Bible Passage: Hebrews 4:14-16
Pastor: Joel Jenswold
Sermon Date: March 6, 2022

Bulletin March 6, 2022

In the name of, and to the eternal glory of, Jesus,

She ran down the hallway and into her room.  She slammed the door and flopped onto her bed.  She had had an awful day.  It all started in school with an argument she had with a couple of her friends.  Then, she felt like the teachers all had it in for her.  When she got home, her parents started in on her.  It was too much.  She lay on her bed and cried.  She thought to herself, “No one understands me!”

That can be a very frustrating feeling, can’t it?  Not only when it comes to our relationships with people, but how much more so when it comes to our relationship with God.  What I’m getting at is this…sometimes in our struggles against temptation, we imagine a disgusted and disappointed God in heaven.  We imagine he must hold us in utter contempt for our pitiful weakness.  He is so high and holy; I, so small and weak.  How can he possibly relate and understand?

If that has ever been you, our text today contains some comforting news!  It puts before us the complete opposite.  It would have you see your God not as a scornful, disgusted God, but as a sympathetic Savior.  Sympathetic because he himself was tempted.  Our text today makes this most comforting connection:  The Tempted Jesus Means a Sympathetic Jesus.

The first readers of these words were facing temptation.  Persecution against Christians was growing.  Pressure to hide their faith in Jesus was increasing.  They were feeling the temptation to let go of Jesus.  Perhaps some even reasoned, “This Christianity thing is HARD!  Jesus wants us to be faithful, but he doesn’t know what this is like!  He doesn’t know the kind of temptations we face!”  Perhaps feeling dejected, discouraged, defeated, they loosened their hold on Jesus .

But they were forgetting something very important about Jesus.  The author wants to remind them.  He reminds them of the tempted Jesus.  We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are…(v. 15)  This is a profound truth about our Savior.  He was tempted in every way.  When I was a child and heard the story that is our Gospel lesson today, I thought that was the sum total of Jesus’ temptations.  The devil tried three times, failed, and said, “Well, I guess that didn’t work.”  What we have in our Gospel lesson is just the tip of the iceberg.  The temptation of Jesus in the wilderness was a very unique, Spirit-arranged time and place of temptation for the newly anointed Christ.  But Jesus faced temptation his entire life.

Do you think Jesus doesn’t know the temptations that come to a child?  Jesus was a child and was tempted in every way, just as we are.  Do you think Jesus doesn’t know the temptations you are facing as a pre-teen or teen?  Jesus was once 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 years old, and was tempted in every way, just as we are.  Do we imagine Jesus can’t relate to being 21 years old?  Jesus was once 21 and was tempted in every way, just as we are. As adults, do we sometimes imagine that Jesus cannot possibly know what it’s like to be in our shoes, dealing with the temptations we have to deal with?  Jesus was an adult and was tempted in every way, just as we are.  Jesus was tempted to break the 1st Commandment, and the 2nd, and the 3rd, and the 4th, 5th, 6th…and all the way to number 10!  Just as we are.

Sometimes we may think that temptation was “no big deal” for Jesus.  We suppose temptation must have run off his back like raindrops run off a freshly waxed car.  But we are told this in the Bible:  He himself suffered when tempted. (Hebrews 2:18)  The God-Man Jesus suffered when tempted.  Again, a deep mystery!  But the truth is clear.  He had to fight against what the devil tempted him to do.

The result of it all?  We have a sympathetic Savior.   He knows what it’s like to face temptation.  He knows what it’s like to face the devil’s empty lies and his slippery words and his deceptive talk.  He knows EXACTLY what you and I are going through!  And here is the really good news.  Jesus’ sympathy is not like our feelings about the Ukrainian situation.  Our hearts are breaking for the people, but we are powerless to help their situation.  Jesus’ sympathetic feelings are joined with Jesus’ saving actions!

Notice in the text that after saying Jesus was tempted in every way just as we are, it says yet was without sin.  There was a reason Jesus faced temptation!  He was doing it so that there would be one human being who would stand up to the devil and come out without sin.  And he was doing this as your substitute.  It’s almost as if when you hear that story of Jesus in the wilderness you can Photoshop your face onto Jesus’ body.  Through faith in Jesus, this is your obedience!  This is the life that is written in the ledger book of heaven under your name.  “John Smith – perfectly resisted temptation every time.”

Also notice what Jesus is called in our text.  He is twice called our “High Priest.”  Jesus’ obedience is all part of his High Priestly work.  He is the High Priest who has gone through the heavens. (v. 14)  That calls to mind the “pre-Christ” high priests.  On the Day of Atonement they would go through the Tabernacle with steady hands as they carried a bowl of blood.  They would go through the Holy Place until they came to a curtain.  Behind the curtain was the Kodesh Kodeshim, the Holy of Holies.  They would go behind the curtain and sprinkle the blood on the cover of the Ark of the Covenant to make a covering for sin.  It all foreshadowed the greater High Priest and his work.  Our High Priest, Jesus, has gone into the true Kodesh Kodeshim, the most holy place of heaven.  With his own blood he has splashed all the times you have fallen for Satan’s lies and temptations.  All your failures are covered, buried, hidden under the blood of the High Priest.  God does not see them.

The result? So let us approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.  (v. 16)  That word confidence means “freedom of speech.”  One commentator explained this so well when he said we come “telling Jesus the whole story of our shortcomings.”  We don’t have to pretend to be something we’re not with Jesus.  We can be honest about our sin, and confess our desperate need.  We need forgiving grace and tender mercy!  And what do we find with Jesus?  Forgiving grace and tender mercy.  Dear fellow struggling, stumbling saints, for comfort in temptation always remember this: the tempted Jesus is a sympathetic Jesus!

Amen.

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