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Hope of Christmas (Hebrews 4:14-16)
11 Plays1 day ago
Sunday Message recorded 04 January 2025
by Associate Pastor Josh Shell
First Baptist Church - Columbus, TX, USA
1700 Milam St.
Columbus, TX, USA 78934
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Hebrews and Christmas Series
00:00:06
Speaker
If you have your Bibles, i would like to invite you to open up to the book of Hebrews, to the book of Hebrews, that's where we're going to be this morning. As many of you know, we have been going through our mini series, our Christmas series over the last several weeks, and we have been looking at this particular book of
Challenges and Importance of Hebrews
00:00:23
Speaker
Hebrews. And I know as Victor and I have mentioned previously, it's kind of when we think about a Christmas series, you don't typically think of a book like the book of Hebrews, right?
00:00:32
Speaker
As many of you if if you've ever read the book of Hebrews, it's not exactly the easiest book to read. It's very dense. It's very theologically rich, right? But let me tell you something. There's no book in Scripture that is more profound than the book of Hebrews.
00:00:50
Speaker
I pray that we will not neglect it, that we will soak it up, that we will enjoy it and that we will study it day in and day out because this book is so rich with who Jesus is when it comes to the supremacy of Christ and his reign. When we talk about this idea of supremacy, it's this overall authority when it comes to the kingdom of God in our own life here on earth.
00:01:15
Speaker
And so this is, like I said, though traditionally it's not the book that we typically turn to for a Christmas series, this is a perfect book to turn to for a Christmas series.
00:01:25
Speaker
because of what the birth of Jesus actually represents, right?
The Birth of Jesus in God's Redemptive Plan
00:01:30
Speaker
And I think I've mentioned this when we opened up the series and we kicked it off. We have a tendency of looking at the birth of Christ and and and being so zoomed in on the birth of Jesus that we just forget about who that birth or who that baby Jesus actually becomes.
00:01:47
Speaker
We forget that there is a greater master plan that is in place when it comes to the redemptive story of God and with his creation, that with the birth of Jesus, that's just one piece of the greater, grander story of God's redemptive plan.
00:02:06
Speaker
and that But without that one piece, that plan cannot be fulfilled. That's why Christmas is so important. That's why we do stop and we we we assess and we we celebrate the birth of our Messiah. Because without the birth, there would be no death.
00:02:24
Speaker
And without the death of our Messiah, there would be no redemption. There would be no salvation for mankind. You see, when you look at the prophecies from of old, when you look at Isaiah and Jeremiah and all these things, they like even the book of Psalms with this messianic prophet or the prophecy about the Messiah to come.
00:02:45
Speaker
This is why they were so excited about it because by Jesus coming and taking or ah taking on flesh, being born into human flesh, he now fulfills those prophecies and now establishes the kingdom forevermore.
00:03:00
Speaker
You see, even when Jesus, when he's doing the when we wass taking the Lord's Supper, he's saying like, hey, I will not partake of the the wine or the vine until I'm in the kingdom of God again, right? So in other words, Jesus, you was telling his disciples, I'm going to prepare a place for you.
00:03:14
Speaker
That's my role. I'm gonna come down, I'm gonna take off flesh, gonna live a perfect life, a sinless life, to die on the cross for your sins, so that way I can take the full wrath of God upon myself, so that way when I go before a holy, righteous God, I can take the wrath for you.
00:03:34
Speaker
He is our sacrifice. He is our Prince of Peace. He is our Messiah.
00:03:44
Speaker
God's great redemptive story and plan for us, for you and I. And so I'm excited for us to kind of culminate, to wrap up the series with this idea of of hope, right?
00:03:58
Speaker
So the different things that we looked at when it comes to the signs around the birth of Christ so far, right? We looked at the star, we've looked at the angels, the gifts, the lights, the child of Christmas, the peace of Christmas, which by the way, if you've missed any of these, this is just another plug.
00:04:14
Speaker
I highly encourage you to go back and listen to them. It's all online on our website. We have a YouTube channel. Go back and listen to them because Victor does an incredible job walking through these up to this point.
