Drawing Near to God

Amen. I was just reminded that before I came to faith in Christ, one of the holy books that I read was the Quran. I actually considered that perhaps Islam was true, but by God's grace, he revealed to me by His grace that Jesus Christ was in fact the only way of salvation, the way, the truth and the life. And so, just what a great reminder.

Thank you, Sam. I'm like sitting there thinking, boy, this guy looks a lot better than I do. He's got a tie and a suit and everything, and here I am, and he's not using his notes the way I'm going to be using my notes. It's like, oh boy, it's all downhill from here, guys.

would you pray with me because we need help. I need help. Lord, we just thank you for the opportunity that you have given to us now to take a look once again at your word, and we thank you, God, that you have given to us your word. I pray, Father, that You would reveal yourself to us through the word, and I pray, Lord, that you would motivate us.

That as a result, we might draw near to you. And I ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Some of you might recall a couple of years ago that I suffered a pretty significant eye injury.

It could have been really severe. Fortunately it wasn't. I had gone out into the garage and I saw my son Andrew doing an exercise with what we call Jaeger bands. And if what a Jaeger band is, Jaeger bands, they have like this metal clip at the end, and then there are these like two surgical tubings that come from it, and there are, these handles.

If you will, that you use, and the idea is that you do these exercises, different types of exercises in order to strengthen your shoulders, strengthen your arms so that you can throw a baseball better. And so I go out into the garage and I see my son Andrew, he was 13 at the time, using these Jaeger bands, and then I, I noticed he was performing the movement incorrectly. So I proceeded to demonstrate, the proper athletic technique. So I stood in proper proximity to the place where the bands were connected and I proceeded to pull my arms back, both arms at the same time, I was, I was pulling these Jaeger bands back.

And then what happened is all of a sudden the clip disconnected and it was like time stood still and I could see in front of my face this clip. Time was standing still and I for the life of me could not move. And then all of a sudden smack that metal clip hit me right on my left lens. And so what do I do?

I fall to the ground and Immediately and I'm screaming and yelling and I'm like, 00, it sounded like a woman who was getting ready to give birth and my son Andrew, I didn't know it at the time, but my son Andrew, his perception was that my eyeball literally popped out of my face, rolled on the ground, and so he goes running into the house. He's yelling and screaming. He's going, Dad is hurt. Dad is hurt.

He lost his eyeball. And so meanwhile, back at the ranch, back in the garage, I'm here, I'm on the ground, and I open up my right eye and I see that my hands are blood soaked red through the blood that was gushing from my face, and I'm sitting there going, oh Lord. oh. that wasn't what I was trying to show my son.

And I make my way up through the garage door into the kitchen and I fall to the ground and everyone is in a panic. Everyone is yelling and screaming, and I seemed like I was the only one that had my sanity to myself and so I yelled out, quiet! I don't remember exactly. I, to confess, you may have said shut up, but I was, I was in the dire straits at the time.

I'm like, quiet. Everyone calms down and, and I'm saying, I, I, I need someone to, to find my glasses because at that moment I was not sure. I thought that maybe my glass had shattered and I had pieces of that glass shoved into my eye socket and that my eye was gone. I was, I was hoping it wasn't.

And so please someone find my glasses, have mercy on me. Find my glasses. So fortunately, my mother-in-law goes out into the garage. She's looking, and then I said, Marcy, would you come and look at my eye?

And she says, I can't look at your eye. Gee, thanks. Gee, thanks. I was like, I need someone to look at my eye.

I ask my wife to look at my eye, and she would not look at my eye, and so I was in a fix between the two. My mother-in-law finally comes inside and she says, I found your glasses. I'm like, is the lens there? No, oh.

did you find the lens? Yes, I found the lens. Is it in one piece? Yes, it's in one piece.

At least I knew that there wasn't glass fragments shoved into my eye socket. Well, cutting a long story short, I ended out, in the ambulance. I was taken to Loma Linda Hospital and I laid on, on my back on, on the, the bed there that they had provided for me. I'm like in, Agonizing pain.

It was interesting. At first, it didn't really hurt a whole lot, but hours later, just a throbbing pain. It was like, 00, and that's literally, I was doing that for like three straight hours. 00.

I'll tell you, it felt so good, so good to know that my wife was with me and even my mommy came and hung out with me a little bit and that felt good too. But, as it turned out, it was an injury, but over the course of time my eye healed. The doctors gave me medicine and everything was pretty much good to go, but praise God for that. Perhaps, perhaps the most memorable part of this experience was when I first got hit and I was rolling around on the ground and, and honestly, the thought kept coming to my mind.

