The Savior Who Understands

Hebrews 4: 14-16

14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are yet he did not sin. 16 Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Dear Friends in Christ,

The text that will serve as the basis of my message comes from our Epistle Reading.  “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.  For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.  Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” – Hebrews 4:14-16

Commander Scott Carpenter has a pretty impressive resume.  He was an American Naval Officer, aviator, test pilot, aeronautical engineer, astronaut, and aquanaut.  Not only that but he was one of the original seven selected to take part of NASA’s Project Mercury.  And besides all of that he was the second American to orbit the earth and the fourth American in space.  I came across a story about him I would like to share.  When he returned from his space travels, the highest dignitaries in the land honored him.  In the middle of the ceremonies, his five-year-old daughter Candace, tugged at his sleeve.  She wanted to show her daddy the scratch on her right elbow that happened when he was gone.  So what did he do?  He turned away from the honors, away from the acclaim of a proud nation to give his attention to his little daughter.  A scratch on the elbow was important to her, and so it was important to him.

Doesn’t that sound like our relationship with God?  We are His sons and daughters.  Whatever hurts us, whatever are our needs and problems, we bring them to our Father, and He who is the Creator of the world, the Lord of the universe, turns to us and comforts us with the assurance of His presence and love.  Jesus is the great high priest who goes before the Father for us.  Jesus understands how we have been tempted because He was tempted in this world.  He is much stronger than you or I because unlike us Jesus wasn’t weak and didn’t fall for the temptations of Satan.

We all are tempted by the devil every day of our life.  There won’t be a day when the devil won’t try to deceive you into sinning.  After all he is the master deceiver.  This is what Jesus had to say on that fact, “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”  The devil lies to us in order to tempt us into sinning.  Sometimes we fall hook line and sinker for those lies because he makes them sound so good that they have to be truth.  Not only that, he knows our weaknesses and tries to hit us where he knows we are the weakest.  In C.S. Lewis’ book The Screwtape Letters, a book in which Screwtape is a senior demon teaching his underling, Wormwood, how to get this man to fall away from the faith.  This idea of finding an area of weakness comes up early in the book.  Screwtape tells Wormwood, “I am very pleased by what you tell me about this man’s relations with his mother.  You must press your advantage.”  Screwtape just like the devil understands that as we sin it’s a big deal because it helps to separate us from God.  And the devil will use anything in his arsenal of weapons to use them against us.  Maybe when you are having a bad day the he will tell you need to do this or that just fill in the blank and it will make you fell better.  But in actuality it makes you feel worse.  As you commit that sin you might find enjoyment.  It’s a short lived happiness because then you have the guilt of committing that sin.  The devil just loves this.  We need somebody to step in and give us strength.

As I think about this idea of strength and weakness, I start to think about working out, in particular lifting.  You can tell by my great physique, I lift all the time.  If you believe that one, then if you look up you will see gullible written on the ceiling.  In all honesty when I was in seminary I would go to the gym with some buddies to work out on a somewhat regular basis.  When I look back at those times there a few things that come immediately to mind that I just dreaded doing.  One of those things we called a burnout.  In that particular exercise you would be doing a bench press but not just that.  You would do 25 reps with your hands at the regular distance apart, then 25 reps with your hands as far apart as you could, then you would finish with doing 25 reps with your hands as close as possible.  It was always extremely tiring and difficult.  When doing that particular workout, I always wanted to make sure I had a person stronger than me, which isn’t hard, watching and helping in case I became to tired to lift the bar back up to put back on the rack.

The whole idea of having a spotter when lifting is to protect the lifter from getting hurt.  When we look at this analogy of Christ being our spotter in life it gives to us great comfort.  Jesus is far stronger and greater than the devil who is the one trying to hurt us.  And as we are tempted we can remember that Jesus was tempted when He walked this earth.  He was tempted every step of the way.  Right after He was baptized, after fasting for 40 days in the wilderness, He was tempted by the devil.  It shows that the devil knows that his best shot to get us to fall into sin is when we are at our weakest.  Or what about in the Garden of Gethsemane, I can guarantee you that the devil was trying his hardest to tempt Jesus to not go the way of the cross.  But Jesus knew there was no other way.  His love for you and me was stronger than anything the devil was trying to throw His way.  And we see the power of Jesus after He was tempted in the wilderness.  He told Satan to be gone and the devil left Him immediately.  In our times of temptations don’t rely on your own strength to win those battles.  Instead rely upon the strength of Christ.  He is far greater than you or I, and most importantly far greater than the devil.  He has already defeated him, He was victorious on the cross and when He rose from the grave.

It’s because of that victory on the cross we are forgiven for our many sins.  Not only is Jesus stronger than the devil but He is the great high priest.  In the Old Testament days the priest would represent the people before God and offer sacrifices to atone for the sins of the people.  Jesus does the same for you and me.  He goes before our Heavenly Father seeking His forgiveness.  But unlike the priests of the Old Testament who sacrificed a lamb, Jesus offered Himself as the sacrifice.  Jesus is far greater than the lamb of the Old Testament.  That lamb wasn’t truly perfect.  It was as perfect as it could come but it still wasn’t entirely perfect.  Jesus on the other hand was perfect.  He lived a perfect life.  Never sinned, never was tripped up by the devil.  The lamb would have to be offered annually.  It wasn’t a one-time deal.  Jesus though, offered up the body for sacrifice one time.  He paid the debt we have incurred and incur in the remaining years of our lives.  In those times when you confess your sins seeking forgiveness, go before our Great High Priest.  He willing went to the cross to earn for us salvation of our sins.

We have our Savior who understands.  He knows what is like to be tempted.  He experienced temptations in those 33 years that He walked this earth.  We don’t have to face our temptations alone.  Jesus will be right there with us.  We can gain strength for those temptations as we read through the Scripture.  We can pray that through the Holy Spirit we will gain the strength to recognize the devils lies and manipulations.  And ultimately recognize that God is far more superior to the devil.  Luther describes that power perfectly in the great hymn, “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.”  In the third verse we sing, “Through devils all the world should fill, All eager to devour us, We tremble not, we fear no ill; They shall not overpower us.  This world’s prince may still Scowl fierce as he will, He can harm us none.  He’s judged; the deed is done; One little word can fell him.”  The devil can be subdued by one word from our God.  Even though God is that powerful we don’t have to be afraid to go to Him when we have sinned.  Instead we can find comfort and forgiveness that we have the great high priest in our Lord and Savior who has paid the price for our sins.

Amen