Redefining Hope in Christ
00:04:25
Speaker
And so i highly encourage you to do that if you missed any of them. But today though, we are going to be looking at the aspect of hope. Okay, of hope. And my prayer throughout this series, though, has been that our that for us in our hearts, that we have gained a sense of freshness, of perspective on the greater picture of the birth of Jesus.
00:04:46
Speaker
That is next year when Christmas rolls around, that we're not just that we're not just like surprised, like, oh my gosh, we're celebrating the birth of Jesus. Like, you know what mean? Like, when Christmas rolls around next year, we'll have a completely and totally humble demeanor before a holy and righteous God for the birth of our Messiah.
00:05:06
Speaker
I pray that it's not just for the Christmas season, that I pray that it's for every day for the rest of our lives as believers. If you're a believer in Jesus today, we need to wake up every day extremely humbled by the fact that we have a God who's choosing to dwell within our hearts through Jesus the and through the Holy Spirit.
00:05:31
Speaker
We should not neglect that. we should be We should honor that every single day. That's the greatest gift. So I really do pray that as we've gone through the series that our our disposition, our demeanor towards Christmas has changed and that our perspective on it has changed.
00:05:46
Speaker
But when it comes to the different aspects that we've looked at, whether it's, like I said, the star, the angels, the gifts, life's child, the peace, it all culminates to this one idea of hope.
00:05:57
Speaker
This is the gospel. As a result of the gospel, as a result of Jesus coming, taking on flesh in the birth and dying on the cross, we can now have hope in a hopeless world. Now, the question is what does that mean?
00:06:13
Speaker
What is the definition of hope? And if you guys were in Sunday school a few weeks back, this is actually something we talked about in Sunday school. What is hope? Right? Well, that's a great question. I asked Google because Google knows everything.
00:06:26
Speaker
Right? Just kidding. But Google, the definition and according to Google is a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen. That's a pretty good definition.
00:06:40
Speaker
It's pretty good definition. Except it's missing one thing. who that hope is actually in. You see, we can have these expectations or desires for things to happen, but really in a worldly sense without Christ being in the picture, those things are often just wishful thinking.
00:06:59
Speaker
They're empty. It's like me just walking out, I mean, I really hope today that my hair grows back.
00:07:09
Speaker
That's wishful thinking, right? You know, and so it's, but with with, as believers, when we have true hope in Christ, it's a confident assurance of the expectation that we're waiting for.
00:07:26
Speaker
It's this confident assurance, right? So I looked up a more theological definition of the word hope. And by the way, this is another plug here. I use a software called Logos. If anybody's ever used it or heard of it, I highly encourage it.
00:07:39
Speaker
Great resource, okay? It's called Logos software, great resource. But the definition that it provided is this, that the confidence that by integrating God's redemptive acts in the past, what God has already done with trusting human responses in the in the present,
00:07:57
Speaker
The faithful will experience the fullness of God's goodness, both in the present and in the future.
00:08:07
Speaker
That is a rich definition. And I'm sure for some of you, it went straight over your heads, right? Because it's just just it's just a it's a rich definition. So let me break it down for you in more simple terms here.
00:08:20
Speaker
Biblical hope extends far beyond wishful thinking. It represents confident and trust the confident trust in God's character and promises in light of one's circumstances.
00:08:35
Speaker
So for us, when we talk about this idea of hope as believers, it's more than just wishful thinking. It's confident assurance in whom God is with his promises and with his plan for our lives.
00:08:52
Speaker
Because in a worldly sense, when we hope, we think that our plan is right, that our that our direction is the right direction. But as believers, our minds are transformed and our hearts and our minds are open to the reality that our plan is no longer good, but rather it's God's plan. And that's what we hope in. So when we talk about hope, man, I hope that one day my my my all my friends my dear family come to know Jesus, right? It's because I'm trusting in God's plan. I'm trusting a God's promise.
00:09:24
Speaker
When I say I'm hoping in that, I'm not putting my anxiety, I'm not putting my worry into it but rather I'm truly lifting it to the God of the universe that way he can take it and I can trust in his divine plan.
00:09:37
Speaker
that make sense? So with the definition of hope now out there though, I would really like for us to jump into verses 14 to 16 and to see why we can truly have hope, right? So we talked about hope and what it means to have Christian hope, but why is that? what do we or how it How do we actually obtain that? and It's all through Jesus.