I am so glad. That this happened to me and not to Andrew. There was a feeling of relief. That had come over me in the earlier moments of having been injured.

I was just so, so relieved that it was me that was hurt and not my own son. And then that thought was soon followed by another thought. This must have been the way Jesus felt when he died on the cross for me. I am so glad.

To be taking upon myself. The wrath of Almighty God so that Carlos would not have to. He. He saw me.

He saw you. He saw us while hanging on Calvary's cross, and in the midst of his pain and intense suffering, he was relieved that it was himself and not us who was experiencing this, such agonizing pain. Brothers and sisters, we have, Great high priest. We have a great high priest, and not only that, we have a great high priest who sympathizes with us in our weaknesses.

I want to ask you to turn in your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 4, beginning in verse 13. Hebrews chapter 4, beginning in verse 13. As you are turning in your Bibles, here is the backdrop. The, the writer of Hebrews is addressing a mixed audience.

We can assume that for the most part, it was a Jewish audience and amongst the Jews that he is writing to, there were some who were on the fence. There were some who had not fully come over to faith in Jesus Christ, and there no doubt were some who were weak as well, some on the fence and some weak. There were those who were weak who perhaps were struggling with whether or not they were truly born again. And so what the writer is wanting to do is he's wanting to motivate those who are weak in the relationship to God.

He's wanting to motivate those who were on the fence to come all the way to faith in God. This is his desire. He wants for them to lay hold, to, to lay fast to the confession that, that, that is the confession of Jesus Christ, and he wants them to draw nearer to Jesus Christ as well. And so let's read this passage together, Hebrews 4:13.

It says there is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of whom with whom we have to do. Now that's a bit sobering, is it not, that he knows all things. There is nothing that escapes his attention. But then it goes on, and he says, since then we have a great high priest who passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession, for we do not have a.

Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in our time of need. And so the message this morning is entitled Drawing Nearer to God. We're going to look at four descriptions about our high priest that should motivate us to draw near to God.

God. Description number 1. He is a superior high priest. Description number 1, he is a superior high priest.

Notice it says since then in verses 13B, since then we have a great high priest. Now please understand that the writer of Hebrews has already been seeking to underscore the greatness of Jesus. He wants for his readers to be drawn to a place where they understand just how great their God. And so in chapters 1, verses 1 through 3, he talks about how Jesus was greater than the prophets, greater than the prophets.

In chapter 1, verse 4 through chapter 2, verse 8, he talks about how Jesus was greater than the angels, greater than the prophets, greater than the angels, and then in chapter 3, all of chapter 3, verses 1 through 19, the emphasis here is on Moses and how Jesus Christ was greater than Moses. Moses, the one who by miracles, was used by God to deliver the Hebrews out of Egyptian captivity. Moses, the one who by God's power and by God's grace was instrumental in delivering them, from captivity and into, through the wilderness on the way to the promised land underneath his, his ministry, the sea was parted and the people of God walked through on the dry ground.

There were so many things that, that God did through the ministry of Moses, he was the guy that heard God speak to him in the burning bush and so in, in the, in the minds of the readers, no doubt, Moses was a great guy.

He was a great man of God from the Old Testament, one of the heroes, and, and the writer is saying Jesus, greater than Moses, greater than Moses. He describes Moses as being a faithful servant in God's house, but how Jesus is faithful over his own house. And he says, we who believe are his house. In Hebrews 3:6, it says Christ was faithful as a son over his house, whose house we are.

And here's a bit of a warning if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end, therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as when they provoked me, as in the day of trial in the wilderness. And so Jesus is greater than Moses, and He is greater than Joshua. We see this in chapter 4, verses 1 through 11, greater than Joshua, the one that led the people of God into the land of promise. The one who along with Caleb was only, what was, was one of the two, the only two that was given permission by God to enter into this land of promise.

Of all of the people that left Egypt, all of them died except these two, and these were the only two then from that generation that were granted permission to go into the Land of Promise. This great Joshua, and yet Jesus is greater than this Joshua. And Jesus offers a greater rest, according to the writer of Hebrews, through faith in Him, a greater rest than was the rest of the people of God as they entered into the land of promise. And in Hebrews 4:11, it says, Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall through following the same example of disobedience, the disobedience.

of the Israelites in the wilderness, but in this passage, Jesus is referred to as the great high priest, the mega high priest, and so all along the way this grand view of Jesus is being presented, and we come to our passage this morning and Jesus is referred to as the great high priest. Our understanding of the high priest needs to be informed by the Old Testament. And so in the Old Testament ritual and sacrificial system, you can read about it through Leviticus and through the 1st 5 books of the Bible, through the writings of Moses, you can come to understand what it is that God instituted amongst his people by way of the sacrificial system.

