter seven. The law, that's Moses, the law of Moses appoints men in their weakness as high priests. Why? Because there were no other kind of men. These priests were marred by sin, they were touched by human weakness, and their office was limited by death. In chapter 7, verse 23, the writer of Hebrew says, the former priests, the priests in the Old Testament, were many in number because they were prevented by death. Death prevented them from continuing as priests. They were only able to offer sacrifices that brought temporary atonement and these sacrifices had to be repeated constantly and renewed annually. Verse 27 of chapter seven in the book of Hebrews talking about Jesus. He has no need like the high priests of old to offer sacrifices daily. They had to offer these sacrifices daily. First for his own sin and then for those of the people. I mean think about this. Let me just give you an example of this. According to Josephus, by the time Jesus came, there were 2,000, 250,000 sheep that were sacrificed every year in Jerusalem at the great temple, at the great altar outside the sanctuary. And then the people would take the richly slaughtered sheep and bring it home and have a family meal that you and I know as Passover. Now, Josephus actually said there were half a million of those, but Josephus' numbers are often exaggerated. So let's take it down by half, 250,000 sheep. That's a lot of sheep. Think about how many years before Moses to Jesus, and it's about 1,500 years, that's 375 million sheep killed at Passover. If you take two million people out in the desert and you just assume that every 10 people or so has a sheep, you're talking about 200,000 sheep. There are about five liters of blood in a sheep. I mean, think about how much blood was spilled every year on the day of Passover. It is billions of liters of blood over 1,500 years on one day. That's not counting the daily sacrifices. That's not counting the sin sacrifices that were often interspersed throughout the year. That's not counting the bullocks that were offered. That's not counting the sacrifice on the Day of Atonement. This is just the sheep that were slaughtered on one day for one ceremony called Passover. And all of this blood, the rivers of blood that were spilled by the priests in the old covenant could never atone for sin. They could never take away sins. And that's why they had to be repeated. All they could do was cover. And these priests in chapter 8 verse 5 are only a copy and a shadow of heavenly realities. And by the time Jesus came on the scene, this priesthood had had 80 generations of high priests. The priesthood had become incredibly corrupted by greed. It had been defiled by the sinfulness of the priest to the point that there were high priests that didn't even meet the qualifications of the priesthood who had purchased their office. That's why when Jesus comes into the temple, the place where the priests gathered and governed, he overturned the tables and he said to them, you have turned this place into a den of thieves. Instead of sanctifying God's people, they had polluted God's people. Instead of liberating God's people, they had driven them deeper into bondage. Instead of interceding for God's people, these priests were abusing and using God's people for their own ends. And instead of blessing God's people, they were leading these people further into damnation. Something was badly broken with this priesthood. And that's why God had to send a better priest from a better order of priests, the order of Melchizedek, with a better covenant that would bring people in and make them perfect through a better sacrifice that would not just take away the guilt of sin, it would permanently eradicate that guilt from before God. A priest who would officiate and bring us into a better sanctuary, the one that is in heaven and who could make a full and perfect atonement for his people. And that's what God sent in Luke chapter two when he wrapped Jesus in swaddling cloths and gave him to the world as the Messiah. He's not just a better prophet than Moses, he is a better priest than Aaron, and the reason he's a better priest than Aaron is because he can actually do things that Aaron couldn't. Just like Jesus could do things as a prophet that Moses couldn't, Jesus can do things that Aaron can't. And the thing that he can do better than Aaron, in fact the thing that he can do that Aaron couldn't is he can say fully and eternally to the uttermost anyone who will believe and who will embrace his priesthood. That's why in the book of Hebrews we are told two things. Let us draw near and let us hold fast. Let us draw near to this priest and not another and let us hold fast. Remember John the Baptist, he's coming to Jesus and he is saying, are you the one or should we go looking for another? And if the writer of Hebrews was standing next to John, he would look at John and he would say, no, you need to draw near to that priest and you need to hold fast to him. You need to draw near to this priest that is so different than the other priest, he's almost unrecognizable. And you need to hold fast with all of your mouth and with all of your heart and with all of your mind to the confession that God has helped you to make about him, what you have