Our scripture reading for this morning is taken from Hebrews chapter 4. Hebrews chapter 4, we'll be reading the whole chapter, and I'll be preaching on verses 14 through 16. As some of you may know, the book of Hebrews is rather unique in the New Testament in that we're not exactly sure who wrote it, nor who it was written to. But we can be relatively confident that we have a sermon here, a single sermon, and that his writer, therefore, is a preacher, and he's writing and giving this sermon to a church or cluster of churches. And we can also be quite confident that we know why he wrote the book. As we study it, we come to see that there's a significant concern that this preacher has for this early Christian church, and that is that they would question the sufficiency of what God had revealed to them in His Word. Is God's Word sufficient for our faith and practice as Christians? That is the concern that this preacher deals with in this book and specifically in our text here this morning. So let us turn our attention to Hebrews chapter 4, starting with verse 1. This is the Word of God. Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. For we also have the gospel preached to us, just as they, that is Israel, did. But the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard it did not combine it with faith. Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said. So I declared on oath in my anger, they shall never enter my rest. And yet, his work has been finished since the creation of the world. For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in these words. And on the seventh day, God rested from all his work. And again in the passage above, he says, they shall never enter my rest. It still remains that some will enter that rest. And those who formerly had the gospel preached to them did not go in it because of their disobedience. Therefore, God again set a certain day, calling it today, when a long time later he spoke through David, as was said before, Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. There remains, then, a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience. For the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any double two-edged sword. It penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account. Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. So ends the reading of God's word. Please pray with me. Our Father, we have heard your word read. Grant that our ears would be opened and our minds ready to understand it preached. Guard us from the errors of men. And grant that we would grow more in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. Amen. Brothers and sisters, the book of Hebrews, indeed the Bible as a whole, can be a rather difficult book to understand. All of the names and the places and the concepts removed from us by centuries make it rather intimidating to pick up the Bible, to read it and to interpret it, to understand it. And that's certainly the case with the book of Hebrews. And yet, what if the Bible wasn't a collection of names and a collection of interesting stories, But rather, what if the Bible was about one great story and presented to us and pressed upon us one major message? Well, indeed, that is the case, isn't it? The Bible does tell us one great story. It's a story about God and His people. And it presses upon us one major message. Jesus Christ. You see, as we come to recognize that this is what the Bible is about, we come to recognize that it's not so foreign after all. For indeed, this story is our story. This book is our book. This God is our God. What we find here is about us. It's about our past as the people of God. And the message it presses upon us is about our Lord and our Savior, Jesus Christ. With that in mind, as we read about ancient Israel and about how they fell in disobedience in the wilderness and never entered the rest, it makes sense why the preacher would press upon us, the Christian church, to take heed of them, to learn from them. In chapter 4, verse 2, he writes, For we also have had the gospel preached to us just as they did, that is Israel. But the message they heard was of no value to them because those who heard it did not combine it with faith. And he says to this early church, and he says to us, learn from Israel. They, like us, were sinners, and they did not enter the promised rest. And so he deals with this problem, a problem that he sees creeping within the early church, a problem that he recognizes is just present with the church, a problem that can be highlighted in this way with this question, is the word of God sufficient for our faith and practice? Or we could say, is Jesus Christ, as he's given to us in the Bible, as he's preached to us in the gospel, as we see him in fellowship with him in the sacraments, Is this Christ sufficient? That's the issue that our text deals with. And our preacher comes at it and addresses it in a rather interesting way. In verse 14, we find that he gives us the exhortation to hold fast. What would you think he would call us to hold fast to as the Christian church, being tempted to question the goodness of God? We might think he'd say, hold fast to Christ. And in chapter 3, verse 1, indeed, he does point us to Christ. He says, therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Christ, and then he continues, who is the apostle and high priest whom we confess. He points them to this confession, the same word that's in our text in verse 14, translated profession of faith. He