Hold Fast to Your Confession

Sermon Transcript

Since Andrea and I were married nearly sixteen years ago, we’ve moved five different times. You can tell a lot about what a person loves and values by what they hold onto through five moves. Through all five moves I’ve let go of a lot of things. However, one thing that I never let go of, and have no plans to, are a couple Penn State track suits I was issued when I was on the Penn State gymnastics team. To you they would probably just look like dated clothes, but I’m careful to hold onto them because they’re really valuable to me. They represent memories of the hard work that it took to get to Penn State, perseverance through countless failures at Penn State, brotherhood that was forged with Penn State teammates, and victories we shared together. I love those old tracksuits, they mean a lot to me, so I’m careful to hold onto them and have no plans to let them go. I hold onto them.

Our passage this morning was written to encourage you and encourage me to hold on to Jesus Christ, and never let him go, because He is infinitely valuable to us. Notice the opening verse in our passage. Hebrews 4:14 – Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. Our confession refers to the faith in Christ that we profess with our mouths and promise to never let go. Romans 10:9 says, “because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Our confession is that Jesus is Lord, the risen Savior who rescues us from our sins. And since Jesus is of infinite value to us, far more valuable than a tracksuit or even the memories it represents, we hold fast to him. And that brings us to the big idea of our passage this morning: Hold fast your confession. Though each day brings fresh temptations to drift, hold fast your confession that Jesus Christ is the Lord, your Lord, and alone can save you from your sins. Hold fast your confession.

Before we get into the details of our passage, I want you to know that there is a particular tone to our passage and that tone is comfort. You may have noticed over the past month and a half, Hebrews can be an unsettling book of the Bible to study. Hebrews repeats the same warning against drifting toward unbelief again and again, but in our passage this morning the author of Hebrews comforts our fearful hearts with assurance that God will help us to hold fast our confession in Jesus Christ. Commenting on this passage about 500 years ago, Martin Luther wrote, “After terrifying us, the Apostle now comforts us; after pouring wine into our wound, he now pours in oil.” Keep an eye out and an ear open to comfort. If I were to think of a picture to describe the author’s disposition in our passage, it would be an arm of comfort over a fearful shoulder. We can feel the comfort in how our passage fits together. The command “hold fast your confession” is at the heart of the passage, but it’s surrounded by “two why’s and a how.” Two comforting reasons why we should hold fast our confession and one comforting way how to hold fast our confession. Two why’s and a how. Hold fast your confession: 1. Because you have a great High Priest 2. Because you have a sympathetic High Priest 3. Draw near to the Father.

BECAUSE YOU HAVE A GREAT HIGH PRIEST

I have an honest confession to make about those Penn State track suits: I would part ways with one for the right price. I’m not trying to sell one. They’re all valuable to me. But they’re not so great that I would never part ways with one. For a Chevy Silverado pick up truck, I’d let go of one of my track suits. But what is it about Jesus, the Son of God, that makes him such a great High Priest, that we would rather part ways with everything that this world has to offer and let go of every desire of our heart than let go of our confession of faith in Him?

We need a priest – White House story. We cannot approach God on our own.

We need a priest and before the coming of Christ, God’s people had priests. They had priests. The priests represented the people and acted on their behalf before the holy God, in his very presence. Though God is spatially everywhere, the Bible says that before the coming of Christ, God specially dwelt with his people in their tabernacle. The tabernacle was a large, complex tent with multiple layers and God’s special presence dwelt in the inner part of the tent, which was called the most holy place or the holy of holies. Though God’s people had many priests, they only had one high priest at a time. The high priest had an incredibly significant responsibility. Once a year he would pass through the various layers of the tabernacle and would enter into the most holy place. Only the high priest could go there and he could only go once a year after offering a sacrifice for his sins. He would pass through the various layers and curtains of the tent, enter the most holy place, and offer a sacrifice for the sins of the people, though the people still had to keep their distance.

