Sunday Worship Service March 9, 2025

Prelude
Call to Worship Proverb 16:20
Hymn JBC # 40 O Thou, in whose presence
The Lord’s Prayer
Hymn JBC # 388 Lord, lay some soul upon my heart
Offering Scripture Hebrew 4: 14-16
Prayer
Sermon “Jesus, the High Priest”
Prayer
Hymn JBC # 297 I hear the Saviour say
Doxology JBC# 673
Benediction
Postlude

Today's Bible passage (Hebrews 4:14-16) says, "Jesus Christ is the great high priest".
The priests were the people who served God as representatives of the people of Israel.
The priests also performed duties such as offering to God for the forgiveness of sins on behalf of the people and blessing the people on God's behalf.
Today's passage describes Jesus Christ as " a great high priest who has ascended into heaven; the Son of God”.
"Has ascended (going through layers of )into heaven" refers to the fact that after Jesus Christ's crucifixion, death, and resurrection, He ascended into the highest place, where He is now seated at the right hand of God.
Romans 8:34 says, "Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.”

A human priest cannot meet God face to face, because no human can meet God face to face.
However, Jesus Christ is now with God the Father in heaven and still conveys our requests and prayers to God the Father on our behalf.
Because Christ is now in heaven, we are allowed to pray with faith that our prayers will be heard and that Jesus will convey our prayers and requests to God.
Jesus Christ, God who became man, descended to the lowest place among men, to where we humans dwell.
Why did God become man like that? Why did God come down to the lowest place among us? And why did God have to go to the cross?

The Bible tells us that our sins have been forgiven because Jesus Christ died on the cross.
Christians always remember this, are thankful, and live their lives giving thanks to God for forgiving our sins and giving us new life.
God had no need or obligation to come to this world as Jesus Christ to forgive our sins. That’s because we humans have chosen to live apart from God by ourselves.
God could have saved us or not save us, but the God of love chose to become a human being and reveal himself to us, because that is how much God loves us.
The fact that God became a human being was a miraculous event in which God's love was clearly and visibly demonstrated. Through Jesus, God showed us, "Here is love. Here is salvation."

Jesus was born as a human being to Joseph and Mary, and lived in a village called Nazareth in the region of Israel called Galilee until he was about 30 years old.
It seems that Jesus took over the work of his father Joseph, who was a carpenter, and worked as a carpenter himself. This became a stumbling block for people when Jesus preached about the kingdom of God to them.
In Gospel of Mark Ch.6, we read about when Jesus began to teach about the kingdom of God in the synagogue of his hometown. The people were amazed at what he was teaching.
But some people refused to accept Jesus' great teachings, saying that He was the carpenter and that He was the son of Mary and that they knew His brothers, too.
They may have thought, "There is no way that the carpenter's son, someone from a family we know well, could have such great teachings."

The people who stumbled on Jesus at that time represent our tendency to place more importance on external, non-essential things, such as where a person comes from or what they look like, rather than on who they are and what they have to say or do.
It is very significant for us that Jesus grew up in Galilee as a carpenter's son and a laborer.
This means that Jesus Himself experienced the difficulty, hardship, and challenges that come with working every day.
Working can give you a sense of purpose and the joy of contributing to society, but I think it's hard to earn a living by working every day.
I believe that there are people who suffer hardships in their daily work, who experience things not going as they planned, and who feel overwhelmed.
Our Lord Jesus Christ also experienced the hardships of daily work and labor, so we can trust that He truly knows and understands us.
Jesus is always with us because He Himself has experienced the difficulties of work and the difficulties of daily life.

Today's verse 15 reads:
15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.

Jesus can empathize with our deepest hearts, our pain, and our sorrow.
Empathy here means "to genuinely worry along with another person and to accept their sadness and suffering as your own."
We humans cannot have that much compassion for anyone other than ourselves, but Jesus can.

In Luke 10, we find the story of "The Parable of the Good Samaritan."
When an expert in law asked Jesus, "How can I inherit eternal life?" Jesus told him the following parable:
A man was traveling and he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.
The priests and the Levites (who also performed the role of priests) were passing by and when they saw the man who had been attacked by the robbers and lying on the ground, they simply passed by on the other side of the road and continued on their way without doing anything.

At that moment, a Samaritan, who was despised by the Jews, happened to be passing by.
The Samaritan treated the man's wounds, put him on his donkey, and took him to an inn, even giving the innkeeper money to look after him.
The man who was attacked by robbers was a Jew, and by right, his fellow Jews, the priests and Levites, should have come to his aid, but they did not.
There are many possible reasons why the priests and Levites did not help the man, They may have thought if they had touch a dead (or dying) man, they would be defiled. But the main reason is probably that they were not able to fully empathize with the suffering of others.
We cannot fully identify with the suffering of others.

But Jesus is able to identify himself perfectly with the suffering of others.
The Samaritan who took on the man's plight after being attacked by robbers and extended a helping hand to him is a perfect example of Jesus Christ.
Why is Jesus able to empathize with us to that extent? Why is he able to empathize so deeply with the pain and sorrow of others?
The reason for this is also given in verse 15. It is because Jesus has been “tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin" (verse 15).
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was tempted just like us, even more than we are, and He endured the most severe temptations.

The suffering of a completely sinless and perfectly holy person who were put into temptation is beyond our imagination.
The Son of God, who is equal to God and was without sin, was crucified for us and at the end cried out with a loud voice, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34).
I think we have experiences where we only can cry out in pain, saying, "God, why?" Even Jesus Christ, the Son of God, cried out in such pain.
Therefore, Jesus Christ can completely empathize with us humans in all the suffering, sorrow, and pain that we experience.

We have received faith that such a person is our Savior and Redeemer of sins, and we continue to confess this faith in our words and actions.
Jesus Christ, the sinless God, died on the cross to atone for our sins.
And let us continue to stand in the faith that "Christ is able to empathize with our suffering in all things."

　Let's read verse 16, the last verse of today's passage.
16 Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Today's passage ends with, "Let us approach God's throne of grace with boldness (confidence)."
How come we can approach God, in His throne, with confidence?
That is because through Jesus Christ we can trust that God will never reject us.
Because we can believe that Jesus Christ is with God and is interceding for us.
Jesus has prepared the way for us to go to the place where God is, where God is seated.
Jesus is the way. He said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6).
To believe in Jesus Christ is to go to God through the way called Jesus. You can go to God through Christ, and God will never reject those who believe in Christ.
In God we can receive His mercy and grace.
It is not that we give God something in exchange for His mercy and grace.
Rather, if we simply believe in Christ, if we welcome Him into our hearts, and if we draw near to God through Christ, God will give us His mercy and grace freely.
In the face of such blessings, what could possibly make us hesitate?
　Let us rest in the mercy and grace of God given to us through our great High Priest, His Son, Jesus Christ, and live our lives with joy and gratitude.
Let us be thankful for God's mercy, who accepts our pain, sorrow, and suffering as His own, and who always cries and grieves with us.