says, hold on, hold fast, cling to, be constant in your confession of faith. And of course, the reason that he pointed this early church to their confession of faith is because they, like we, it's all they had. They didn't see Jesus. They didn't hear Jesus. They couldn't touch Jesus. They couldn't have reached out and clung on to Christ because he had resurrected and he was in heaven. All they have is all that we have. What's been given to them. You see, so the challenge of the early church, indeed is our challenge today, is how do we live the Christian life with Christ absent from us? The answer, he says, hold fast to what's been given to you. Hold fast to your Bible and the understanding of the truths of that Bible which we confess to believe. That's the first exhortation he brings to us. The second is, let us draw near to the throne of grace. We see in the text our faith. And we see in the text our peculiar practice as Christians, as the New Testament people of God. And as we deal with it seriously, I believe that we can avoid the error of Old Testament Israel and that we can enjoy and have confidence in that promised rest of God. So let us first consider verse 14 and our faith. The faith that we are to confess. If we're to understand this exhortation, we must, of course, understand what it is we confess to believe. And this statement, these verses are not intended to be an all-exclusive statement of what the Christian church believes, but it does catch the highlights, as we'll see. He begins by pointing us to Jesus Christ, the great high priest. The great high priest. Right off the bat, we're encountering the foreignness of this book, aren't we? Because high priest is hardly common for us today. It doesn't hold nearly the significance and meaning than it did for the early church or Old Testament Israel. And yet for them, it would have been every bit as common and even more significant than our words preacher or pastor. So what is this high priest? What is the significance of this title for Jesus? Well, we can find the answer to that as we look back to the Exodus and when God brought Israel out of Egypt and gathered them before him at Mount Sinai. And children, you may remember what happened at Mount Sinai. It wasn't necessarily a happy event, was it? Here the people of God have been freed from their slavery in Egypt and now they've gathered before His throne is signified at the top of Mount Sinai and they were filled with fear. And as we read about the account, it's not all that surprising why they were filled with fear. For we are told that the mountain was covered with dark clouds and that the air was ripped with thunder and lightning and there was fire and smoke and the earth trembled before them. This was their God. This was the majesty, the Almighty, the great High Am who brought them out of Israel and the people trembled with fear and they begged that they wouldn't draw near to God, that they wouldn't have to approach this God, but rather that Moses would do it for them, that Moses would act as their covenant mediator and that he would approach God and that throne on Sinai. And what we see happening there with Moses and Sinai as he approached God is a foreshadow of that priesthood which Moses would institute through Aaron and the Levites. That priesthood which would act on behalf of the people as covenant mediators per se, That they would nurture that relationship between God and sinful man. And we recognize that the priests did not go to Sinai, did they? They went to the tabernacle. The priests went to the temple. And it was through the temple that they would draw near to God on behalf of the people. It was whenever the people thought or looked at the temple, they thought of the presence of God and the throne of God. And it was the priests who would go in on their behalf. And once a year, the high priest, with all the people looking on, would enter into the temple through the holy places and enter into the holy of holies itself. And there he would approach the throne of God hardly bold because they weren't sure if he would die as he offers these sacrifices on behalf of the people. But if he did, if he lived and he exited, it was this great event of Israel that they would see that God was pleased with them and that he had accepted their sacrifices and the high priest would come back out of the Holy of Holies, through the holy places, out of the temple, and he would have succeeded in being that mediator between God and his people. And even more of a hallmark of that priestly work we see in the sacrificial system itself As the priests would regularly draw near to God into the temple, they would regularly offer up sacrifices on behalf of the people. The people, you remember, would have brought livestock to the priests, and the priests would butcher it and bleed it and burn it. Or they would bring agricultural product, like wheat, and the priests would wave it before the Lord. Or there would be a drink offering, which would be poured out upon the altar. or the burning of incense with a sweet-smelling aroma. And this would be the regular practice of the priests, and it would be through this sacrificial system, through these sacrifices, that the people would identify themselves to their God. It was through the priesthood and his work that the people found their significance and security in their relationship to God. It was through the sacrificial system that they came to recognize their sin and the promise of forgiveness. It was through