A Greater Priesthood
Jesus is Greater: An Exposition of Hebrews

Transcript

Good morning, church. Good to see all of you. We're continuing our series through the book of Hebrews. It's entitled, “Jesus is Greater.” He's greater than anything we face today.

Any problem, any grief, any suffering, any trouble. That's what we're talking about as we go through the book of Hebrews. Now, before I begin, I want to mention a couple things to you. One is that our church, Eastgate churches, is worshiping in four locations right now. Also, next door in our Gathering Place. At the men's retreat in Asheboro, at Camp Caraway, where pastor Jonathan Minter has probably concluded part four of a sermon that he was doing this weekend.

The men will be getting packed up and headed home, so be praying for them as they return home. And then, of course, our Rocky Mount campus. Last night, my son, Jonathan Combs, who's the pastor of our Rocky Mount campus, and I got in the car after the third session in Asheboro and got home about midnight last night. My last thoughts, as I was leaving, were men coming forward, laying on their faces before the altar, and praying. Men coming forward and surrendering some things; some things that were bogging them down. It's been a great weekend.

So I have great expectations now. I'm bringing that with me. I have great expectations as we hear from the word of God today, that we will have that sense of having met with the Lord Jesus through His word. And so I want us to pray for those services that are happening simultaneously right now. And I also want to pray for those services that they're having a hard time making this weekend, those churches that are closed because of the damage to the western part of our state, all the way up into the mountains of Virginia and Tennessee and down into Georgia. But especially our part of the state.

Seems like it got hit, really, the hardest in a lot of ways. And there are churches where there's no electricity, no water, full of mud, and people are worshiping in the parking lot and happy to be able to do that. And so you will see this image on our screen right now. I'm posting this image over social media, and it's got a link to it if you go on social media, because here's what we need to be doing right now. We did have two individuals from our church put together some supplies and go over there.

And what I heard back from them, even so, was that it's pretty tough over there right now to go, but there's going to be a lot of work over the months and maybe even the years coming into some of these places. And so I will keep you informed as we see more opportunities. If you want to personally go and be part of something, I'd like to make sure that we've thought about where we're going to land when we get there, what church we're going to partner with, what supplies we need to bring. So if we take a team from our church, and I'm sure we will in future days, that we know what we're doing. What can you do now?

You can pray and you can give. And so watch for that link online and give. Or if you want to designate it on your check or on your giving, we'll pass it on. Well, let me pray. Lord, we do pray for the services in our different locations this morning.

We pray for the men as they begin to travel home from the men's retreat. We pray for the preaching of your word right now, that you would prepare our hearts to hear it. And knowing that this word is for us now, at this moment, I pray for myself, Lord, that I would diminish, that I would disappear, and only the word and the Holy Spirit would be present in our hearing. Allow me to get out of the way and just give what you've given that I might pass it on.

And then, Lord, we pray for the people in the western part of our state. And we pray that in all of this suffering and difficulty and loss, that people would be drawn to You even more so. And I pray that the church of the living God would move in such a way that it affects people and that the glory of the Lord would be made more manifest even in this season of difficulty. Lord, show us our part in this. And now, Lord, we want to dig into your word. In Jesus’ Name.

All of God's people said, Amen. Well, here's the theme. It's in chapter one of the book of Hebrews. You don't have to go far. Just look “under the doormat.”

When you “pull up” into the first part of the chapter theme, it says this, Hebrews 1:4 (NLT) “This shows that the Son is far greater than the angels, just as the name God gave him is greater than their names.” Jesus is greater. That's the theme of this book of Hebrews.