come to believe about him. Jesus is a better priest. And he's better because he occupies the priestly office permanently. in verse 24 of chapter seven. He holds his priesthood permanently, the writer says, because he continues forever. He has been granted by the resurrection immortality, and the immortality makes him a permanent officeholder in the office of high priest, and therefore, he can make intercession constantly and eternally in ways that no high priest in the old order could ever do. Jesus isn't just a high priest from a different order than Aaron. He is a high priest in a unique category. He offers or he occupies his office eternally because he has been given life eternally. He is immortal. And therefore, he can offer intercession constantly and continually. So he occupies the office permanently. He intercedes eternally because he has made a complete atonement. He atones completely. There is nothing left for God to do in accepting what Jesus did, and that's why he raised him from the dead. He validated the work that Christ did. Remember Mark was driving us somewhere? He was driving us. to a sacrifice that Jesus was going to make as our high priest. Remember the work of the priest? The work of the priest is to bring gifts and sacrifices to God. We bring a gift to God in thankfulness, and we bring a sacrifice by which we will atone for our sins. And this high priest in Mark is driving to a place where he is going to make a sacrifice. And along the way, Mark is gonna help you see something that makes the sacrifice even better. Along the way to making the sacrifice, Jesus is doing something for you before he even gets there. You know what he's doing? He's keeping the law. He's obeying the law. Every jot, every tittle, every word, every expectation. Jesus along the way, Mark is gonna show you this, is constantly doing everything Moses told you to do that you have no ability and no desire and no hope to do. That's why you need to sacrifice. And along the way to the place of sacrifice where Jesus is going to make a sacrifice for you, Jesus is doing something else. He is keeping the law that you could never keep so you don't have to worry about obeying the law. You say, what do you mean by that? Of course we have to obey. You have to obey God. but he obeyed the law for you. He measured up, he met the expectations of the law, and the righteousness through his active obedience all along the way to the place of sacrifice, God the Father now credits to you. You have all of the benefits and you have all of the implications of the active obedience of Christ that is now applied to you because you couldn't obey. In fact, all of your disobedience is about to be loaded down on Jesus at that place of sacrifice. And when Mark gets you to the place of sacrifice, you are stunned to see the sacrifice. because it's Jesus himself. That's why John said, this one is God's lamb. He replaces the billions of liters of blood that was shed. He replaces the millions of lambs. This lamb can do something that no other lamb can do. He can keep the law for you and he can pay the penalty for you. And that is exactly what this high priest did. And just so you are aware of this, in verse 27 of Hebrews 7, we are told that this high priest, this appropriate, fitting high priest is holy. He's completely set apart to God. He's innocent. He's completely guiltless before the law. He's unstained. He's completely undefiled by sin. He's separate and he's consecrated and he's exalted. He is perfectly suited in every way to keep the law for you and to pay its penalty for you and he is your high priest. Why in the world would you and I want to look for another. But we do. How and when did he become our high priest? Well, he became our high priest at his resurrection. All of this was validated at his ascension. But he became our high priest by means of the obedience we were just talking about. He became our high priest By means of his crucifixion, he tasted death for everyone. Hebrews chapter 2 verse 10 or verse 9. Hebrews chapter 2 verse 14, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death. He tasted death for you so that you could taste life. This is our high priest. And what qualified him for all of this was his incarnation. He had to be made like his brothers, his incarnation. That's why Christmas is so important to the priesthood of Jesus Christ. That's why what we're doing this morning and what we're gonna celebrate this week and what's coming next weekend ought to bring great hope and joy because our high priest became one of us. He permanently and eternally became embodied so that he could taste death, so that he could obey the law, and so that he could taste death. so that he could be our sacrifice, so that we could have life. And that's really what he's doing. He is equipping a whole nation of royal priests. 