the sacrificial system that we find God signified for the people the salvation to come. And they could see through those shadows that there would one day come a son who would rise and cast the shadows away and that the substance would finally come, the fulfillment of the great promises that God made to Adam and Eve and to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and to David that there would come the seed who would be a blessing to them and that he would be a blessing to all the peoples. And he would sit on his throne and reign for all eternity. See, all of this was signified for the people through the sacrificial system, through the priesthood. It was there that they were able to see the gospel portrayed for them as chapter 4, verse 2 says. And it was through this highly visual, the sights, the sounds, and the smells, this highly experiential engagement with their mediator, their priest, that the people of God in the Old Testament came to understand the salvation that could be theirs. It's through that system that they came to understand the promised rest that God held out for them. And the writer of the Hebrews, the preacher, says that when Jesus came, everything changed. The significance of Jesus Christ was that when He came and lived and died and resurrected, all of the old was done. The priestly service was fulfilled in Him. The law was fulfilled in Him. The sacrifices were finished and fulfilled in Him. So that when Jesus passed through the heavenlies, he didn't merely pass into an earthly temple, did he? Through the cross and his resurrection, Jesus actually passed through the heavenly realities itself. And he didn't exit back out again. But he stood before the throne of God as one who was genuinely perfect. One who was genuinely righteous. And he sat down at the right hand of the Father. and the temple curtain tore from top to bottom. The way to God had been opened through the great and final mediator, Jesus Christ, the great high priest, the great high priest of the new people of God. In a nutshell, that would be the gospel, wouldn't it? The sweet news of our salvation in Jesus Christ is that we no longer have to identify ourselves by what we do, but by what he did. Not what we do, but what he did. It's not our experience that defines us as the people of God, as it did the Old Testament people of God. We don't look at what we do, we look at what Jesus did. And we look to his experience, and that becomes definitive for us. This work of our great high priest. And yet that good news, that gospel, becomes as common to us as it did to the early church. You see, the early church were faced to question the sufficiency of this gospel. The sufficiency of what had been given them. For after all, what is there to the preaching of the word? To the reading of a book? To eating bread or common wine? What significance? How could that possibly be the significance of Christianity? How could those menial things be what define us as the people of God? Can't we go back at least a little bit and recover some of the experiential element of our former religion? Can't we go back to the sights and sounds and smells and at least take part in this salvation? Can't we do something, you see, But glorious became so common. And the preacher is so concerned that the Christian church is going to forget who they are, what it is that defines them. And we're faced with the very same trials and temptations today. We have the same preaching as they did. We have the same Word of God, the same elements, the sacraments. And so often they don't carry the significance that God has declared them to have. Jesus said, this is my body and my blood. And yet we go running after yoga and mountain high retreats in order to have fellowship with the Almighty. He says, here I am, come and eat with me and I will dine with you. I am your God, you are my people, I have called you to myself. And we get this Lord's Day after Lord's Day. Is it sufficient for us? Indeed, it is sufficient. But is it sufficient for us? Are we satisfied with the salvation that has been given? Or do we feel this need, like the early church, like Israel, to go and add to what God has already given? You see, the church has never been free of this temptation. The medieval and Catholic church, seeing the simplicity of the early Christian worship added to it. And what do they add? But adoration of Mary. The icons of the saints. The ongoing, repeated sacrificial system in the Mass. You see, the medieval church was corrupted by adding to the simple and sweet and sufficient gospel of Jesus Christ that had been given to them, they added to it in order to make it more experiential, more significant, more special, more visual. And the reformers came and they wiped it away. Praise God that in his providence he raised up men who saw the error of this practice and who studied the Scripture and saw that what had been given to the early church, that faith, has been given to us, and it's sufficient. What God has given to us in His Word through the preaching of the Gospel and through the administration of the sacraments is sufficient. It's enough. And it's not only simply sufficient. It's gloriously sufficient. For we meet with God Almighty when we had a call to worship this morning. We weren't called here. We were called there. Gloriously sufficient. And our heritage has recovered and helped us understand and handed it down to us. And we have it. Is it sufficient for us? What happened to that simple practice