Now, last Sunday, the last verse we read introduced us, once again, to a topic that he had taken a short detour. The author of Hebrews had taken a detour at chapter five, verse ten. He brought up this mysterious figure and said, ‘Now wait a minute, I want to talk to you about this mysterious figure that's really a foreshadowing of Jesus, but you're not ready to hear it. So I'm going to take the next chapter. I'm going to take the rest of chapter five and all chapter six because you're dull of hearing, which literally has the idea of you're apathetic about studying the scriptures. You’ve got “lazy” ears.’ He was not talking about your physical ears, but your spiritual aptitude, that you're lazy and you're like children. I have to keep giving you milk. You ought to be teachers

by now; you've been believers long enough. If you've been coming the last few weeks, we've been slapped around a little bit for the last couple of sermons. We need to wake up and grow up. If you've ever given me your email address, I sent you an email on Friday and I said, “Study before you come, because we're “going deep.”

And so if you didn't study and if you get in over your head, I warned you. We're going to “go deep” today. We're in the book of Hebrews.

We're talking about this greater priesthood that we have. Jesus is a priest, according to this order that predates the Levitical priesthood of the Hebrews. It's the order of this mysterious figure named Melchizedek who just appears on the pages of the book of Genesis and then disappears. It's a very mysterious figure. We're going to learn a lot about him today. Now, why does this matter?

This book of Hebrews, why is it called Hebrews? Because it was written to Jewish background believers that were having trouble putting together who Jesus was and what He offers with what they've been brought up believing. Can you imagine yourself being a first century Jew, and all that you've ever thought about is going to the temple, going at the time of Passover and bringing your Passover lamb. This involves temple sacrifices, the temple priests, the Torah - all of these things.

That was all of your traditions. And then here comes the Messiah, and you've believed in Him and then you find out He fulfilled all of that, and it's no longer needed. That would be hard. That's what's going on in chapter seven.

The author's trying to help them with this. You might say, ‘Okay, well, I see how that would be helpful for a Jewish background believer, but why are we studying it?’ Well, I tell you, it's because it was next. It came after chapter six. Now, that's not the real reason.

It's because it's for us. It's for us because you've got stuff in your background. You've got idols and spiritual religious systems that you've allowed to come between you and God. Even as a believer, you haven't fully given your all in all to Jesus, recognizing He's all you need.

And so you still have things that you're putting your trust in, that eventually let you down. And that's when you finally, if you're a believer, surrender that part of your life. At this weekend men’s retreat, we were talking to the men about what it takes for spiritual transformation to take place for a believer? We thought about three things.

One of them is the word of God. Well, here we are studying. Another was to live in community with other believers. Because as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. But the third one, and make no mistake about it, is critically important to our transformation, is when God trusts us with suffering and the way we engage with it and the way we are persevering through it. It is often the only way God can take a spiritual scalpel and subtract from us that which needs to be removed,

so He might add unto us that which needs to be given that growth. And so we need this passage, too, because we need to come to Jesus. We look everywhere for meaning, security and spiritual fulfillment. Some of us even have gone to the “cafeteria,” if you will, of spirituality.

And we said, ‘Okay, a little bit of the eastern religion, let me get a scoop here of the worship of angels, maybe a little bit of the tolerance of the culture to make that part of my religion and I like Jesus, too. Let's put some Jesus on top. And so we have this kind of religion that we've made up.

And so he says to us, ‘You need to let all that go. Jesus is greater. In Hebrews 7:1-17, he explained to Jewish background believers who were obviously struggling with what to do with their temple worship and all that went with it. Jesus is sufficient. He's greater. And as we look at the text today, I think we'll see three reasons why the priesthood of Christ is greater.

Let's dig in. Hebrews 7:1-17 (ESV) 1 For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, 2 and to him Abraham apportioned a tenth part of everything. He is first, by translation of his name, king of righteousness, and then he is also king of Salem, that is, king of peace. 3 He is without father or mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God he continues a priest forever.

4 See how great this man was to whom Abraham the patriarch gave a tenth of the spoils! 5 And those descendants of Levi who receive the priestly office have a commandment in the law to take tithes from the people, that is, from their brothers, though these also are descended from Abraham. 6 But this man who does not have his descent from them received tithes from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises. 7 It is beyond dispute that the inferior is blessed by the superior. 8 In the one case tithes are received by mortal men, but in the other case, by one of whom it is testified that he lives.