00:10:03
Speaker
You see, the birth of Jesus is the reason why we can have true hope.
00:10:12
Speaker
And then we're going to see this in these few
Role of Jesus as the Great High Priest
00:10:14
Speaker
verses. So if you guys like to stand with me in honor of God's word, if you're able, I would love to read these verses.
00:10:23
Speaker
So Hebrews chapter 4, verses 14 through 16, says this. says this Since then we have a great high priest who passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God.
00:10:37
Speaker
Let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness or with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without Amen.
00:10:54
Speaker
Let us then confidently draw near to the throne room of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in the time of need.
00:11:07
Speaker
Will you guys pray with me? Father God, we just thank you so much for this series. Father, we thank you for the Christmas season. And God, as we begin a new year, I really do pray, Father, that we will just truly surrender our hearts and our desires and our plans to you and that we will hope and trust in your divine plan over our life.
00:11:31
Speaker
in your redemptive story. God, we have a tendency of clinging to our own plans, our own desires, but Lord, and and as a result of us doing that, we have a tendency of being anxious and worried about many, many, many things. But Lord, what we see in this passage today is that as a result of Jesus,
00:11:50
Speaker
those anxieties, those worries, those fears, the reality of our sin can be released from our hearts because of who he is and what he did on the cross for our sins. I pray for anyone here today who does not have hope, but Father, that they will find it today in your word.
00:12:11
Speaker
God, we love you. We thank you. We praise you. It's in Jesus' name. Amen.
00:12:21
Speaker
Sorry, that wafer got me. It's like hanging out back there. he said, watch this. And it just dropped in my throat. But this is an incredible passage. This is one of the most profound passages that we can look at in the book of Hebrews when it comes to the promise of hope that we have in Jesus.
00:12:43
Speaker
Because From the outside looking in, and many of us have been there, right? if well Before we knew Christ or for anybody who out there who still does not know Christ, they look at Christians and they think, wow, y'all foolish.
00:12:57
Speaker
How can y'all put all of your hope and your trust in one man?
00:13:02
Speaker
How can you trust that what he actually did is actually coming to fruition or that it actually completes what you're desiring? right but what we see here is that through the book of hebrews and other passages similar to this that it's more than just a a willful thinking right going back to the worldly definition of hope or expectation but rather this is a true heartfelt trustful desire and and relationship with jesus and that when you encounter that relationship with jesus
00:13:35
Speaker
the what we talk about What we see in the Old Testament, the veil of our hearts that blinds us from the reality of who Jesus is, it fades away. we Our eyes are open to who he is and how we can truly have hope, right?
00:13:49
Speaker
So there's three things I want us to see here together with the remainder of our time if of how we can have hope or why we can have hope in Jesus. And the first thing is this, and it's a term that we saw there in the verse 14, is that we can have hope because Jesus is our great high priest.
00:14:11
Speaker
Now,
00:14:13
Speaker
When it comes to this term of the great high priest, this is something that if you've been in the church or if you've been in the Christian world for a while, you've probably heard this term before in the Old Testament we come when it talks about the temple and the sacrificial system and you have the different priests and you have the high priest who is only the high priest who one time a year can go into the Holy of Holies and offer sacrifice of atonement for the people and their sins, right?
00:14:41
Speaker
We have a tendency of misunderstanding the weightiness of that position, of that role. You see, before Christ, back in the Old Testament, when nick when the high priest went into the temple, it wasn't that he was just going in to offer any kind of sacrifice.
00:14:56
Speaker
First off, he had to be sanctified. He had to be holy. He had to be clean himself. He had to have a right heart in order to go into the presence of God, because what we see in the scriptures is that for anybody who comes into the presence of God without being holy, righteous, or just what happens,
00:15:12
Speaker
They die. No one can come into the presence of God unless they've been truly been cleansed or made right or holy.
00:15:23
Speaker
So for this for this sacrificial system to be introduced and to be set up, for this one man to go in to make a sacrifice on behalf of the people, this is an absolutely incredible, incredible act.
00:15:40
Speaker
Can you imagine being the high priest? Having to walk through that and to walk into this into the Holy of Holies on behalf of the people that you know for a fact, like no offense, I love y'all, but if I had to go and on behalf of y'all, I'd be like, oh man.
