Lent 1                         March 9, 2025
Hebrews 4:14-16        Pastor Wolfe

Find Confidence in our Great High Priest

On Wednesday our Ash Wednesday services began the season of Lent with a refresher on what repentance means. And we found two parts to it. Number one, repentance recognizes sin. Being a Christian means knowing that we don’t measure up to the perfect standard we would need to earn our way into heaven. Christian faith requires us not to hide or justify our sin, but to admit it. To ourselves and to God. To want to turn from that path of sin and the destruction it leads to.

But while repentance means turning from our sin, it also means turning to our Savior. Christian faith recognizes that while I’m totally lost in sin on my own, I am completely saved in the work of Jesus. The Christian faith is honest about who we are, and honest about what we need God to be for us. And in his Word we find that’s exactly what he is. The one who is able to do the work for us. To win the victory for us. The One who stands while we sit. This is the reason why the Apostle Paul spoke about not boasting in himself, but in Jesus. Why we bow our heads in humility to God but raise our eyes in hope for heaven. Brothers and sisters, we have complete confidence in our future in heaven and our place with God. But our confidence is in Christ alone. Or, to put it in the words of this text from Hebrews 4, Our Confidence is in our Great High Priest Jesus.

Jesus’ perfect record against temptation matters. Note, verse 15 says there is no temptation our Savior didn’t face himself. Sure, the circumstances and specifics might have been different, but Jesus knows what temptation is. Think of our Gospel reading. Jesus spent 40 days in the desert after his baptism. (By the way this is why Lent is a 40-day season.) Throughout that time Satan tempted him. Luke records three of those temptations specifically. After days and weeks without food, Satan tempts him to use his power selfishly to make bread. Tempts him to put God to the test. Tempts Jesus to bow down to him. Surely if God had ignored him these forty days, Satan would make a better provider? Perhaps God wasn’t even watching.

Was Jesus truly “tempted in every way, just as we are” as it says in our text from Hebrews? Yes! Selfishness, idolatry, doubting God. All sins flow from those three basic desires. And Jesus wasn’t just tempted in the desert; he was tempted throughout his life just as we are. Jesus can absolutely sympathize with our weakness. He knows what it is to be tempted. He knows what it is to suffer.

But unlike us, Jesus turned those temptations away. And did you see what he used? Satan came to him twisting Scripture and Jesus used Scripture to fight him off. There’s a lesson to be learned here. If you’re a Christian who doesn’t know God’s Word and doesn’t study God’s Word, then you’re setting yourself up for failure. What athlete doesn’t practice? What musician doesn’t maintain their instrument? God’s Word is the only tool we have to fight off our spiritual enemies. If you find yourself coming up short in holy living and you’re not letting God strengthen you through his Word, then you only have yourself to blame. You’re fighting with one hand, both hands, tied behind your back. Jesus knew the Word and used it. So can we.

The author to the Hebrews here compares Jesus to an Old Testament high priest. In fact, the comparison runs all the way to chapter ten. The Old Testament priests served as “mediators” between God and the people. The people came to God through them and offered sacrifices and prayers. God announced his judgments satisfied and peace restored through the priests in return.

It’s a little later, in chapter seven, that the comparison of Jesus to the priests is really brought home, and there we find three ways in which Jesus is a greater high priest. First, Old Testament priests had to be cleansed before they could serve and sacrifice. They were sinners themselves, no better than those they were serving. In chapter seven when we read about Jesus as our high priest it tells us Jesus “meets our needs” because he is “holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens.” He’s a better priest.

He also offers a better sacrifice. The Old Testament priests had to offer their animal sacrifices over and over. The rams and bulls and lambs were only a reminder of the punishment for sin. In fact, in chapter 10:11 God tells us those sacrifices could never take away sins. But Jesus? Again in chapter 7, we read, Jesus “sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself.” And again in chapter ten, “We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”

Finally, Jesus is better than the Old Testament priests because they died and had to leave their office. Not Jesus. Again from chapter seven, “Because Jesus lives forever he has a permanent priesthood. Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.” Jesus is a greater high priest. And when he sacrificed his perfect life once for all, he delivered us from sin. He defeated death. He destroyed the devil’s power. We don’t have perfect power over temptation. We stumble, we fall, we slip and slide. But the one made the sacrifice that saves us never did. That’s where we find our confidence.

The specific command of God for us here is found in the first verse. “Since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.” Brothers and sisters, this is where we so often fall short. We confess sin. We profess faith. We believe in forgiveness and we trust in grace. But then we make it cheap and we trample all over God’s grace and gift by failing to live what we say. If your Bibles and catechisms are at home gathering dust, are you really holding firmly to the faith you profess? If you can’t remember the last time you read God’s Word on your own, can you say you really know it? Or that you really value it?

How many Christians know more about sports or politics or movies than they do about the living Word of God? How many of us spend more time learning about those things than we do learning about God? The devil is good at tempting us, and most of us put more effort into watching TV or watching YouTube and TikTok than reading and studying Scripture. It’s just a fact. That box and those sites have become our idols and our couches. Those stadiums and living rooms have become our church. Satan has come to our desert, tempted us to bow down to him and we fell headlong with our faces in the dirt before him.

To that I say, repent. Admit your sin and remember who our high priest is and the sacrifice he offered. Not a lamb or a ram or a bull. He offered himself. He willingly gave his pure, blameless, holy life so that God would not judge us for our lives of sin and apathy and idolatry. That means we approach life and approach God differently than others. We approach him with confidence, not in ourselves, but in our Savior Jesus. It means that when we are faced with temptations, faced with choices to do God’s will or our own, we can have confidence that he will help us choose the right. God answers our prayers with grace and power for Christ’s sake. Yes we fell yesterday. And we’ll fall today. But that doesn’t strip away our confidence. It only throws us more firmly to the foot of the cross.

God tells us here to “hold firmly to the faith we profess.” Not lightly. Not sometimes. Not as an accessory that we can pull out when we need to. Firmly. That means living in faith. Growing in faith. Studying it. Remembering it. It means putting God at the center of our lives, the center of our work, the center of our finances, the center of our relationships. It means probably doing more than we are doing right now. It means remembering the sacrifice Jesus paid and thanking him for it by sacrificing ourselves every day.

Lent is about recognizing that today we have an opportunity to do just that. In fact, every day you week up is God giving you another chance to thank him with how you live today. Will you serve him? Will you remember him? Will you confess your faults and sing in your heart and with your lips of his glory? Our Savior already defeated the devil and his temptations. In faith and thankfulness, will you stand with him more today than you did yesterday?

Brothers and sisters, we have a high priest who has been where we want to go. Jesus came down from heaven to earth below and ascended there again. He became one of us, suffered our weaknesses and our temptations. But he overcame them. For us. His blood washes us clean. His grace gives us power. May we overcome the temptations we face and firmly hold on to the faith we profess. Don’t just talk about it. Be confident in it. Love it and live it. Amen.