9 One might even say that Levi himself, who receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham, 10 for he was still in the loins of his ancestor when Melchizedek met him. 11 Now if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek, rather than one named after the order of Aaron? 12 For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well. 13 For the one of whom these things are spoken belonged to another tribe, from which no one has ever served at the altar. 14 For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, and in connection with that tribe Moses said nothing about priests

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15 This becomes even more evident when another priest arises in the likeness of Melchizedek, 16 who has become a priest, not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent, but by the power of an indestructible life. 17 For it is witnessed of him, “You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.” This is God's word. Now, I told you all to study before you came. We're going in. We're going into deep water. Here's the first reason why Christ's priesthood is greater.

1. Because it has a superior pedigree.

It has a superior pedigree. We're going to look at the first three verses of chapter seven to support this first reason. This is really a list of arguments by the author of Hebrews to the Jewish background believers, arguing for the superiority of Christ's priesthood.

And he begins by dealing with His pedigree or His “bona fides,” if you would, that He is deserving of this role. And it begins in this place by talking about a mysterious figure named Melchizedek. Let's “unpack” what we see of these traits and this description. First of all, may I say to you that he only appears twice in the Old Testament, this mysterious person of Melchizedek. He appears first in Genesis, chapter 14, where the story of his encounter with Abraham takes place.

And then he appears briefly in a Davidic Psalm, Psalm 110, verse four, where David, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, catches a glimpse of the one Messiah Who is to come, who comes in the order of Melchizedek. Here, the author of Hebrews, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, begins to finally unravel this mystery that has been a mystery to the Jews since it first appeared. In fact, the rabbis and the students of the law had for centuries come up with all kinds of theories about who this Melchizedek was. And so here we see God's revelation about who he is. Let's see what's said here.

First of all, verse one says he was king of Salem, which in Hebrew, would be king of “Shalom.” He's the king of peace. He's the priest. He is the priest of the Most High God.

He's not following one of the Canaanite deities or false gods. He's following the Lord Most High God. In Hebrew, it is “El Elyon.” He's a priest of El Elyon, the Most High God.

There's no one higher. That's who this Melchizedek is. He met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings. More on that in a minute. But Abraham had just won a great victory, rescuing his nephew, Lot.

And he comes bringing back all the possessions and the peoples that he had rescued. And when he comes back to this valley, here comes this king of Salem. Now, the king of Salam , we believe to be the king of Jerusalem.

And so he comes down, and Abraham, it says in verse two, gave him a tenth; he gave him a tithe of everything, of all the spoils. Who is this guy? We don't know. He just showed up. We don't have any background.

Here he is. And what does his name mean? Malach Zedek Malak, his king, righteousness. That's what his name means. And in case you don't speak Hebrew, the author of Hebrews helps us.

He goes, he is first by translation of his name, king of righteousness. That's what his name means. And then he's also king of Salem, that is king of peace. He's the king of Shalom. He's making it accessible for the Gentiles because they're going to have trouble with all this.

There's so much here; he is without father or mother genealogy. He just appears on the pages of scripture. We don't have any background. You know, if you're going to be a Levite priest, you must have a written pedigree. You must have your “bona fides.”

You must have it written down. He just shows up and Abraham brings him a tithe. There's no beginning of days nor end of life mentioned. But he resembles the son of God

and a priest forever. That's what we have in the first three verses. This Melchizedek, he's at a bare minimum, a type, a Christological type. We have them throughout the Old Testament. God gives us these personages, these types, in order to prepare His people to receive and recognize the Messiah when He comes.

Moses is a Christological type. Joshua is a Christological type as is David. These are men of God that had attributes that would be fully realized in the person of Jesus. But this Melchizedek, we know so little about him, but there's so many similarities.

This is what the case here is. Now let's look at what he's saying here, because I want to think about Melchizedek. Among conservative believers, there's really only two views about him. There are other views among other camps, but only two that I think deserve mention. And one is that he's a Christological type, which is where I'm leaning as I read it.

