Would you please open your Bibles to the book of Hebrews chapter 7. This morning we were looking at the ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ when He ascended into heaven. It wasn't just Him leaving one place and going to heaven. Leaving this earth and going to heaven. It was His ascension into glory. To His place at the right hand of the Father. He is there appearing to God for us on our behalf. In Hebrews 9, verse 24, it says, For Christ has not entered the holy place made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. He is there as our mediator. The one who stands between us and God the Father. And we have this God man who is our mediator, not just a man or not just God, but the God man stands in our place or stands in heaven for us. His ascension, as we said this morning, was his pathway to glory or exaltation In Chapter 7 of Hebrews it tells us that he is our high priest. That's one of his functions as a mediator. He has a threefold function. He is the prophet the priest and the king of his people. And we need him as our prophet as we heard this morning because we are ignorant and we need him as our king to rule over us. But we need him as our priest because we are sinful. And we are guilty and we need a priest someone who stands in our place who offers a sacrifice for sin and who also makes intercession for us. Now the argument of Hebrews is that Jesus Christ is our high priest is far greater than any of the priests we had in the Old Testament. Now they had their place and their purpose and the plan of God but they are they were weak. They were centers like we are. They they died. They didn't abide forever. But Christ is our perfect high priest. He says in Chapter 8. Now this is the main point of the things we're saying. We have such a high priest who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens there again referring to his ascension to glory and being placed at the right hand of God. But here in Chapter 7 he's he's making this argument that we have this this better high priest this great high priest this perfect high priest and it says that he continues in verse 24 because he continues forever has an unchangeable priesthood. Therefore he is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through him since he always lives to make intercession for them. So that's one of his functions as the priest, is he makes intercession for the people of God. That is his work that he does. To intercede means to go between, or he's that middle person, that mediator. When we intercede for others, when we make intercession, when we pray for others, we are praying on their behalf. We are interceding to God for someone else. Well the Lord Jesus Christ does this as well and he does it far better than we can. But it is a it is an encouragement and a blessing that Christ intercedes for us. Now if we look at verse 25 we see that he lives he ever lives to make intercession for them. That's the scope of his intercession. He says it's for them. Who is the them he's talking about. But if you look at it, he says those who come to God through him. He intercedes for Christians, for his people that God has given him. They have come to the Father through Jesus Christ the Son. That is the scope of his intercession. He prays for his people. So the scope of his intercession is very specific. He isn't praying for all men in general, but he's praying for his own people In particular Jesus in his high priestly prayer in John 17 that he prayed here on earth which is a mirror in a sense of what he prays for his people there. He says I've manifested your name to the men you have given me out of the world. They were yours. You gave them to me and they have kept your word. I pray for them. He says I do not pray for the world. But for those whom you have given me, for they are yours." Now, there he says, well, he's praying for his disciples. Yes, he's praying for his disciples, the 11 apostles, he's praying for them. But he also is praying for others. He's praying for those who will believe in me through their ministry. And we believe in Jesus Christ through the ministry of the apostles. So he's praying for us. He's praying for God's people. His people. They were given to Him by the Father. They are precious to Him. And He prays for them. So He's praying for His own people. He's praying for you and me if we have come to God through Him. Now we'll talk in a moment what that means to come to God through Him. But the scope of it I want you to see is He's praying specifically for His own people. In Romans 8, verse 34, it speaks of His intercession. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, Paul says. Furthermore, he is also risen who is even at the right hand of God. Speaking of his ascension into heaven and seated at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Not for the world, but for those whom God has given him out of the world. When the Old Testament priests would enter the sanctuary, he would carry with him the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. He was interceding on behalf of Israel. He wasn't interceding on behalf of Assyria or the other nations. He was interceding for God's people. Now here he says in verse 25, he describes them as those who come to God through him. They come to God. That's the first thing we want to see. They come to God. That's more than merely coming to church or going through some formal devotion or ceremony or saying some prayers. It's coming to the living God. That's something we do when we come to the Lord in prayer. We're coming to God in prayer. We're coming to him. I think that's one of the most difficult things to keep in mind as we're praying. We pray and we're concerned about what this person hears and that person hears or what they will think. And we even listen to ourselves as though we're just reciting something for ourselves to hear. And it's hard for us to keep in mind that we are calling upon God himself. That he is hearing our prayers. But we are coming to God. It's coming to the living God. And that's how he describes us. They come to God. Now that's extraordinary when we think of it. because it goes against our sinful nature to come to God. All we like sheep have done what we've gone astray that is astray from God. We have turned everyone to his own way. The Bible says when Adam and Eve first sinned against God they did what they hid themselves from God. So coming to God implies a renewed heart. It's doing something that's not natural to us, that is natural to our sinful nature. It's unnatural. So it implies that they