And please note that the Old Testament allowed for only one high priest at a time.

And that high priest represented man to God. He would offer sacrifices to God on behalf of God's people, and once a year, only once a year, on the Day of Atonement, the Day of Yom Kippur, the high priest would enter the Holy of Holies. In order to offer a blood sacrifice on behalf of the people of God, he would have to slay a perfect, unblemished, undefiled lamb, and he would take the blood of the Lamb and he would eventually enter into the most holy place, and he would sprinkle the blood of the Lamb onto the mercy seats.

And he would do that in order to make atonement for the people of God.

But please note that this high priest would have to first offer a blood sacrifice for himself. He would have to atone for his own sins before he could go and make atonement for the sins of God's people. And so this high priest would enter through the door into the outer court and through the door into the holy place and finally through the entrance into the holy of holies, and he was the only one that was allowed entry into the holy of holies, the place where the Shakinah glory of God.

would be expressed above the mercy seat with the cherubim on both sides of, of, of the mercy seat sitting atop the Ark of the Covenant, and God should glory, the direct presence of Almighty God would be revealed in that place, and the high priest could go into that place only once a year.

He would enter with a rope tied around his legs. The idea is that if he died because he was unworthy to offer the sacrifice, then we could pull him out by the rope. The high priest of the Old Testament would have to offer sacrifices to God year after year after year, continually, once a year, the sacrifices were ongoing and on a daily basis, there were certain types of sacrifices offered as well, but one unique sacrifice on the day of atonement was offered to make atonement for the sins of God's people.

This whole system served.

As a continual ongoing reminder. Of the absolute holiness of God and that we need for our sins to be atoned for. It taught us that we cannot just approach God whenever and wherever we wanted. We must approach Him on his terms.

He gave us, the prescription that we must take, that we must follow in order to worship Him. He appointed a priest who would represent us to God and bring our need of a sacrifice to God. But the writer here in this passage is telling us, Jesus is our mega priest. He is our great high priest.

He is better than what we had in the days of old. And, and there are things that we can point to to help us to understand the greatness of Jesus. Our, our great high priest, we know from the scriptures offered himself as a sacrifice for our sins, and he suffered and he died on Calvary's cross as an unblemished lamb so that through him our sins might be atoned for. He offered himself, and no Old Testament priest could offer himself, but Jesus could do that.

Our high priest, our great high priest died once. For all. He died for sin once for all, and from that place on the cross, he proclaimed, It is finished. It is finished.

No longer is there any need for a sacrificial system because in me and through my once for all sacrifice, atonement for sin has been made. And please note that in this passage, it talks about our high priest having passed through the heavens. The Old Testament priest would Passed through the door of the outer court, through the holy place, and into the holy of holies where the Shakinah glory of God would be revealed. Jesus himself passed through the heavens into the direct presence of Almighty God, and the Bible talks about three heavens.

It talks about the atmospheric heavens in Jeremiah 4:25, it talks about the stellar heavens in Isaiah 13:10, and it talks about the celestial or the heavens of heavens. In 2 Chronicles 6:18, the apostle Paul himself talks about a third heaven. In 2 Corinthians 12:2, he says, I know a man in Christ who 14 years ago, whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know. God knows such a man was caught up to the third heaven.

Could you imagine being in the shoes of Paul and being caught up into the third heaven, being caught up and being at the place where you are directly in the presence of Almighty God, at the throne room of God in the holy of holies, beholding Could you imagine? He says, and I know how such a man, whether in the body or apart from the body, I do not know, God knows, was caught up into paradise, caught up into the third heaven, and expressed, heard inexpressible words which a man not forbidden to speak.

And so understand that Jesus is a greater priest than those of the Old Testament that he did Himself pass through the heavens into the direct presence of Almighty God Himself. In Hebrews 9:24, the writer says, Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands which are figures of the truth, but Christ has entered into heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God for us.

And as we look at this passage, we also note that that this high priest is described as Jesus the Son of God, Jesus the human name, Son of God, the divine name, and here we have this Jesus, this, this high priest who is, who is man and who is God, and that qualifies him to be our high priest. You see, we needed one who could represent us perfectly to God, one who was fully man, and we needed one who would represent God perfectly to us, one who is fully God, and we have in Jesus Himself the God man, Jesus, the Son of God, our great high priest who qualified.