00:15:57
Speaker
I got my work cut out for me here. You know what I mean? like So we have a tendency, like I said, these are the kinds of things that when we read through scripture, we kind of glance over it and we kind of be like, man, like what's the point of that? But like it's a big deal.
00:16:12
Speaker
That's why it was instituted the way that it was. That's why it happened one time of year versus over and over and over again throughout the year, right? So when we think about this high priest, it's a a ah key figure, it's a key thing to look at here in this verse because when it comes to the symbolic nature of the high priest in the Old Testament, that is just a reflection of ultimately who Jesus becomes for us today.
00:16:40
Speaker
By him coming down, taking on flesh, being born of a virgin, growing up to in a sinless, perfect life, counting him righteous before God to be able to then become our sacrifice on the cross.
00:16:56
Speaker
Absolutely incredible.
00:16:59
Speaker
And that's why if you're caught here, it's not just the the author of Hebrews doesn't just call Jesus our high priest. How does he refer to him? our great high priest, emphasizing that Jesus in every way is far greater than any kind of reflection of the Old Testament high priest in the sacrificial system to where he is now our great high priest forever more. And he doesn't just intercede on our behalf one time a year, but rather he intercedes on our behalf every single day. He is standing before a holy, righteous God who,
00:17:37
Speaker
Man, if we, he took our place as a result for him to be our great high priest interceding on our behalf daily, it's allowing us as people who have been washed by his blood, who believe and confess in him as Lord, we can now enter into the Holy of Holies. We can now enter into the throne room of grace.
00:18:03
Speaker
Are we catching this?
00:18:06
Speaker
We as broken, sinful man on this side of heaven can now enter into a holy place where God is dwelling. And if y'all remember when Christ died on the cross, y'all remember what happened that day? As soon as he died, there was something that happened in the temple. What happened?
00:18:22
Speaker
The veil was torn from top to bottom. The veil was torn. You know what that represents? full access to the kingdom of God, to the holy place.
00:18:33
Speaker
You see, what we were not able to attain before, even with the sacrificial system and the and the high priest and the functions of them, we can now obtain because of Jesus's sacrifice.
00:18:49
Speaker
This is an incredible moment in the history of humanity and God's redemptive story.
00:19:00
Speaker
We take the presence of God for granted so much. We're here dwelling in this place right now and we're worshiping and we're singing songs, but yet we're doing it half-heartedly, myself included.
00:19:12
Speaker
I'm guilty of it.
00:19:16
Speaker
But as a result of this one act by Jesus as our Messiah, our Emmanuel, God with us, we can now enter into the presence of God fully and experience him fully the way he desired from the beginning of time.
00:19:34
Speaker
So again, when we talk about this idea of hope, Jesus being our great high priest, there is no other reason for us to have hope than that alone.
00:19:50
Speaker
And the other beautiful picture about this is, it's because the fact that Jesus is daily, continually interceding on our behalf as our great high priest, that's good news for us who's broken every single day.
00:20:08
Speaker
When I wake up, i don't know about y'all, when I wake up, I praise God every day for the fact that Our great high priest is interceding on my behalf. He's interceding on your behalf. That his blood has now washed me clean.
00:20:21
Speaker
Because I know I'm unworthy of God's love. um I'm broken, right?
00:20:28
Speaker
We all are. But because of the blood of Christ, we are now counted worthy. And we are able to come into God's presence and to experience the fullness of his love. Absolutely free.
00:20:41
Speaker
Absolutely free.
00:20:45
Speaker
You see, once before before Christ died, God looked down on um on his simple broken creation. And he just saw how broken we were.
00:20:57
Speaker
and he And as a result of that brokenness, we could not enter his presence. And then as a result of that, there was one thing that we that we deserved, and that was his wrath, his judgment.
00:21:10
Speaker
But now as a result of our great high priest who intercedes, who comes in between us and God, we can now have, know, when God looks down at us, he doesn't see us for who we actually are.
00:21:23
Speaker
For anyone who believes and confesses that Jesus is Lord, who actually abides in him as he abides in us, he doesn't see us as our broken nature, but rather he looks down and he sees the blood of Christ on us. And he says, those are my children.