He's a foreshadowing. And the author of Hebrews is taking that story, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and showing how so many of these attributes point to the Messiah, or he's as many believe. And I'm fine with this one, too, if that's what it turns out to be. You might say, ‘By the way, you got that wrong when you're preaching. It was actually this’ and I'll be fine with that because he could be what's called a Christophany where he's the pre-incarnate Christ appearing. Jesus didn't just begin on Christmas day, right?

He's always existed. He's the second person of the Godhead. He is the Word who became flesh. John 1:1-4, 1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made

that has been made.4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.” Then you get down to verse 14 of chapter John, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” which in the Greek means, literally, that He “tabernacled” among us. He pitched His tabernacle because He is the temple. He is the tabernacle of God. He fulfills all the law. And so is this Melchizedek; perhaps the pre-incarnate Christ could be,

but the scripture here from Hebrews says he resembles Him. And that makes me lean towards that. He's a Christological type. Why does this matter? Boy, that had to be helpful for the Jews, or at least very disturbing for them.

You know what? All of your Jewish worship is now fulfilled in Jesus. You don't need it anymore. You don't need sacrifices. You don't need to sacrifice lambs.

You don't need Aaron and his sons under the tribe of Levi. You don't need that anymore. You have Jesus. That had to be hard to let go of. Notice what David says in Psalm 110:1-4 (ESV) A Psalm of David. The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.” The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. …

The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” So the preacher here in the book of Hebrews, the author here in the book of Hebrews, has taken Genesis 14 as his text and Psalm 110: 4 as the key to unlock the text. That's what he's doing, and he's telling us who this Melchizedek is. He was to get us ready for the superiority of the priesthood of Jesus, which predates the Levitical priesthood.

Let's go over to Genesis 14 briefly and just touch on this story. What happened in Genesis 14 is that the nephew of Abraham had moved down into the valley and was living in the town of Sodom. And Sodom had a king. There were four other kings in that valley, and they had allied together and rebelled against a greater king who was allied with three others. So it's four kings versus five kings in this battle. And that group is led by Chedorlaomer, who's the leader of the bad guys.

And they're going to come in and carry off everybody, including Lot and his daughters and all this stuff. When Abraham heard about this, he gathered his men, and it turns out he had 319 servants who could carry the sword. Abraham was the real deal. He chased those four kings and ran them down. And according to what we read here in Hebrews, it says, he slaughtered them.

He won. He beat them up. He took all their stuff and brought it back and gave a tithe of the spoils to this mysterious figure named Melchizedek. He would take none of it for himself. He said, ‘No, I'm not going to take that.’

He gave a tithe to Melchizedek, and then he gave everybody else their stuff back. Look what it says in Genesis 14:17-20 (ESV) 17 “After his return from the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King's Valley). 18 And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. (He was priest of God Most High.) 19 And he blessed him and said, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; 20 and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand!” And Abram gave him a tenth of everything.”

He blessed him and said, “Blessed be Abram.” Now, God hadn't changed Abraham's name yet. At this point in the story, Abram means “father.” Abraham means “father of a multitude” or “father of nations.” He blessed Abraham by God most high, possessor of heaven and earth, and blessed be God most high, who has delivered your enemies into your hand.

And Abram gave him a tenth of everything. His pedigree is superior. This is why his priesthood is greater than theLevitical priesthood. It's greater than any other way, any other religion, any other ritual, any way that you think will get you to God and get you to heaven. This flies in the face of modern culture's definition of tolerance.

That sounds like this is the one and only way; a thing that really bothers our culture. We reject absolute truth as a culture, and we certainly, absolutely reject that Jesus Christ is the one and only way to the Father as a culture. But as believers in Jesus, we fully believe and make no apology. He's the way. He's the only way. That's what I declare to you.

And that's what the author of Hebrews is saying. He's got a superior pedigree. My wife and I love collies. You don't see a lot of collies anymore, especially in eastern North Carolina. It gets too hot in the summer and they have that long hair.