That was the high priest, but our passage invites us to hold fast to our confession because he is our great high priest – greater than every high priest that came before Him. Why? Hebrews 4:14 – Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. The high priest passed through the layers of curtain to offer a sacrifice for the sins of the people in the holy place that was made by human hands. But the great High Priest, Jesus Christ, after his death on the cross rose on the third day, passed through not curtains, but the heavens (the skies), and he passed into the heavenly throne room whose designer and builder is God himself, and Jesus presented not an animal sacrifice, but presented himself as the final sacrifice for our sins and the only representative through whom we can draw near to the Father. Israel had high priests, but the Lord Jesus Christ is truly the great High Priest because he is risen and reigns for us in the heavenly sanctuary of God. So, of course we will let go of everything this world has to offer to hold fast to our confession of faith in our Great High Priest. But not only is Christ our Great and transcendent high priest in the heavens, we hold fast our confession because…

HE IS OUR SYMPATHETIC HIGH PRIEST

We hold fast our confession because he’s both high and lifted up and gently near. He is our great high priest and our sympathetic high priest. There are few things more dear in life than someone who sympathizes with you. As you all know, at the end of 2022, Citylight Church purchased the facility at 4050 Main Street here in Manayunk. Since then we’ve completed the construction design on the building and are now negotiating the construction budget with our contractor. This negotiation process has been weighty. And one of the greatest gifts to me during these weighty negotiations has been Joe Snyder’s, Citylight’s incoming treasurer/finance deacon. A couple weeks ago, after a particularly high stakes value engineering meeting with our contractor, Joe sent me a text and the first part of it read, “I can feel the weight and burden of this building on your shoulders…” followed by an incredibly encouraging verse from God’s word about God’s plans being perfect. That may sound simple, but that text meant the world to me. I went home and told my wife about it. Joe knew what I was going through, he felt the weight himself, and he sympathized with me. I thought, “I’m never letting go of Joe as our finance deacon.” That is the power of sympathy. Do you have a genuinely sympathetic person in your life? You never want to let that person go. The reason why we hold fast our confession in Christ and never let him go is because he’s not only a great high priest, he’s also a sympathetic high priest. Hebrews 4:15 – For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Our High Priest is not only transcendent, he’s also tender. He not only has supremacy, he is also full of sympathy. Before he passed through the heavens to present himself before God on our behalf in the heavenly throne room, He took on true humanity and stepped down into the world of sin and the messes we’ve made. We don’t have a high priest who stands far off and tells us to figure out our problems. We never could. He took on true humanity for us. And by taking on true humanity, Jesus Christ experienced the full range of temptations common to the human experience. That is why the Lord Jesus Christ can sympathize with you. He knows exactly what you’re going through. Are you tempted to harbor bitterness and unforgiveness toward someone? Jesus sympathizes with you because he was tempted that way too. Are you tempted to balk at some high cost that comes with walking the narrow path of faith? Jesus sympathizes. He was tempted to not follow through with the plan that the Father set out for Him. Are you tempted toward anger, irritability, or escaping from reality through lustful fantasies? Jesus sympathizes. He knows experientially what you’re going through. Are you tempted to turn from the narrow path? Is the fight of faith beginning to feel like more than you can or want to handle? Jesus knows just that temptation. After Jesus was baptized, he was tempted in the wilderness by the Devil for 40 days. Though Jesus was tempted three times, the gist of each temptation was that the Devil offered him glory without walking the path of suffering. Is that what we are all tempted by: the peace and glory of heaven on earth right now. Jesus sympathizes. He has been there. In fact, the Lord Jesus Christ can sympathize with you better than anyone. Since he never once gave into temptation, he knows the full weight of the temptations you face. His sympathy would do us no good if he were just another sinner. But our sympathetic priest was tempted in every way that we are, yet without sin. Therefore, he could go to the cross in our place, pay for our sins, and rise to be our eternal advocate before the Father. Why would we ever let go of our great and sympathetic priest? We could never hold on to anything greater or more sympathetic. Hold fast your confession because you have a great and sympathetic high priest. Those are the two why’s, we’re ready now for the how. How do we hold fast our confession?