To be a sacrifice for us who qualifies to represent us to God and God to us, and He bridges the gap. He bridges the gap so that through Him we have access into the Holy of Holies.

We have access into the very throne room of God Himself, an absolutely amazing and staggering thought. Well, The exhortation of the writer here is that we are to hold fast to our confession. Let us hold fast. Since we have a great high priest, let us hold fast to our confession.

Let's go on to number 2. Our high priest is a sympathetic high priest. He is a sympathetic high priest. The Bible says we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses.

This is verse 15. He cannot sympathize with our weaknesses. You see, what is implied in weaknesses is the fact that we are weak. It's the fact that, that we are, we are just a mixed bag of brokenness and depravity.

We are in and of ourselves are not strong. We are weak. And how does Almighty God respond to us in our weaknesses? The Bible says we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize.

What he is emphasizing here is the fact that we do in fact have a high priest who can sympathize with our weaknesses, to sympathize. Means to have a fellow feeling with. The King James Version says that we do not have a high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. He is, he is touched by the feelings of our infirmities then.

Jesus, our high priest, sympathized with humanity during his earthly ministry. Just think about Jesus' earthly ministry from the incarnation to his sacrifice on the cross and everything in between. Just, just stop to think about the way in which he related to a fallen humanity. That there were so many times where he demonstrated his compassion and his kindness and his care.

So many healings. He healed a leper. He healed Peter's mother-in-law, a paralytic, a hemorrhaging woman, two blind men, a demon possessed mute man, a man with a withered hand, a demon possessed blind and mute man, a Canaanite woman's daughter, a lunatic boy, two blind men, and so on and so forth, and the list goes on and on and on. Jesus healed many.

He has compassion. He saw these people in their brokenness and in their pain and in their suffering. and in their need for healing, and he reached out to them with mercy and compassion. He was touched with the feelings of their infirmities, and we find in the Bible that he raised a few people from the dead.

Jairus' daughter, the widow's son at Nain, and of course Lazarus was raised from the dead, and we recall, don't we, that when Jesus arrived at the tomb, the Bible says he wept. He was touched with the feelings of the infirmities of humanity, and there he wept. The Bible talks about how Jesus wept over Jerusalem when he was atop the mountain and he's looking down over Jerusalem and he says, oh Jerusalem, oh Jerusalem, how I have longed to gather you in as a mother gathers her chicks, but you were unwilling.

This speaks of the compassion of Jesus, how he cares, how he is touched with the feelings of our infirmities, and there is no grander demonstration of the compassion of Jesus.

Than what was revealed to us through the cross. Lay hold of the cross. Let the cross and the suffering savior on the cross be a picture for you of just how much he cares. Our high priest can sympathize because he was tempted in all things.

Just, just think with me for a few moments, he was tempted in all things. The Bible says, one who has been tempted in all things as we are. One who was tempted in all things. Now, he was not necessarily tempted in the exact same ways that we were tempted.

But he was tempted in every way, and the temptations that he experienced mounted up to a place to where what he had to stand strong against was so much greater than anything that we could ever imagine. The The full force of temptation had come upon him. He felt it to his dying breath, and he resisted to the point of the shedding of his own blood, the temptation to sin. So unlike us, we'll get to that in a minute.

But he was tempted. He experienced demonic attack. He was misrepresented, criticized, sentenced to death, abandoned by his friends. He was made fun of, humiliated, mocked, beaten, spat upon.

He was punctured with multiple thorns as the crown of mockery was pressed upon his brow. He was abused in In many ways, both physically and emotionally, and when nailed to the cross, he was shown no compassion whatsoever. When nailed to the cross, he experienced thirst, and you will recall with me, won't you, that Jesus from the cross said, I thirst. I am thirsty.

And what did the Roman soldier do? He went and he fetched not wine, not sweet wine, not good tasting water, but he went and he fetched fetched some vinegar, some bitter wine, and he gave it to Jesus to drink. And what Jesus did? He drank it.

This man was adding insult to his injury. And he drank it as if to say, I'll take into my being every last sin imaginable as long as I am alive on the face of planet Earth. I'll take it all, and you can throw all your punches at me. You can do all that you can to bring me down, and I will take every last blow.

I will take that vinegar, and I will drink it into myself, and I will die on the cross so that the wrath of the Father would come down upon me. This is what I came to do. And the Bible says that immediately thereafter he bowed his head and he gave up the ghost. What an absolutely amazing example of one who suffered.