00:21:39
Speaker
They are mine. And Jesus says, yes, Father, they are yours, for they believed in me. They know that I am the Messiah. They know that you and I are a one and that I have come on behalf of their sin.
00:21:52
Speaker
They are your children, right? This is an incredible, incredible gift. An absolutely incredible gift. So we can have hope because Jesus is our great high priest. Amen.
Jesus' Empathy and Sacrifice
00:22:07
Speaker
The second thing is that we can have hope because of what we see in verse 15, that Jesus sympathizes with our weaknesses. The reason why I want to bring this point out is because we you know we just emphasize that he's our great high priest.
00:22:21
Speaker
But he's a great high priest who in every way took on flesh, dwelt among men, and was tempted just as you and I were.
00:22:30
Speaker
and that we currently are. Now, I wanna make this point. Jesus did not experience every temptation that you personally experienced. Just like we never experienced every temptation that Jesus experienced, right? How many of y'all have the ability and the power of turning a stone into bread?
00:22:49
Speaker
Exactly. So Satan's not going to tempt you the same way as he tempted Jesus. But what we see here is that by Jesus taking on flesh, dwelling among men, and being tempted in every respect the same way that we were, he is able to truly empathize with your sufferings, to empathize with your weaknesses, to empathize with your doubts, to empathize with every facet of humanity.
00:23:11
Speaker
But yet he did it without sin. He did it perfectly without So that way when he goes before ah his father, he can look it and say, hey, I know what they're going through, Father. Forgive them.
00:23:26
Speaker
As our great high priest, he truly can empathize with everything that we've ever experienced.
00:23:33
Speaker
And he can sympathize with us. He's our great high priest. So again, he's not he's more than just a high priest. He's our great high priest.
00:23:46
Speaker
He sympathizes with our weaknesses, yet he did it without sin. Absolutely incredible. 1 Peter 2, 22 says, he committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. 1 John 3, 5, you know that he appeared in order to take away sins and to him there was no sin, right? Just emphasizing who Jesus is by his nature. God in the flesh, our great high priest, our Messiah.
00:24:19
Speaker
The third thing I want to see here is in verse 16. So the first one was that we can have hope because Jesus is our great high priest. The second one is that we can have hope because Jesus sympathizes with our weaknesses.
00:24:34
Speaker
And the third one is, as we've already mentioned, talked about a little bit, is that we can have hope because Jesus brings us into God's presence. You see, this is the role of our high priest.
00:24:47
Speaker
This is the role of our Messiah.
00:24:51
Speaker
Everything that Jesus did in his life prepared the way for us to be able to enter into God's presence. But let me tell you something. This is not something that just God flippantly did that Jesus was like, oh man, you know what? i actually need to go down and take on flesh. This is something that was set into motion from the beginning of mankind, from the beginning of creation.
00:25:10
Speaker
God knew from the very beginning that he going to have to send his son, Jesus, to be our great high priest. Again, that's why when you read throughout the entire Old Testament, you see prophecy after prophecy after prophecy of this man who would come to redeem God's people, to take away their sin, to redeem them, to restore them, to bring them back into a newness of life in God's presence.
00:25:34
Speaker
And Jesus, as we've seen in other passages like John chapter one or first John, Jesus from the very beginning as well knew his role. He knew what he was gonna have to experience.
00:25:48
Speaker
But yet he did it lovingly, humbly, and willingly for you and I.
00:25:57
Speaker
You see, when Jesus died on the cross that day over 2,000 years ago, he had every single one of you and myself in mind when he did it.
00:26:09
Speaker
And he has every single person in this planet in mind when he did it. Because he loved us that much. And as a result of that great love, we can now have a relationship with the God of the universe who created us intricately and wonderfully for a purpose that for His glory.
00:26:33
Speaker
And if you've never encountered that today, I pray that you allow God to reveal Himself to you and that you allow the Holy Spirit to reveal Himself to you to where you can truly experience God for the way, for who He actually is.
00:26:49
Speaker
holy righteous and loving God who desires to have creation with his people so much so that he sent his only begotten son Jesus to die on the cross for your sins
00:27:01
Speaker
if you're here today and you have no hope or if you're wandering and you're looking for it maybe people in your family have failed you maybe people in your community have failed you maybe the way that the world is turning out right now has really let you down Don't put your hope in those things.