that had been given to us by our Reformed Fathers? What have we done with it? Or what are we tempted to do with it? So long characteristic of the Protestant churches, that simple preaching of the word, reading of the Bible, prayer and the sacraments, so long characteristic of us as Protestant people moved in to become a complex mixture of culture and other religions. Consider, for instance, the Pentecostal movement, so raging in our last century, and even today the fastest growing religion in the world. Why? Because they have intense experience. Because they have been able to add something, to see something, to hear something. To touch something tangible that's evidence of God's saving work. Things that God never promised us that we would be able to do. Things that were never meant to define us as a people has crept into the Protestant church to define us. Another more clear examples we might see is recently we discussed movies and the place of movies for the Christian faith and the significance and power and influence that they could have for us. And yet, is that questioning the sufficiency of what God has given us? And we might look to the pursuit of end-time prophecy, this passion and zeal to identify different prophecies and to see when they are fulfilled and to write all kinds of books about when they're going to be fulfilled and if they've been fulfilled in order that we can just see something take place. In order that we can just experience something of the Scripture come true in our lives. And shouldn't we respond to that and say, but goodness, don't we see the wonder of God's salvation day after day? Don't we see the wonder of what He has given to us in the preservation of his word and the ongoing preaching and power of the gospel and the elements that he's promised to bless. These means of grace that we've been given are so simple yet so glorious. And the temptation that we have is the same as the early church. The temptation is to make them common. And the preacher says to us, Your identity needs to lie in what Christ did and what he's given to you and not what you do and what you can experience. Martin Luther says it so wonderfully well when he's commentating on the Gospels. He says, anything you see Christ doing, when you look at the life and death and resurrection of Christ, look upon it as it's your very own. My neighbor, who's not a Christian, when he heard about these things, he was reading Luther and he responded, unprompted. He says, so many of my friends who are in the evangelical church keep pressing me that I need to have an experience in order to verify and identify my Christian life. And he said, isn't the experience of Jesus Christ all I need? Isn't that my experience? Isn't that my identity? Isn't that my hope and confidence and ground? Isn't the life of Jesus Christ the defining point of our lives? And I think the preacher says to us, indeed it is. And so he points us to grasp, to hold on to our confession of faith that says Jesus is indeed the sufficient and saving high priest, the great high priest of God and his people, the last mediator, and now reigning Lord. For indeed, he's not just a high priest. The text tells us that Jesus is also the Son of God. Jesus is the great high priest, and he's also the Son of God. And therefore, we must pay more careful attention, he says in chapter 2, verse 1, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received as just punishment. How shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? Could we say, if we add to such a great salvation? Jesus is the great high priest, and he's the Son of God, and therefore we're not dealing with trivial matters. We're not dealing with just a great pastor or a great priest or even just a great Savior. The text tells us in chapter 1, 2, and 3 that Jesus is greater than the angels. He's greater than Moses. He's greater than Joshua and Aaron. Indeed, Jesus is so great because he is the Son of God. And we read in chapter 1, verse 1, In the past, God spoke to our forefathers, to the prophets at many times and in various ways. but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things and through whom He made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful Word. Jesus is not only a sufficient high priest, a sufficient Savior. He's the sovereign Son of God with all things under His power. All things under His control. And it says that He speaks to us in these last days. How? Through His Word. And through His preaching. And through His sacraments. He's the Son of God, but He's not the trembling, fearful presence of Sinai. For when Jesus passed through the heavens, He passed through it as a suffering, servant, as one who knows the difficulties of our lives, the difficulties and demands of the flesh. And so verse 15 of chapter 4 says that Jesus is the great high priest who is compassionate and merciful. He understands our difficulties. He understands our questions. You see, Jesus understands what it's like to try to be respectful of a difficult parent. He knows what it's like to go to school and be mocked for your faith. He knows what it's like to stand up for the truth and to be rejected. He knows what it's like to lose a loved one. He knows what it's like to have those closest to you reject you. For in the moment of his greatest need, he stood alone, all of his disciples deserting him. Jesus knows far better than we even know the difficulty and the weight of this present life. And so when He sits in heaven, He's not merely in