I grew up when there was a TV show called, “Lassie.” This dog could talk; he would talk to his master, Timmy. They would get into all kinds of situations. Lassie was the hero. And so I had a Lassie dog when I was young and she looked like Lassie.

We named her “Lassie” because that's what everybody else was doing. That was the number one dog in America. I don't even think it makes the top 20 now, but it used to be big. My wife and I started raising collies; we bred collies. You can't find it anymore, but back in the day, right when the Internet was starting to be a thing, we had combscollies.com

What was important if you were raising these collies is you had to get them AKC registered. You had to know not just their parents, but you had to know back for generations. You had to write off to AKC, which is the American Kennel Club, and they had records back forever about where your dog came from.

To get that pedigree was what made that dog valuable. It would just be a mutt without the pedigree. Our collies were AKC registered. Here's the problem the Jews were having is, ‘Jesus, we don't get this.

How can You be a priest? How can Jesus replace all of this when the law says that you have to be from the house of Levi? He says, ‘Now, wait a minute. Do you remember back before there was a law, when the father of Israel, when the father of the faith, Abraham, met up with Melchizedek, who was a priest from a different order? That's who Jesus is.’ That's who we come to trust and rejoice in today. He has a better pedigree. Here's the second reason that Christ’s priesthood is greater:

2. Because it has a superior position.

We're in verses four through ten. Let's “unpack” this section. I would draw your attention to the verse, kind of in the middle. It's verse seven.

He makes a kind of the center point of the argument in verses four through ten. He says in verse 7, “It is beyond dispute that the inferior is blessed by the superior.” So he's speaking of Melchizedek and Abraham, and he says Melchizedek did the blessing, Abraham received the blessing. Abraham brought the tithe, Melchizedek received the tithe. And so that's his two-part argument for the superior position of the order of Melchizedek. He says, ‘Whoever this Melchizedek is, well, he's the king of righteousness. He's the king of peace. He's the king of Jerusalem. He has no beginning nor end.’ This sure does look like the Son of God.

And when Abraham came to him, he bowed down and gave him a tithe. And Melchizedek put his hand on his head and blessed him by El Elyon, the real God, the true God, the most high God, Who's the superior. Who's the inferior, not in quality, but position. Now because of that, that's his argument. Let's look closer at verse four, “See how great this man was to whom Abraham the patriarch.” See how great this man was speaking of Melchizedek, to whom Abraham the patriarch.

Now remember, Abraham's a big deal too. He's the father of the faith, he gave a tenth of the spoils. And those descendants of Levi who received the priestly office have a commandment in the law to take tithes from the people, that is, from their brothers, though these are also descended from Abraham. So they take tithes, but this man who does not have his descent from them, received tithes from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises. Now Abraham had the promises.

He had the promise that his offspring would be like the stars of the sky, they would be like the grains of sand on the beach. That they would be without number, and that a seed would be born to his line. Singular capital S Seed, who would be the One, who through that seed all nations would be blessed, and that seed is Jesus. We read in the book of Galatians, we see this, that's the promise. But even with all that, whoever this is, this mysterious figure, Melchizedek, he's greater and Abraham bows down to him and gives him a tithe and he's blessed. He makes an interesting argument here. He says in verse eight, “In the one case tithes are received by mortal men, but in the other case, by one of whom it is testified that he lives.

See, mortal men in the priestly line had this habit of dying off. They didn't live long enough. Like Aaron. Aaron's not alive anymore. He was the first great high priest.

Well, he died, and then his son, and then his son. And these mortals, these mortal priests, under the law, they kept dying because they're only mortal. But this order of Melchizedek, he has no beginning and no end. He looks just like the son of God. He doesn't have that problem.

He lives. He lives. One might even say, ‘Boy, he gets real “detaily” here.’