DRAW NEAR TO THE FATHER

The way that we hold fast our confession in Jesus Christ as Lord is by drawing near to the Father for help. Isn’t that wonderful! Draw near. Your Father will help. As one author has said, “help is granted when the need is greatest.” Hebrews 4:16 – Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Notice that our verse first explains the attitude that we should have when we draw near to the Father for help holding fast our confession: confidence. There is no confidence quite like the confidence of a child with their loving dad. Just this week I was hanging out at Pastor Tim’s house and noticed utter confidence with which his daughters come to him for what they desire and need. They don’t hang back with fear. They draw near with confidence. We were born dead in our sins and enemies of God. But God in his great love gave His Son to be our great and sympathetic high priest so that through him we are always qualified to draw near. Draw near with the confidence of a loved child. Because the Son is our great and sympathetic high priest, we can draw near to the Father with confidence no matter how weak we feel or grievously we’ve sinned.

Not only does Hebrews 4:16 tell us the kind of attitude we can have when we draw near to the Father, but it also tells us just what we will find when we draw near: a throne of grace. Because of our many sins, we deserve to experience God’s throne as a throne of wrath. But because of the finished work of our great and sympathetic high priest, Jesus the Son of God, when we draw near to the Father through Him, we find a throne of grace. Of course we want to draw near to the Father for help – for all who are in Christ, the Father’s throne is a throne of grace.

And not only does Hebrews 4:16 tell us the confidence with which we draw near and the grace that we find when we draw near, it also tells us what we receive when we draw near to the Father and ask for his help to hold fast our confession of faith in Jesus: mercy and help. When we confidently draw near to the Father, we receive mercy for our sins by virtue of our great high priest and we find his grace to help us in our time of need. As one author comments on this verse, “God’s grace is poured out as believers request help when they are overwhelmed…help is granted when need is greatest.”

Citylight Church – draw near to your Father and ask for his help to hold fast your confession. Draw near and enjoy a day-by-day, even hour-by-hour friendship with your Father and his grace to help in your time of need. No matter what temptations you face as you walk the narrow path of faith, we are meant to face them with the help that comes from actually talking to our Father, enjoying his friendship, and asking for his help. Draw near. Since we need the Father’s help to hold fast our confession everyday, I recommend that you begin your day, first thing, by drawing near to the Father. Before your phone, go to the Father. Read his word, savor his promises, ask for his help, and enjoy his mercy. I know very few people with a deep and abiding friendship with the Father who don’t begin their day this way. It’s sweeter than sleep to draw near to the Father. But drawing near to the Father ought not to be limited to the morning, lest we treat God like a phone charger that we plug into once a day and then deplete until the next charging. One of my mentors – a biblical counselor I meet with monthly – encourages me to take intentional, brief pauses throughout the day to cast my burdens on the Father and ask for his help to hold fast my confession. The most important pause is at the end of the work day before I transition home. I draw near to the Father for help to celebrate the joys and cast the burdens of ministry on Him, and ask for help as I transition to my most important ministry to my family. But since our Father’s throne of grace is open to all who come to him through Jesus Christ the great high priest, we can also draw near right in the moment that we need help to hold fast our confession. We don’t have to wait for set times, when trials and temptations come, when we are overwhelmed we can confidently go right to the throne and ask our Father for mercy for our sins and grace to help us hold fast our confession. Draw near to the Father through Jesus Christ your great and sympathetic High Priest – The Father will hold you fast so that you can hold fast your confession.

CONCLUSION

Eyes closed, heads bowed. Invitation to receive Christ the great high priest so that the Father’s throne becomes one of grace, not wrath.