He knows what it feels like to suffer the agonizing pain of, of physical pain and even emotional and even spiritual separation. His best friends forsook him, and God the Father turned his back on him, and there while hanging on the cross, he says, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? This is the most startling cry ever uttered from the lips of a suffering man. Jesus had been in a perfect intimate relationship with the Father throughout eternity past.

During his earthly ministry, he submitted perfectly to the Father in all things. The Father was extremely pleased with his Son, however, this piercing cry from the bloodstained cross reverberates through the channels of history in frightening fashion. Here we see the perfect sinless Lamb of God in excruciating pain, crying out to Almighty God in a way he had never done before. He refers to his father now as my God.

Jesus had never, never made such an address before and it speaks to the distance and the isolation that Jesus was experiencing. He immediately follows up with the infamous question, why have you forsaken me? And we know the answer to the question, brothers and sisters, because he was dying there as our great high priest who had to die and receive upon Himself the wrath of the Father with our sins on his back, and he died so that our sins might be atoned for. Through the sprinkling of His blood we have atonement.

Well, let us move on to the 3rd point. He is a sinless high priest. It says beginning in verse 15, we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. A passage to cross reference is Hebrews 7:25.

It says he is able to save forever those who draw nearer to God through Him since he always lives to make intercession for them. Note verse 26, for it was fitting that we should have a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. This passage underscores his sinlessness. I've got a few points about his sin, sinlessness that I want to make.

Number one, He is sinless in that he never yielded to temptation. He experienced the full force of temptation, yet never caved in to the pressure. Hebrews 12:34 says, Consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart. You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin.

Jesus resisted to the point of the shedding. Of His blood. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. And in 1 Peter 2:22 it says in reference to Jesus who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in his mouth.

And while being reviled, he did not revile in return. While suffering, he uttered no threats, but he kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously. And so he was sinless in that he never yielded to temptation. He was pure and holy and undefiled.

He is sinless in that he submitted perfectly to God's sovereign plan. In John 6:38, he says, I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but to do the will of Him who sent me, and this is the will of Him who sent me, that of all that He has given to me, I lose nothing but raise it up on the last day. That is the Father's. Plan for me.

Matthew 26:39 says, and he went a little beyond them. Here he is in the garden of Gethsemane, and it says he fell on his face and he prayed, saying in agonizing prayer, My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Yet not as I will, but as thou wilt. You see, here he is submitting to the plan of the Father, and so he is sinless and that he submitted to his plan.

And in John 19:30 from the place of the cross, he proclaims, it is finished, all the way to his dying breath, he submitted perfectly to God's sovereign plan, even the death on the cross, which was God's plan so that our salvation through Him might be secured. He is sinless in that he submitted perfectly, and then he is sinless in that he forgave his enemies. He is sinless in that he forgave his enemies. I'm going to read this quote here.

By AW Pink man had done his worst. The one by whom the world was made had come into it, but the world knew him not. The Lord of glory had tabernacle among men, but he was not wanted. The eyes which sin had blinded saw in him no beauty that he should be desired.

At his birth, there was no room at the inn which foreshadowed the treatment he was to receive at the hands of men. Shortly after his birth, Herod sought to slay him, and this intimated the hostility. His person evoked and forecast the cross as the climax of man's enmity. Again and again his enemies attempted his destruction, and now their vile desires are granted them.

The Son of God has yielded Himself up into their hands. A mock trial had been gone through, and though his judges found no fault in Him, nevertheless they had yielded to the insistent clamoring of those who hated Him as they cried again and again, Crucify Him. The fell deed had been done. No ordinary death would suffice his implacable foes.

A death of intense suffering and shame was decided upon. A cross had been secured. The savior had been nailed to it, and there he hangs silent. But presently his pallid lips are seen to move.

Is he crying for pity? No. What then? Is he pronouncing malediction upon his crucifiers?

No. He is praying, praying for his enemies. Then Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Brothers and sisters, as we look at the example of Jesus from the cross in agonizing pain, having been sinned against in ways.

Unimaginable, and we hear the heart of Almighty God expressed through Jesus, forgive them. And this is exactly what the Father wanted to do. He wanted to forgive those who would sin against Him and against His Son, and he would offer forgiveness through the sacrifice of Jesus. I want to submit to you that you are perhaps never, you are perhaps never more like Jesus than when you forgive from your heart those who severely sin against you.