Now you know who Levi is. He's one of the twelve tribes. He represents one of the twelve tribes. Abraham had Isaac, Isaac had Jacob. Jacob got his name after he had a wrestling match with God. He got his name changed to Israel, which means “one who struggled or wrestled with God.”

And then he had twelve sons, and one of them was named Levi. And when they came into the Promised Land, God said, ‘Levi is mine. He belongs to me.’ That's the priestly tribe. And that's how we got there.

I told you all to study before you came. That's who Levi is. Now, Levi comes from Abraham, and here's how he says it. He says, in verse 9 and 10, “One might even say that Levi himself, who receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham, 10 for he was still in the loins of his ancestor when Melchizedek met him.” Now he's being very particular here and he's saying that the seed of Levi was inside Abraham when Abraham paid a tithe to Melchizedek.

And therefore, this is his argument. The order of Melchizedek is greater because Levi already bowed down to him. He already paid a tithe to him. You know why? He is the son of God.

He's the priest who lives. This is what he's saying. This is the point he's making. He has a superior position. It says in 1 Timothy 2:5-6 (NLT) 5 “For, there is one God and one Mediator who can reconcile God and humanity—the man Christ Jesus. 6 He gave his life to purchase freedom for everyone. This is the message God gave to the world at just the right time.” There's one mediator, there's one. It's Jesus. He's the fulfillment of the law.

He doesn't abolish the law. He fulfills it and surpasses it. If you read the book of Galatians and in the book of 1 Corinthians and other places, we see that the law was more like a tutor, more like one to teach us about our sin and to teach us about our need for a Savior and point us towards a Savior. But it was always a temporary need that was being made until the fulfillment of Jesus coming.

And so we see that there is one mediator during passion week. That week when Jesus was crucified, He was crucified on a Friday. He entered the temple on a Tuesday. It's called “Palm Sunday” or “triumphal entry.” And he comes in and he doesn't spend long.

He just looks around, leaves and goes back out to Bethany. And He spends the night out there with His good friends Lazarus, Mary and Martha. And then He gets up early the next morning, comes in on a Monday morning and works all day. He starts off by cleansing the temple of the money changers that were in there, ruining the court of the Gentiles. He said, “You've turned what should have been a house of prayer into a place of robbers.”

And He drove them out and he said that this is why the temple is no longer adequate. And He cleanses the temple, and He teaches all day. And He goes back to Bethany and sleeps. He gets up early the next morning. He comes back and teaches all day on a Tuesday.

You can read about this in Matthew 21:23-27 (ESV) 23 And when he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” They cared about pedigree and position, and He was endangering their power structure. He was upending that.

They're like, ‘Who do you think you are?’ And so He's teaching. He liked to teach, not like I'm teaching, standing up. He liked to teach sitting down, which was the habit of the rabbis. And He looked up at them. This is me entering the story, if you will.

This is me visualizing the story. He looks up at them and He says, ‘Okay, before I answer your question, answer my question, and then I'll answer your question.’ They were like, ‘Okay, that's fair.’ He says, ‘John the Baptist, by whose authority was his ministry, was his baptism.’

They got in a huddle over here and they said, ‘Now, if we say it was by the authority of God, then the people will say, well, why did you reject him? Why didn't you go get baptized in the Jordan? Why didn't you support him against King Herod when he got beheaded? We can't say that.

Okay, but if we say he wasn't from God, then the people are liable to stone us right here in the temple. Okay, what do we say? We say we don't know, okay?’ 27 So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”

‘I don't report to you. I'm not under your authority. I'm the only way.

I am Jesus. I'm here by the order of Melchizedek, which predates the temple. I'm the fulfillment of the temple. I am the sacrifice. I'm the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world.

You're asking me about what authority? I'm not going to tell you.’

He said in another place in John, he says, John 5:39, 46-47 (ESV) “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me." …For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”

They were questioning Him about His authority and how great Moses was. He said to them that if you think Moses is great, you should search the scriptures. “Search the scriptures because you think that in them you will find eternal life;

and it is they that bear witness about me. For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me.” ‘But you do not even believe Moses. So quit talking to me about Moses.’ You don't want to get into an argument with Jesus. He is the highest position.