1 Peter 2 verse 9 describes us this way, we are royal priests. And like the ancient nation of Israel was supposed to demonstrate to the world who God is and what he is like and live out the beauty of the grace and the wisdom that God had given him in the Torah, you and I are the priests that Christ, our high priest, has consecrated and sanctified. and atoned for and is instructing and is strengthening to go to the nations of the world and bring, like Paul did in Romans 15, a sacrifice as our priestly service to our great high priest and to the God who appointed him, we are to bring a priestly service. You know what the priestly service is? Other Gentiles. Paul said to the Romans, I've written to you very boldly because of the grace given to me by God as a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable and sanctified by the Holy Spirit. You know what Paul's priestly ministry was? God said to him as a priest, I want you to go to the Gentiles and I want you to tell them the good news of the grace of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And then I want you to instruct them in everything that the King has given you. That's the Great Commission in Matthew 28. This is priestly service. You and I, because of the work of our great high priests, have been made a kingdom of priests. There is a doctrine in our theology that reflects this. It's called the individual priesthood of every believer. You're a priest. You may not feel like one. You may not think of yourself as one. You may look at your sins that you struggle with. and you may be overwhelmed by them. You may look internally at the struggles you're having emotionally or even what's going on in your mind as depression comes upon you and crushes you and say, I'm anything but a priest, but here is your confession. Here is what you believe. We have a great high priest who tasted death for every man He has passed through the heavens. He is seated at the right hand of the Father and he ministers in the temple that matters, that isn't the shadow. And he has brought you there. Ephesians chapter two tells us that you have been seated with him in the very presence of God. Let me end with this illustration. For years my family has visited and spent several weeks every summer in a little place down in Florida. It's a beach little resort and every day I take a little walk or a bike ride and I go down a certain path and there is a mailbox there on the side of the pathway and on top of the mailbox is a sea turtle. And it's there every year. It's a plastic sea turtle glued there. And I look at this turtle, and I marvel. I have several pictures of it. Every year, I try to take at least one picture of it. So I got pictures of it on my phone. And I think about this turtle. And the thing I think about this turtle is, how did it get there? Because if you see a turtle on top of a fence post, or you see a turtle on top of a mailbox, you know at least one thing. It had help. It didn't get there on its own. Hey, listen, the last time... the entire created order saw you, you were down in the muck and in the mire of sin. You were hopeless, you were helpless, you were lifeless, you had nothing to offer except the weight of the sins that were crushing you. You were defeated, you were discouraged, you were disobedient, and you were dead in your trespasses and sins. That's where all of creation saw you and they blinked, and the next time they saw you, You're seated at the right hand of the Father. You are robed in a garment that is absolutely stunning. The only other person with a garment remotely like it, in fact, it's identical to yours, is seated right next to you, and everybody knows why he's there. Everybody knows how he got there. Everybody knows that he humbled himself and he laid aside his robe and he went down so that he could obey God and become obedient even unto death, even the death of a cross. And because of that, he has been highly exalted and given a name so everybody in the universe knows why he's there. What they wanna know is why you're there next to him in a robe just like his. And the answer that Mark gives you and the answer that Hebrews gives you is this, because he's your high priest. And he said to you, draw near, hold fast. He said, I don't know if I can, it's okay, he will hold you fast. And that's why we can draw near. And that's why we can hold fast. And by the way, that's why as we come together every week, we celebrate this and we provoke one another to the good works that we should do before the nations to draw them to this wonderful high priest. Lord, thank you for this amazing truth that stuns us. It amazes us. Lord, you are not just a high priest, you are unique. You are of a completely different order with a completely different kind of sacrifice that brings about a completely different kind of result. And we have been the recipients of that ministry and we have been now made priests after your order. serve with you. We bring the sacrifice of praise. We celebrate the sacrifice that you made that never has to be made again. And we bring that good news to our souls. We counsel our souls. We encourage our souls. We speak truth. We confess together these wonderful realities. And then we provoke one another to go and live in ways that will draw others to our wonderful high priest who has given us access with boldness to the very throne where grace flows like a river. and feeds us life and refreshes us with rivers of living water that spring up in us. And so, Lord, help us to see this with a heart of faith and to receive it with confidence and to live in assurance that you are holding us. And we'll thank you for it in Jesus' name, amen.