an ivory tower enjoying the good life. No, He is still our High Priest. Even as the reigning Son of God, Jesus is there interceding for us as people, His very own sheep. No less than we, In fact, far more than we would be caring for and pleading for our own children. Jesus is there looking for us, looking out for our good. And that is why he has established a throne of grace. We don't come to Sinai. We come to the throne of grace that Jesus himself inhabits, that he himself sits upon. For he is our great high priest, the Son of God, our Sovereign Lord. You see, this is what the preacher presents to us, to guard us from going the way of old Israel. He says, this is the faith that you've been given. This is the Jesus Christ which you have, and he lives and reigns supreme, and his throne of grace is there for you. He says, go and be bold in your practice. What is the definitive and peculiar practice of God's people from this text? Verse 16 tells us that our peculiar practice is that we approach the throne of grace, or we are to approach the throne of grace, with boldness. While Old Testament Israel approached God's throne with trembling and fear, we approach that same throne with boldness. Why? Because we come covered in the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ, fully forgiven because of his sacrifice, declared to be righteous because of his perfect obedience. As we come to grasp with the realities of this confession, as we are constant in this confessing of our faith, our minds will become more and more transformed and we'll see how verse 16 naturally flows out of verses 14 and 15. He says, Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness because, indeed, we have a great Savior who sits upon it. This practice, like our confession, is not my or your practice. It's not an individual thing any more than our confession is an individual thing. This practice that he defines here is our practice. And so what he has in mind is the gathering together of God's people as they're called forth into his heavenlies and as they approach him to receive the grace and mercy that they need. Do you see that? What we are doing together here is exactly what the preacher is exhorting the people of the Hebrews to do, which is why he says later, don't stop meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but draw near to God in order that we may find the grace and mercy that we need in this time of need. You see in Hebrews 12, it picks up this thought. The verb drawing near is scattered throughout all of Hebrews. It's introduced in our text and developed as it goes through chapter after chapter. And it's brought to a climax in chapter 12, verse 22. He says, You have not come to Sinai, but you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. You see, when we gather here this morning, when God calls us up into His presence, it's not merely this presence. It is indeed the very heavenly temple itself. And we stand before God's throne today. And we hear His word preached and we fellowship with Him. And we fellowship with the Christ. It's here that we have our encounter with God and that we find our identity and our significance. It's here that we are defined as a people. And what a sweet definition it is. What a sweet message it is and what a power we receive. Indeed, that is why we confess that it is through the preaching of the word and the sacraments that God's grace is given, faith given, and strengthened. That is why we need to draw near repeatedly. And that is why we have a Christian Sabbath so that one in seven, Lord's Day after Lord's Day, we have the ebb and flow of the Christian life definitive for us and also providing for us strength. And yet, as I was wonderfully reminded after the first service, we don't go on like this to infinitum, to infinity. This isn't the destiny of the people of God. to meet one and seven, to gather together before his presence, one and seven, it's intended to be something that will come to a climax and consummation. For indeed, there is a rest, an eternal rest for the people of God, as verse 9 says. And so when we gather before the throne of grace with confidence, calling upon our Lord to give us the grace and mercy we need to live, we do so ever mindful that this is a temporary situation and that there is held out for us the promised land and the great eternal rest of God, which soon will be ours. And so as we sing and praise God for the wonderful past grace and as we rejoice and receive present grace, there is for us future grace so that we might have the great hope of living for eternity with Jesus Christ in the heavenlies. free of sin, free of suffering, free of all influence of the kingdom of darkness and Satan. That is what we long for. That is what we hope for. That is what we confess. And that is what we look forward to as we gather here, assembled before the throne of our God, the throne of grace, calling upon Him for more. Amen. Our Father in heaven, we thank you and praise you for what you have given to us as your Christian people. And we pray that indeed we would be given the strength through the power of your Holy Spirit and through the presence of your grace to live more faithful as your Christian church. May we never forget what defines us and what strengthens us. And may you bless the ministry of your church so that indeed we might be given the strength we need to be faithful in this present evil and very dark age. We pray while longing for you to come, quickly, Lord Jesus. Amen.