Sermon Tone Analysis

NOTE:

This is a manuscript, and not a transcript of this message.

The actual presentation of the message differed from the manuscript through the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Therefore, it is possible, and even likely that there is material in this manuscript that was not included in the live presentation and that there was additional material in the live presentation that is not included in this manuscript.

Engagement

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was written by C.S. Lewis and published in 1950 as the first book in the famous children’s series The Chronicles of Narnia.

That book tells the story of four siblings who find their way into the land of Narnia through a magical wardrobe.

The story revolves around their interactions with Aslan the lion, the king of Narnia.

The children first learn of Aslan through Mr. and Mrs. Beaver.

Lucy assumes Aslan is a man.

Upon discovering he is really a lion, Lucy asks,

Then he isn’t safe?

Mr. Beaver replied,

Safe?

Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you?

Who said anything about safe?

Course he isn’t safe.

But he’s good.

He’s the King I tell you.

While the book doesn’t meet the technical definition of an allegory, there is little doubt that there are allegorical elements to the book and that Aslan the lion is a picture of Jesus.

And those words from Mr. Beaver do reveal something important about Jesus and God.

Tension

There are two extremes that people tend to gravitate toward when they think about approaching God.

The first extreme is to approach God flippantly.

That mindset ignores God’s holiness and assumes that we can approach God any way that we want.

There is no consideration of the idea that God might not be “safe”.

While I hope the people who designed some of these t-shirts did it with good intentions, I do worry that they portray Jesus more like our buddy rather than the holy God who created this world we live in.

{Jesus is my homeboy]

[Jesus saves as a soccer goalie]

[Bloodweiser.

The wise men knew this blood’s for you]

Maybe I’m being too much of a Pharisee here, but it even bothers me when people praise God by saying “Yay God”.

To me that just sounds too much like cheering for your favorite sports team.

The other extreme is to be so terrified of God that you refuse to even attempt to draw near to Him.

I think even some Christians live with the unjustified fear that God will not forgive them and they are constantly looking over their shoulder waiting for God to zap them with a lightning bolt or call down fire from heaven.

And as a result they live joyless, hopeless lives.

The idea of drawing near to God is a major theme in the book of Hebrews.

Six times the author explicitly commands his readers to draw near to God and the concept is woven throughout his letter.

So that means that there must be some middle ground where we can boldly draw near to God but do it in a manner that honors His greatness and His holiness.

Truth

The passage we’re going to study today provides us with the answer to how we can do that.

Go ahead and turn with me to Hebrews 7 and we’ll pick up where we left off last week in verse 11:

Here is the main idea we’re going to develop from this passage this morning:

I can only be safe in God’s presence if I have been saved by His Priest

I’m going to take a little different approach to the message this morning.

Although I always like to focus on practical application as much as possible, this is one of those passages that requires us to have a good understanding of the underlying doctrine before we can draw some good applications from the passage.

So I’m going to begin by outlining the passage and then calling your attention to a few of the most significant concepts.

Once we’ve done that, we’ll take a look at some practical applications.

The Old Covenant is insufficient (v.

11-14)

It doesn’t provide for “perfection”

That word probably means something different to us than the way the author uses it here.

perfection =

The underlying Greek word generally means:

“fulfillment of a purpose” or “attaining a goal”

But given the context, the author of Hebrews has this meaning in mind:

“to put someone in the position in which he can stand before God”

Or, to use the terms from our main idea, it conveys the idea of being “safe” in God’s presence.

Although Israel often rebelled and turned away from God throughout their history, the one thing we must give them credit for was their understanding that God is “dangerous”.

So they tightly held to the sacrificial system and the Levitical priesthood because that was the only possible way they could be protected from the holy wrath of God.

But as we’ve noted, and as the author of Hebrews notes here, that system was inadequate.

While the sins of the nation could be covered once a year on the Day of Atonement, they couldn’t be cleansed.

As we’ll see later in Hebrews, the blood of bulls and goats could never take away sins and they could never relieve a guilty conscience, So that system could never provide the kind of “perfection” that is written about here.

Therefore a different priesthood was needed

This is not an idea that should have been new to Jewish Christians who were reading this letter.

All along God had a plan to create a new and more perfect priesthood and install His Son, Jesus as the high priest.

And He had revealed that in the Old Testament in the verse that the author has already quoted several times and which is quoted two more times in our passage today:

Keep in mind that David wrote that Psalm while he was still going to the Temple on a regular basis and while he was still participating in the sacrificial system and relying on the work of the Levitical priests.

But he also understood that there was a need for a better priesthood that was pictured in the Old Testament by Melchizedek and fulfilled in the New Testament by Jesus.

In verse 11, the author writes that because the old covenant is insufficient, there is a need for “another priest”.

In Greek there are two different words that can be translated “another”.

One of them means “another of the same kind” and the other means “another of a different kind”.

So if I were to say I’m going to go buy another car and I was going to buy another Hyundai Santa Fe or maybe even if I was going to buy another brand of SUV I would use the first word.

But if I was going to go purchase a sports car, I would us the second.

That’s the one the author uses here.

So he is conveying the idea that Melchizedek and Jesus are different kinds of priests than the Jewish Levitical priests.

Last week we spent a considerable amount of time talking about why the priesthood of Melchizedek and Jesus is far superior to the Levitical priesthood so I’m not going to go over that again today.

But I will just mention that the author once again reminds us that the priesthood of Jesus was not merely hereditary.

He was not from the tribe of Levi or a descendant of Aaron, but rather from the tribe of Judah.

A new priesthood required a new law

In the Old Testament, the law came after God established the priesthood.

So it would be fair to conclude that the law supported the priesthood.

So when the priesthood changed, there also had to be a change in the law.

The way that one approaches God is different under the New Covenant.

Instead of relying on the Levitical priests and the associated sacrificial system, the only way to approach God now is through faith in Jesus and His shed blood.

The New Covenant is sufficient (v.

15-22)

Based on the power of an indestructible life

The qualifications for being a Levitical priest were largely external.

In addition to the requirement to be from the line of Aaron, the priests also had to be free from physical defects.

Even the ceremony to ordain them focused on externals like ceremonial washings and special clothing.

But Jesus qualified for His priesthood based on the fact that He is 100”% God in addition to being 100% man.

His life is indestructible in the sense that He lived a sinless life and also because He rose from the dead and lives forever.

Gives hope because it provides a way to be “safe” with God

We’ve talked often before about the fact that there are different kinds of hope.

Most of the time we use that word in our culture, it merely means “wishful thinking”, like “I hope I win the lottery” or “I hope the Cubs win the World Series again before I die”.

And frankly, under the Old Covenant, that is really the only kind of hope a person could have.

They hoped that sacrifices made by the priests on their behalf would prevent God from pouring out his holy wrath, but they could never really be sure that those sacrifices were enough.

But under the New Covenant, the hope we have can be described as “confident expectation”.

Because of the resurrection of Jesus, we can be 100% confident that if we have placed our faith in Him, that we have been clothed with His righteousness and therefore we are “safe” with God.

That is why earlier in Hebrews, the author wrote these words:

Not only can we draw near to God, but we can do that boldly and with confidence.