have a renewed heart. Their heart has been changed. Now they want to come. They want to pray. They want to call upon the name of the Lord. They're no longer departing from God, but they are coming to him. And coming to God implies also that we're leaving something else. We are leaving our sins. We're leaving our self-righteousness, our good works. You know that you're coming to a holy God, and we know in coming to Him that our good works of righteousness are filthy rags in His sight. So we leave those things behind. We dare not trust the sweetest grain, but do what? Wholly lean on Jesus' name. There's no use bringing our good works to God in prayer to earn his acceptance. No that does nothing to merit favor with God. There's only one way to come to God and that's through the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the only way to the father in that in that upper room discourse that I keep referring to in John 14. Jesus is speaking to his disciples and he says you know And where I go, you know. And the way you know. And Thomas said, Lord, we do not know where you're going. How do we know the way? And Jesus said very clearly, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. There are many who think that they can come to God on their own without Christ. But these realize these who have come to know that there's no other way they can't come on their own merit. So they come because of their sin. They come because they want to be pardoned from sin. They want to be reconciled to God. There are many who come to God for the wrong reasons. They they need help perhaps to get them out of a jam. They'll ask you to pray for them because things aren't going well. They lost their job or there's some health issue or something or they want to gratify their own lusts. Some come for riches or health. A student might want you to pray for them because they're having a big test or a paper due and they're coming to God for those reasons. And now it's not that we can't as Christians take any reason to the Lord and any need to Him, we can. But there's no use taking those things to Christ if our hearts are astray from Him, if we are unreconciled to God. The One who comes to Him, comes to Him for salvation. He comes because He needs to be saved from His sins. This is a faithful saying, worthy of all acceptance. Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. I've had people that have come to me because their marriages were falling apart and I need some help. Well yes you do need help but you need to be reconciled to God more than your marriage being saved. And God when he saves us he works on relationships and other things but those are byproducts. The main reason is because we're separated from God because of our sins and we need something to be done about that. Well here's the Christian who's who's coming to God and you say well why do we need an intercessor if we've been made right with God if he's died for our sins our sins have been forgiven we've been justified by faith in Christ. Why do we need an intercede someone to intercede for us. Why does he need to ever live to make intercession for us. Well because we still need an intercessor. John Bunyan has a sermon called Christ a complete savior. And he gives two basic reasons why the justified sinner still needs an intercessor, someone to intercede for him. And I've added one other. But we need him because, first of all, of the imperfection we have in ourselves. And because Satan, the second reason, because Satan will never stop assaulting even the best of saints. And then I would add, because we also live in a very hostile world. It's no friend to grace to help us on to God. And so we need an intercessor because we have imperfections within ourselves. We have an enemy, Satan, and we have the world that allures us and would draw us away from God. Well, let's look at those for just a moment. We have much imperfection. We still sin, don't we? He said we Bunyan said we are imperfect in our feelings and our inclinations. We don't love him as we ought. We don't desire him as we ought. There's so much imperfection still in a believer and in our Sunday school class we've been talking about assurance of salvation. And that's one of the things that's a stumbling block for Christians. They they wonder well if I'm a Christian why would I feel this way. Why isn't my heart just running over with love to God and His people and His ways and His commandments? Well, it's because we still have this remaining sin and corruption. So we have this imperfection in our feelings and our inclinations. We are yet imperfect in our graces of the Spirit. What we call the fruit of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, long-suffering. gentleness, kindness, those fruits of the Spirit. We're lacking in those. Not that we're not gentle at all or patient at all, but we're not nearly as patient as we ought to be. We're not nearly as patient as Christ is with us. We see Him as the perfection of those graces. And when we compare ourselves to Christ, we fall so far short. And so we need the intercession of Christ from that bad fruit that our imperfection yields. And we are imperfect in our duties. That hymn I keep referring to, I referred to it in our Sunday school class. I referred to it, I think, in the morning service. But also now that hymn about we have not loved you as we ought and so forth. That last verse, I believe, we have not served you as we ought. Alas, the duties left undone, the battles lost or scarcely won. That's the reality of it. We don't serve the Lord like we ought. In fact, even when we do, we say we're still unprofitable service. We've only done what we ought. We've not gone above and beyond the call of duty. But then, not only because of our own imperfections, we need this priest high priest to intercede on our behalf but because of Satan. Satan is our enemy and he is a great enemy. You remember when Jesus came to Peter and he said Simon Simon Satan has desired to sift you as wheat. He's in trouble. He might not think so. I remember one of those Little Christian ditties that we used to sing when when I was first a Christian. I call them ditties because they weren't there's no real scriptural truth in it. But it said. Satan the devil is mad and I am glad. And then the next verse is I'll shoot him with my gospel gun. Well that's not looking at him as a real enemy. It's like a foe that you could just slap away. Resist him, Paul says, and he'll flee from you. But we know that he's also a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. We need to