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Welcome to day five of our Look Through Hebrews chapter seven, a chapter that's
all about the priesthood, the order of the priesthood of Jesus. As we started
this chapter, you may have thought, "Well, this is going to be a boring chapter.
It's all about Melchizedek.

It's all about a high priest, and I don't know much about that stuff, but we
need to know because Melchizedek, the priesthood of Jesus, it's a priesthood
that we need. In fact, let me read for you beginning in verse 26 down through
verse 28 what it has to say about how Jesus is the priest we need. Verse 26, "He
is the kind of high priest we need because He is holy and blameless, unstained
by sin.

He's been set apart from sinners, and He's been given the highest place of honor
in heaven. Unlike those other high priests, He does not need to offer sacrifices
every day. They did this for their own sins first and then for the sins of the
people, but Jesus did this once for all when He offered Himself as a sacrifice
for the people's sins.

The law appointed high priests who were limited by human weakness, but after the
law was given, God appointed His Son with an oath, and His Son has been made the
perfect high priest forever. " Jesus is the high priest that we need. He's the
kind of high priest that you need.

This is not, as we're reading through this, this is not some theological
treatise for a classroom. This is God meeting your deepest need, and we can see
how He does this through the five We're told in this passage that Jesus is
different from the human high priest. A human high priest could meet a certain
kind of need, but only Jesus can meet the deepest needs of our lives.

And we're told how He is different here in these five ways. First the five ways,
and then we'll go back and look at how these five ways show that Jesus meets our
deepest needs. The five ways, number one, the high priest, the human high
priest, was a sinner.

Jesus as a high priest is blameless. Number two, the human high priest had to
offer a sacrifice for himself first, but Jesus offered himself first as a
sacrifice because he's perfect. A third difference, the human high priest had to
make daily sacrifices, but Jesus made a sacrifice once for all.

A fourth difference, the human high priest was appointed by the law. Jesus as a
high priest is appointed by God. And then a fifth difference, the human high
priest was appointed for a brief time.

They died eventually, but Jesus as a high priest is appointed forever. Let's go
back and look at these differences and show how there are needs in our lives,
the deepest needs we have, that only Jesus can meet. First the fact that Jesus
is blameless while the human high priest, every one of them was a sinner who
needed to have forgiveness for their own sins.

Jesus is blameless. And in being that kind of high priest, it means he can meet
your need for purity, for a holiness from God, for a depth of purity in your
life. Without holiness, I can't get close to God.

I can't get close to God because God is holy, God is perfect. So how do I get
close to God? Jesus gifts me with, he gives me that purity, that holiness, and
only he can truly give it because only he is truly holy.

The human high priest could look forward to the fact that Jesus was going to
come someday, but only Jesus can truly meet that need in your life. Some of us
know we need that need in some small measure, but the truth of my life and I
think most of our lives is we have no idea how deeply we need holiness. We have
no idea how far we really are from God.

We think we're almost there and Jesus got us over the top, and the truth of the
matter is we're in an unimaginable distance from God. And Jesus brought us near
because of his holiness. Jesus gifts me with his purity.

He meets my need for purity, a need I could never meet in my own life by
anything that I did, any way that I acted. He meets that need. The second need
he meets is in the picture of the priest having to sacrifice for themselves
first and Jesus instead giving himself as a sacrifice.

Jesus meets my need for, let's call it fidelity, purity and now fidelity, for a
depth of love, a depth of loyalty that's above and beyond any kind of love we
can find in this world, for an unconditional love. Every human being in this
world has some condition on their love for you. They may try not to.

They may have less condition than anybody else, but even a mother's love, even
the love of a father, there is some condition on it. They love being a parent.
They decided to be a parent.

There is some condition. There is hopefully some benefit to them out of it now.
Sometimes there's not, but they hope that there is.

There is no benefit to Jesus loving you, loving me, beyond the benefit of the
fact that he loves you and he loves me. Jesus didn't become a better person by
going to the cross. He didn't become a better God by going to the cross.

He's already perfect. He's already God. Jesus didn't get or fulfill some higher
calling in his life that he needed by coming to this earth and dying for you.

He could have been a perfect God for all of eternity without ever deciding to
come to this earth, but he's God. And being God, he decided that he was going to
have an unconditional love for us. And we see that on the cross.

We see that in the fact that he first offered himself as a sacrifice for you.
You have someone who loves you unconditionally. Whatever other struggles you
have with love in your life, you have someone who loves you unconditionally in
Christ.