00:27:22
Speaker
Your family, your friends, your peers, the world, guess what? It's going to fail you.
00:27:30
Speaker
But there's one who will never fail you.
00:27:34
Speaker
That's Jesus.
00:27:38
Speaker
That's Jesus. No matter how many times you fall, guess who's there to pick you up? Jesus. No matter how many times you fall back into a sin that you know is just debilitating or that is just destroying you, guess who's there to bring you back out of it?
00:27:54
Speaker
Jesus. You want to know why? It's because Jesus is able to empathize and sympathize with you in every way as our great high priest.
00:28:08
Speaker
So when we think about going back to Christmas, I know it's Christmas has passed and New Year is here, but when we think about that time, when we think about the the significance and the moment of why Christ came to die or to be born, ultimately to die, it's so much more than just worshiping a little baby.
00:28:32
Speaker
So much more. You know, I think it was Victor a couple weeks back, he said it this way, the birth of Jesus did not save anyone.
00:28:41
Speaker
It was the death that allows everyone to be saved.
00:28:48
Speaker
So as we wrap up our christmas our Christmas series and as we go into the new year, I really do hope and pray that when we think about who our Messiah is, that we just we don't view him as just any ordinary man.
00:29:03
Speaker
We think of him as the holy, righteous son of God who came to take away the sins of a broken and dark world.
Daily Intercession and Assurance in Christ
00:29:12
Speaker
And that this is a man that just doesn't intercede on behalf once a year. This isn't a man that just, that forgets about you one day and then he's like, oh yeah, I forgot Josh is still here. You know, like this is a man who intercedes on our behalf daily, every second, moment by moment. So that way you and I can have hope.
00:29:35
Speaker
So we can have hope.
00:29:38
Speaker
You know what hope produces and in us as believers? Confident assurance of great expectation of what God is going to do with his plans and his purposes. You know what else it produces?
00:29:54
Speaker
Great joy.
00:29:58
Speaker
because we can walk confidently knowing that God's plan is greater than ours. And as a result of that, we don't have to fret, we don't have to worry, we don't have to be anxious, but rather we can just truly live life the way that God desired it to be, and that is to be lovingly, holy, and joyfully before Him.
00:30:21
Speaker
So again, if you've never surrendered your life to Christ, I invite you to do that today. I'm gonna ask the worship team to come back up as we go into this time of invitation.
00:30:38
Speaker
Again, i don't know where we are all at in our life right now as we go into 2026. I know for me, it started out with my daughter having flu-like symptoms.
00:30:50
Speaker
She's at home watching me online right now. I got a text message just from my wife just as I got up here saying, Shiloh, so excited to see you on the screen.
00:31:03
Speaker
But we don't know how 2026, you know, it may have started a little rough. We don't know how it's gonna end, right? But I do know this, that as we go into it and as we go into another day, another moment, we can do it with confident assurance, with great expectation of what God is going to do because of the finished work of Jesus, what he did on the cross, and the hope that it now provides for us.
00:31:29
Speaker
Will you pray with me?
00:31:32
Speaker
God, we come before you. And Lord, again, we just thank you so much for this great gift that you've given us through the birth of Jesus and how through his perfect life, through his perfect death, through his resurrection, Father, that we can now have salvation, that we can now have life and life eternal.
Call to Surrender and Church Information
00:31:51
Speaker
And as a result, in this broken and dark world, we can now have hope. And I pray that there's anyone in this room today who has never experienced that, Father, that today we can begin that conversation, whether it's with me or somebody else in the room. I pray, Father, that you will stir their hearts and that you allow them to move towards your throne of grace.
00:32:12
Speaker
Because what the reality is that we have a great high priest, Jesus, who is standing on our behalf as our intercessor so that when we can access your throne of grace. We just have to choose to accept and believe that he is Lord.
00:32:27
Speaker
And he's Lord of our lives. So Lord, I pray that you do a great work in us today. That you allow us to draw closer to you. Lord, we love you. we praise you. We thank you. It's Jesus' name we pray.
00:32:39
Speaker
Amen.
00:32:53
Speaker
This is a ministry of First Baptist Church located at 1700 Milam Street, Columbus, Texas.