take him seriously. He says, Satan has desired to sift you as wheat. There Satan stands, that old serpent, the devil, more cunning and powerful than any man on earth. He walks about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. at you and me with all of his insidious schemes and wiles. They are many. They are dangerous. And we're foolish if we don't take our enemy seriously. That's a certain fall if you don't take your enemy seriously. You remember how Bunyan described him in Pilgrim's Progress as that hideous monster who came to Christian as he had come out of the town of destruction. And he realized who this man was. And he said, I am an enemy to this prince. I hate his person, his laws, his people. I have come out on purpose to destroy you. And he was a formidable foe. He straddled quite over the whole breadth of the way. And he said, I am void of fear in this matter. Prepare to die. And he had quite a battle with him. Satan has desired to sift you as wheat, Jesus told Peter. What if he gave by special revelation, he came and said, Satan has desired to take you and sift you as wheat. Would that put fear in you? It should. It should put great fear in you. Fear that you won't stand But it should make you call out to Him who is strong. Cry out to the strong for strength. You remember what He did with our first parents in the Garden of Eden. They were no match for Him in that most beautiful garden on the earth, surrounded by all of God's bounty and goodness. And Satan came to them, not with rage and violence, but with craftiness. These subtle suggestions tempting them with alluring temptations. He beguiled the woman. Remember what he did to Job. How would you like Satan to sift you as wheat like he did to Job? Oh, all I have to do is let me touch what he has. Let me touch his person. Let me take away these things. He'll curse you. He's called the accuser of the brethren. who accuses us night and day before the throne. What's the solution to this? What's the remedy? What's the hope? Well, Jesus gave Peter the warning and He gave him the hope. I have prayed for you. I have prayed for you. And when you return, not if you return, when you return, strengthen the brethren. I have prayed for you. His prayers are effectual, which we'll see in just a moment. But then there's the world. The world that allures us, tempts us. And you know what those temptations are like. And they can just bring upon you a coolness. A coolness towards Christ. That's how John Wesley described worldliness. It's cooling off our affections for Christ. The things of earth have filled our thoughts. The things of earth have filled our thoughts. That's a stumbling block for a Christian. What strong encouragement this truth brings to us. I have prayed for you that we have an intercessor to know that He is praying for us. That Jesus Christ is praying for us. That my name is upon His lips before the throne of God. Consider the weakness of our flesh, the strength and power of Satan, the world and its allurements. All of these things are against us. But Paul says in Romans 8, if God be for us, who can be against us? And Christ, whoever lives to make intercession for us, he says. Oh, that's our only hope. who is he who condemns it is Christ who died furthermore is also risen who is even at the right hand of God. He is ascended to the father on our behalf who also makes intercession for you and the effectiveness of his intercession here is stated in verse 25 at the end whoever lives or always lives to make intercession for them. He's a I'm sorry the first part of the verse he is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him. He doesn't lose a case for those who come to God through Him. Jesus said they will not perish. Not one of those sheep will perish. The end of His intercession is the salvation to the uttermost. That means to the full extent. Salvation to its fullest extent. Not only from the penalty of sin, but from the power of sin and ultimately from the presence of sin. We have been delivered from the penalty of sin in our justification and we have been delivered in at least some measure from the power of sin in our lives and sanctification that what we heard about the radical breach with sin. That's the work of God in granting us repentance from sin. changing our hearts so that we now hate sin. It's no longer our friend, it's our enemy. And yet we still see its effects and feel its effects in our lives. We groan, we're burdened on account of sin. Romans 7, I see this other law, he says, working in my members, warring against the law of my mind, bringing me into captivity. Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? He says, I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. He will bring ultimate and final, complete deliverance from sin. And that's when we are glorified. That is salvation to the uttermost. That hymn that I kept referring to asks this question, when shall we know Thee as we ought and fear and love and serve aright? When shall we out of trial brought? And then he answers his own question in that last statement. Be perfect in the land of light. That's when we will love Him and serve Him and fear Him as we ought completely and perfectly. That's when we will be delivered from even any love whatsoever of sinning. And He is supremely qualified to be our intercessor. And so, we are to look to Him. And when He comes to the application in chapter 12, He speaks of that looking to Christ. He says, Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin that easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross despising the shame and again referring to that ascension and glorification has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. That's where he is right now. He ascended back into heaven for us to make intercession for us. So that's our hope. We are to fix our eyes upon Christ, not our physical eyes like those disciples gazing at him over the eyes of faith. Every bit as intently as they were looking, we are to look to Jesus Christ, our Savior. We have no strength of our own to depend upon, but we are to look to Christ, our intercessor, whoever lives to make intercession for us. And that ought to be a great encouragement to us. It ought to be a great encouragement to us even as we pray, knowing that He is praying for us. That He is helping us even in our prayers when we don't know what to pray for as we ought. He's helping us in our prayers and completing our prayers with His. And so we know that we have our requests made known to the Father through Him. Let's take our hymnals now.