That meets one of the deepest needs of our lives. And in fact, it helps us. It
keeps us from trying to get people to love us unconditionally, which is going to
be a pretty sorry pursuit, a pretty sad pursuit, and can create so much tension
in family, so much tension in your own life.

In the unconditional love of Christ, you can find a power to love in this world,
even though our love isn't perfect, because he has a perfect love for you. A
third need that he meets in our lives is in this picture of the human priest
making daily sacrifices and Jesus making a sacrifice once for all. Jesus meets
my need for purity, for fidelity, and now for certainty, a certainty in my
relationship with God.

They made sacrifices daily, and those daily sacrifices, there were always the
questions about them. Were they pure enough? Was the sacrifice done correctly?

Could I get to the temple so a sacrifice could be done? In fact, people had
fears about this, and those fears were played on in Jesus' day. You might
remember there were those who sold sacrifices in the temple.

They sold sacrifices because if somebody brought a bird for a sacrifice, they
would think, "Is it perfect? " And there would always be somebody there to say,
"Oh, it's not perfect enough. Let me sell you a perfect one.

" It might be the same one they just took from somebody else that thought it
wasn't perfect, but they'd resell it again. They're playing on people's fears.
And of course, when it has to be done every single day, and you're just using
bulls and goats and birds as sacrifices, how would you know if it's the right
sacrifice?

How would you know if it's truly a perfect sacrifice? There was always a doubt,
but in Jesus, there's no doubt, because it's done once. It's done for all.

Jesus is the perfect sacrifice. It is finished. It is certain.

I can be certain of what He did for me. And He meets that need for a certainty
in my relationship with God that no one else can meet. There's a fourth need He
meets.

Law appointed, that's how the human high priests were appointed. God appointed,
that's how Jesus was appointed. He meets, and follow me on this one, Jesus meets
my need for intimacy.

The Levitical priests were appointed by a cold factual law. He always had to
keep the rules and regulations. But when it comes to Jesus, He is the Son who
was appointed by the Father Himself.

When I see what Jesus has done for me as a priest, it is not hidden behind the
walls of a temple. It is not hidden behind the words of a law. When I see what
Jesus has done for me as a priest, it's pictured as a Father who gave His Son.

God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes
in Him shouldn't perish, but have eternal life. You see, in the Old Testament
law, in the Old Testament priesthood, in the Old Testament sacrificial system,
and in the temple, there was always this sense of separation from the sacrifice
for the people. The sacrifice was being made for them, but they weren't close to
the sacrifice.

Somebody else was doing it. But you and I were close to the sacrifice. It's a
Father who gave the Son.

And that Son who wants to be close to you, you can have a daily relationship
with Him. In Jesus as our High Priest, we have our deepest needs for intimacy, a
relationship, a closeness to God met. We still realize that God is above and
beyond what we can imagine, but we also know that God is closer.

He's closer than your next heartbeat. He's right there with you. That need for
intimacy is met in Jesus.

And then there's a fifth need that's met. The need for eternity, for the hope of
eternity is met in our lives. These human High Priests, they serve for a brief
time.

Jesus, He serves forever. He can give us eternal hope. In every human heart,
there is this thought of eternity.

There's this hope for eternity. People who are religious, people who are
irreligious, there is this hope that somehow there's something beyond what we
see here. And there's hope somehow that we could live forever.

Jesus has brought that hope to reality. He gives us that hope of eternity. No
one else, nothing else can do that.

There are legends about other things that can. There are hopes about other
things that can. But only He can truly give that because only He lives forever.

Jesus is eternal and He offers you and I eternal life. So Jesus, He meets the
needs that no one else can meet. My need for purity, my need for fidelity, my
need for certainty, my need for intimacy, my need for eternity.

Jesus meets those needs. Let's talk to Him. Jesus, thank you that you meet the
deepest needs of my life.

In ways that I see, in ways that I may not see today, you meet those deepest
needs. Thank you. Thank you that in you, I have a purity that lets me approach
and talk to you and talk to the Father.

Thank you that in you, I have an unconditional love. No matter how anybody else
loves me, I know I'm loved by you. That in you, I have a certainty of
relationship with you because you did it for me once and for all.

It is finished. I can have an intimacy, a closeness to God, a Father who sent
the Son so that I can have eternal life. And thank you that in you, I can have
the hope of eternity.

Thank you that you meet the deepest needs of my life, Jesus. In your name, I
praise you. In your name, I thank you.

Amen. Next week, we're going to be looking at Hebrews chapter 8 together. It's
all about the New Covenant, which in one sense is God's new deal, the best deal
you're ever going to get.