Reverence and Obedience
Notes
Transcript
It has to be experienced
It has to be experienced
While you are turning your Bibles over to Hebrews chapter 5 this morning, I will relate to you that there are some things that we have to experience to truly appreciate or understand.
Musical Experience
Musical Experience
Seeing a musician live in concert is often one of those experiences. Typically, you will have heard the music before in some recorded format, and you will have a knowledge or understanding of the music, but that experience of hearing it live. We were hoping to have that experience last night, but unfortunately the Mercy Me concert was postponed due to some folks on their crew getting COVID.
The most extreme example of this I have experienced was when I saw Adele in concert. I was not an Adele fan. With the exception of her singing the opening theme to a James Bond movie, her music is 100% and completely not in the categories of music I typically listen to. But my wife Kate is a fan. So, several years ago I surprised her and we took this double decker bus that used to from Cincinnati to Chicago up and saw Adele at the United Center. Like I said, I was not an Adele fan. I’m not even a fan of that genre of music. But, hearing someone with this extreme level of vocal talent in person, gave me an appreciation for her music that i would never have had before.
There are a lot of things like this. Until you live on your own for the first time, you really can’t fully understand it. Being a parent is one of those experiences and I while I understand the concept and have even witnessed it happening, I am positive that my wife has a deeper understanding of child brith than I do, especially after he came so quick that he had to be delivered without drugs.
Our Passage
Our Passage
If you have your Bibles open to Hebrews 5, we are going to be looking at verses 7 and 8 and read of Jesus experience, hopefully appreciating his work on the cross more and adopting His character more fully in our own lives. Follow along with me as I read:
7 Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared; 8 Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;
This morning we continue our series Our Great High Priest with a message entitled Reverence and Obedience
Let’s Pray
Prayers and Supplications
Prayers and Supplications
Jesus did what we do when we are hurt or uncertain. When we are afraid. Our Bible says He offered up prayers and supplications. We see this phrase all over our Bible:
Acts
Acts
In Acts, before they knew of the resurrection, the disciples of Christ met together in an upper room and it says of them
14 These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren.
When they met, after their Lord had been seized and then executed they reacted exactly in the way they should. They engaged in prayer and supplication.
Paul
Paul
In Ephesians 6 as you are likely aware, Paul tells the Christian to put on the full armor of God. He says we should be armored with the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the gospel of peace for shoes, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit. But after having put on all of those pieces Paul says in v18 that we should be
18 Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;
In Philippians 4:6 Paul gives the Christian the admonition
6 Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
and Paul again in 1 Tim 2:1 said that not only should prayer and supplications be made for all people but he brings prayer and supplication up another time. In chapter 5 the discussion turns to the necessity of the church to take care of widows but Paul says it’s not just any widow that church should be responsible for. Could you imagine. If the church were required to take care of every widow, especially in a time when widows were some of the most vulnerable people in society, that once they became a widow they would immediately realize, hey, I better become a Christian real quick so I have someone to take care of me. No, the requirement of someone who the church is required to care of is someone who has a real need, someone that is not able bodied to provide for themselves. Someone who doesn’t have family that can step in to help and doesn’t live in excess and most importantly, someone who has demonstrated a lifetime of Christian character in serving the church. But you know what else it says? 1 Timothy 5:5 says
5 Now she that is a widow indeed, and desolate, trusteth in God, and continueth in supplications and prayers night and day.
Prayers and Supplications aren’t just something that is a thing that a Christian ought to be doing, it is foundational to the Christians life. Prayers, being any address to God and Supplications which are simply our begging of God to intercede in some thing that is burdening our heart.
Prayers and Supplications are where the believer turns in times of crisis and we read in Hebrews 5:7 that this is exactly where Jesus turned as well.
Do you know what prayer of Jesus is being referenced here? Turn your Bibles over to Luke 22:39 and we will read down to verse 44
39 And he came out, and went, as he was wont, to the mount of Olives; and his disciples also followed him. 40 And when he was at the place, he said unto them, Pray that ye enter not into temptation. 41 And he was withdrawn from them about a stone’s cast, and kneeled down, and prayed, 42 Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. 43 And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. 44 And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.
See, with the reality of the cross in sight. And I’m not talking about the device of Roman execution he was facing, but with the knowledge that He would have the wrath of God laid upon him for sinners and being able to grasp in a way that you and I never could, how much agony that would put him through. He pleaded to God for another way.
Heard
Heard
We might not think that his prayer was heard. After all, within the hour the High Priest would have him seized and within 7 hours he would be crucified. He mocked and spit upon. He would have his beard plucked and scourged by the Roman soldiers. And then he would be hung on a cross to die.
What I am telling you this morning is that all of these things happened AND Jesus’ prayer was heard.