What have you done with Him? Are you still arguing with Him? Are you still trying to hang on to some control? You can trust Him. He's the great high priest.

He is the sacrificial Lamb. He fulfills all that we need to have access to the Father. And then we have this third argument, this third reason that he has a superior, greater priesthood:

3. Because it is superior in perfection.

Finally, the author points out that His priesthood is greater because it's not partial, but perfect. We don't have to go long in our last segment here, verses eleven through seventeen. All we have to do is read about two or three words in verse eleven and we see it: Verse 11, “Now if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law),

what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek, rather than one named after the order of Aaron?” But when there is a change in the priesthood, there's necessarily a change in the law. He's kind of making their case for them, but before he makes his case:

‘I hear what you're saying. Wouldn't there have to be a change in the law before you would have changed priesthood? It seems like it would and besides, isn't this Jesus from the tribe of Judah? And we know people from Judah don't get to be priests.

You have to be from the tribe of Levi, according to the law.’ That's what he's saying here. For the one of whom these are spoken belonged to another tribe. Verse 14, “For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah

, and in connection with that tribe Moses said nothing about priests.” Well, there was one king before this that was from the tribe of Judah who tried. He tried to be a priest.

It's in 2 Chronicles, chapter 26. I told you to study before you came. King Uzziah was a good king, too.

He was doing well, but he got “full of himself.” Do you know what that means? That's what my mom used to tell me when I got a little bossy. She'd say, “Gary Wayne, I think you're full of yourself today.” That's where there's too much of you and not enough of Jesus.

You're “full of yourself.” King Uzziah got full of himself. He thought, You know what? I'm going to go in there. I've been going up

to the temple. As far as they let me in is the courtyard of the Jewish men. They won't let me go in that building and I'm the king. And so he decided to go into the holy place.

And he brought incense there and thought he would burn some incense on the altar of incense. And a whole bunch of priests chased him in there and said, ‘Oh, King Uzziah, you shouldn't be in here. Oh, that's not allowed. You're from the tribe of Judah. You're not supposed to be in here.

He resisted them. One of the priests started pointing. And he asks, ‘What? What is it?’

Leprosy broke out on his forehead. The priests said, ‘Well, now you're unclean. You're not even allowed in the court of anything in the temple.’ They brought him out and his son took over as king because nobody wanted to be near him because he was unclean.

They put him in a house off to himself. The author here is saying, ‘Don't you know that's never been allowed? You have to be from the tribe of Levi.

You can’t be from the tribe of Judah. One guy tried it and look at what happened to him.’ And then, in verse 15, this becomes even more evident when another priest arises in the likeness of Melchizedek. This lends itself, as I was thinking earlier, we have back in verse three, he resembles the son of God, and the son of God comes in the likeness of Melchizedek.

This lends itself to him being a Christological type, a foreshadowing of who has become a priest, not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent. In other words, we don't have a written pedigree. And the Jews were very careful to keep their genealogies to prove that you're from a certain tribe so you could be a priest. He didn't have that. But here's what he does have.

He’s got something better. Here it is. It's in verse 16, “who has become a priest, not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent, but by the power of an indestructible life.” What he does have is the power of an indestructible life, that shows he's part of a priesthood that predates the law and succeeds the law and surpasses and fulfills the law. And then, our author of Hebrews, quotes David's Psalm in Psalm 110:4 The LORD has sworn and will not change his mind, “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”

You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. And he's not finished with his argument. Chapter seven continues, but we're at a stopping place, because we're running out of time this morning. Keep studying.

It's important to study the Old Testament in order to understand what we see in the book of Hebrews. What we have here is a perfect priesthood, a priest who lives, a priest who is eternal, a priest who offers his own sacrifice, his own blood, and becomes the lamb of God. A priest who passes through the heavenlies and is in the very Holy of Holies with the Father. Even now, this is who we worship, and He has fulfilled the law. So now, there's no further need for the temple, the ark, the Holy of Holies or the Levitical priesthood; the sacrificial system is fulfilled. That had to be hard to swallow.