Your capacity to glorify God is in direct proportion to the degree that you are sinned against. The greater you are sinned against, the greater you can walk in the footsteps of Jesus and thus glorify Him as you manifest the love and the grace and the compassion and the forgiveness of Jesus himself, even to those who are your so-called enemies. Being severely sinned against and serves as an opportunity to glorify God. And so I wanna ask you this morning, how are you doing?

How are you doing? Is there someone that you need to forgive? Failure to forgive is a form of rejecting God and God calls you to embrace the path that leads to forgiveness, and Jesus was sinless in the fact that he forgave while hanging on the cross, He forgave. And then he qualifies to be our high priest because he was in fact without sin.

That's part of what qualifies him. We needed a perfect man to represent us to a perfect God, and we needed through this man to have our sins atoned for. Let us move on finally to number 4, the 4th description of our high priest. Our high priest is, is a superior high priest.

He is a sympathetic high priest., he is a, a high priest that is, sinless, and then number 4, he is a saving high priest who invites us to draw near. We're not going to spend a lot of time here, but please note the passage. In light of these truths about our high priest, in light of these descriptions, let us therefore draw nearer with confidence, draw near with confidence to the throne of grace. The idea of confidence is freedom of speech.

boldness, openness, transparency. Let us be bold. Let us draw nearer with confidence. We have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens and who has entered into the holy of holies in our place, who has sprinkled his blood on the mercy seat, and through Him God looks down upon us, and he doesn't see us breaking the laws, but he sees us in Christ having fulfilled the law, and we are complete in Jesus.

And so let us approach the throne of God's grace with boldness. that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in time of need. And please note, he says, let us, let us draw near with confidence to what? To what?

To the throne of His grace. Our saving high priest wants us to draw near to His throne of grace. Do not draw nearer to the bottle. Do not draw nearer to illicit sex or to material riches to drugs, entertainment.

Do not draw nearer to the so-called counselor, the biblical counselor, psychologist, or what have you. Draw nearer to the throne of God's grace because that is the only one that can help you. That is the only one that can give you grace and mercy for the help that you need in your time of need. Draw nearer to him and understand as the great high priest, he beckons you, come.

Jesus says, come to me, all who are weak and heavy laden, I will give you rest. You can take it to the bank. It is settled. I finished the work needed for your atonement.

You are welcome to come. I will not cast anyone aside. I will receive you and I will raise you up on the last day. This is our great High Priest.

This is our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. He welcomes us to come. Let us therefore draw near with confidence, with absolute certainty to His throne of grace. Because he wants to give his grace, and he wants to shower his mercy upon us.

And when do we do this? When we have arrived, when do we draw near to his throne of grace? When we've gotten to the place where we feel like we're good enough to come to Almighty God? No, it's in our time of need.

It's in those times when we feel that we are absolutely undeserving, and we are shattered by the weight of our own sin and depression. Gravity and brokenness, and the Bible says to you who have need, draw nearer with confidence to His throne of grace. We have a saving high priest. We have a high priest who will not look at us with a frown.

We have a high priest who's not going to stand at a distance and say, Get away from me. We have a high priest. Receives us with love and compassion, and this high priest is not going to stand in judgment over us because he took upon Himself the judgment that we deserve. Brothers and sisters, God is calling us to draw nearer to his throne of grace.

Press into the heart of Almighty God and make Him your own. Make him your own. And if you are here this morning, and you have not made Jesus your own, the call of God upon you is to hold fast to the confession and to make Jesus your own and to draw nearer to him, draw nearer to him. But if you are here, and you are a believer, oh, brothers and sisters, praise God.

Give thanks to God, exalt his holy name, and just remember that we have a great high priest. Want to ask you to join with me in prayer as we close. As the ushers come forward, we will receive your tithes and offerings. If, if you filled out a connection card, feel free to drop the connection card into the basket as it is being passed around.

We're going to pray. We're going to, sing a song of praise to the Lord, and I believe we'll, we'll dismiss thereafter. Feel free to drop the connection card into the basket. Let me pray before we worship.

Lord, we just thank you so much for your word. We thank you, Lord, that you are a great high priest. We thank you, Lord, that you beckon us, come. I pray, Lord, that You would grant to every single one of us boldness to approach your throne of grace and that Lord, there in the Holy of Holies as we behold you and worship You through the blood of the Lamb, that Lord, we would find our hearts fattened with praise.

Oh God, we worship you. We exalt you and we praise your holy name because God, you are merciful and you are kind and you are loving to us. We confess that we have transgressed your commands, but we confess that we have a great high priest, and to you alone be glory. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.