And, at the end of verse 7 we read that Jesus was heard for a reason, because he feared. εὐλάβεια (eulabeia) in the Greek. This isn’t fear like a fear of spiders or of some villain in a horror movie, no this is talking about Reverence, a deep respect and caution someone has based upon an understanding of the character of who or what is being reverenced.
Jesus asked for His fate to be changed, but in reverence he still said what nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.
Things don’t always turn out the way we want just because we have prayed to God about it. And it doesn’t mean that God doesn’t hear you just because things didn’t turn out the way we wanted them to.
Prime example, right here. Jesus prayed, the Father heard, and Jesus still died.
Lessons Learned
Lessons Learned
Verse 8 in Hebrews 5 continues
8 Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;
This is where Jesus learns something. That almost feels blasphemous to say doesn’t it. How can Jesus who is the Word of God incarnate, who by Him all things were created learn something?
I like what Warren Wiersby said of this passage:
How could the Son of God “learn obedience”? In the same way any son must learn obedience: by the experiences of life. We must remember that our Lord, in His earthly walk, lived by faith in the Father’s will. As God, He needed to learn nothing. But as the Son of God come in human flesh, He had to experience that which His people would experience, so that He might be able to minister as their High Priest. He did not need to learn how to obey because it would be impossible for God to be disobedient. Rather, as the God-Man in human flesh, He had to learn what was involved in obedience. In this way, He identified with us.
It wasn’t just that Jesus understood and grasped what it was to be obedient, or to suffer. But in His incarnate flesh Jesus experienced it and became intimate with that knowledge in the same way that you may understand that a singer might be amazing live, or that a lot of things change when you become a parent, or that childbirth is painful. Until you experience those things, you haven’t learned of them intimately.
There is a philosophical thought experiment proposed by Frank Jackson entitled Mary’s Room. It goes something like this:
Mary lives her entire life in a room with no color, everything is black and white. Although she has never experienced color she studies books on the subject and is educated on light and neuroscience, to the point of being an expert on the subject of color.
After Mary’s studies are complete, she exits the room and experiences color, real color for the first time. She see’s red and she learns something new about it, she learns what red looks like.
You can know something, but then you can experience something and know it, learn about it in a different manner. Christ learned what it was to be tempted and he learned what it was to be obedient not just in understanding but in experience and by that experience we can trust that we have a High Priest in Christ that can relate to our experiences.
Shoe Leather Theology
Shoe Leather Theology
I like the term Shoe Leather Theology. As Christians we can engage in all sorts of academic pursuits in order to better understand God and how he would have us live. There are Old Testament Studies, and New Testament Studies, Studies on Church History, There is systematic theology, and scholars of Greek and Hebrew. One of my favorite disciplines of christian theology is apologetics, or the ability to logically and reasonably defend the faith.
But at some point we need to throw some shoe leather on to all of that theology and on to all of that study and go walking around in it.
Love Your Enemies
Love Your Enemies
You can understand that Jesus said in Matthew 5:44
Matthew 5:44 (KJV 1900)
..... Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
But until you have been despitefully used, until you have been hated and persecuted, you don’t completely know that this verse means. You don’t know what the heartache feels like, that has to be overcome in order to bless and love your enemies until you have experienced it.
Paul’s Struggle
Paul’s Struggle
Then we have Paul writing Romans 7:15-19
15 For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. 16 If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. 17 Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. 18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. 19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
And this is almost enough to make your head spin. But almost every Christian can relate to what seems like gibberish to those who haven’t experienced it. That there is this war in our flesh, that in our weakness we end up doing things we don’t want to do and the things that we ought to do are left undone. So, in a very real sense we can find that we end up doing things that we hate because the sinfulness of our flesh is in constant battle with the redeemed spirit that wishes to do nothing more than please God.
And then there is this thing that Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:17
17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
Jesus spoke about being born again, it’s a phrase that we as Christians use all of the time and Paul here is explains it well. See, when we become followers of Christ we have new eyes to see the world with, our perspective changes. The guilt that we had experienced and the shame that we lived with that drug us down like an anchor, those things go away. And it’s replaced with something new.
One of my favorite passages in scripture is Matthew 11:28-30 when Jesus says
28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
We can read that, and it can be an academic study. You can know the passage in Greek and you can diagram the sentences. But this morning let me tell you that our faith is not just some academic pursuit.
To know the peace of bringing the heaviness of our sinful lives to Christ. To stop living for ourselves and begin living for him. You can read about that peace all you want and I can try to explain it to you in every way I know how. But until you have experienced it, you’ll never really understand it.
So this morning I invite you to experience it. To make a decision today to turn away from your sins and put your faith in trust in Christ not only as your savior but as your King, as your Lord.
If you would like to discuss more more about what it is to be a follower of Jesus, we are going to close in prayer in just a few minutes. Please come forward and talk to me, I would love to talk to you about our Lord. And if you are watching from home, you can send a private message to Harvest and I will get back to you confidentially.
Let’s Pray