Maybe, it's hard for you to swallow; that which you've been leaning on, that “false crutch” that you need to let go of to follow Jesus. And maybe reading this would help you understand more about how hard it is for Jews today, how they're still persecuted and the difficulties they've been through; how we should pray for Jerusalem. Pray for them, that they would finally believe in the Messiah and no longer reject Him. You know, there's only one part of the Temple Mount that remains that's original to Jesus’ time. Jesus went through the city with His disciples, and they were saying to Him, ‘Look, Lord. Look at that building.

Look at that.’ They're all “rednecks” from Galilee. They hadn't been there. Jesus says to them, in Matthew 24:2, But he answered them, “You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”

This is all going to be replaced. It's all going to be pulled down. And in 70 AD, the Jews rebelled against the Romans, and the Romans came in, and they said, ‘We've had enough.’

And they wiped out the Temple Mount. Not one stone remained on another. In fact, to this day, the only part that's original to the first century, that you can still touch and see, is the Western Wall. It's also called “the Wailing Wall.

The men go one way and the women go another. They have separate assignments at the wall. They want you to wear a head covering, a yamaka, if you're a man. You'll see Orthodox Jews there; they're standing with their Torah, and they're rocking back and forth, many of them weeping, writing prayers down and sticking them in the cracks between the stones, because that's the closest they can get to that which they think is necessary in order to reach God. And they have been unable to encounter Him through the sacrificial system.

But they don't recognize there's no need for it anymore, because it's been replaced and surpassed; it's been fulfilled in Jesus. And to get their attention further, He cleared it off so they couldn't do it, but yet they wail. They weep and cry for that which has already been given, and so do we. We seek and we look; we put things in this hole that we have in our hearts, thinking it'll fulfill, it'll make us happy. It'll comfort us.

But there's a “hole in your soul” that can only be filled, as the philosopher, mathematician Pascal said, “There's a vacuum in the soul of every man that can only be filled by the person of Christ.”

So how do we respond? Let us recognize that it's grace. It's the law of grace that has supplanted. Remember, there had to be a change in the law we just read. There has been; it’s the law of grace.

Grace has now replaced the law of judgment. The idea, it's grace, not law, that saves us. It's Christ who's made the sacrifice. He's the one who hears us and gives us access to the Father. Let's talk to Him now.

Lord, I pray for that person that's watching online, in the next room or you're here listening to me in person. It doesn't matter. I pray that it's God Himself that speaks to you, right now, by His spirit.

If you're listening and you sense that Jesus is calling you to follow Him, don't delay. Right where you're at, right where you're sitting, standing, driving your car, listening online, wherever you are right now, would you pray with me? Ask Jesus to come and be your Lord, your Savior, your mediator between you and God. You can do it right now. That's why He came.

‘Dear Lord Jesus, I'm a sinner. I repent of my sin. I turn away and I turn to You. I surrender my life to You.

I believe that You died on the cross, that You were raised from the grave and that You live today. I believe that. Come and live in me. Take up residence within me. I want to follow You all the days of my life.

I want to be a child of God. I give You my life today. I want to follow You as my Lord and Savior.’ If you're praying that prayer of faith, believing, He will save you. There's no other name. Others are here this morning and you're a believer.

But there's been a dryness lately, a distance. You feel like your prayers are bouncing off the ceiling. Would you just lean in and say, ‘Lord, I come to You afresh. Now, in the name of Jesus, You've promised that He is the perfect high priest, that speaking in His name, I can come right into Your throne room and talk to You. So, Lord, right now, I'm not satisfied with this dryness.

I'm not satisfied with feeling any distance. I want to have a fresh anointing, a fresh touch, a fresh encounter with You. Lord, I renew myself before You right now and renew my commitment to You.’ In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.