The Throne of Grace 

“Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16) 

One of the key points of Hebrews is that the life of a Christian is a life of faith from first to last. This may sound easy enough, but any Christian who has truly struggled to live by faith knows that it's not. The fact is that we are weak. Even though we want to obey God's word, we often sin. This is very frustrating. In fact, some people become so discouraged by their weaknesses that they give up their life of faith completely. Yet in today's passage we learn why we should not give up. 

Today's passage teaches us that the only solution to the problem of our weaknesses is to come to the throne of grace, where our great high priest, Jesus, stands as our representative before God. We can break this passage into two main parts with two related points: First, by faith in Jesus, we can approach the throne of grace with confidence. Second, Jesus is our one and only high priest. 

First, we can approach the throne of grace with confidence because of Jesus 

In the previous passages, we were encouraged to "hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast," and to "hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first." We were also encouraged to "make every effort" to enter God's rest. Yet it is not easy. How is it possible? It is possible because we have a great high priest. Verse 14 says, "Therefore, since we have such a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess." 

The exhortation to hold onto our faith in verse 14 is based on the fact that "we have such a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God." What is the connection between Jesus' identity as our high priest and our life of faith? Verse 15 says, "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses..." As I mentioned at the beginning of this message, our weaknesses are a big problem for Christians. We want to live by faith; we want to be obedient to God; yet we continue to do the things that we don't want to do. The Apostle Paul shared his personal struggle with weakness in Romans 7:15, "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do." The Apostle Paul was confused by his inability to obey God even though he really wanted to. And in Romans 7:21-24, Paul expressed his frustration and despair over this problem: "So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner to the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will save me from this body of death?" All Christians who have struggled to live by faith in God can sympathize with Paul's frustration and confusion. For many Christians, this problem is so discouraging that they despair. They suffer from a constantly broken relationship with God, which is too painful to bear, and they even doubt that God is willing to continue forgiving their repeated sins. When they look at themselves, all they can say is, "What a wretched man I am!" 

Yet today's passage encourages us to stop looking at ourselves and start looking at Jesus. The first thing we need to know about Jesus is that he is able to sympathize with our weaknesses. Verse 14 says, "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin." The fact that Jesus is able to sympathize with our weaknesses encourages us to come to him. 

This verse may surprise some people. How can Jesus understand my weaknesses? He wasn't weak. How can he understand temptations? He didn't sin. Yet this verse tells us that Jesus can understand our weaknesses and he was tempted--yet he was also without sin. 

One misconception people have about Jesus is that obedience came easy for him. This is not true. Every day, Jesus had to deny himself in order to obey his Father. In John 4, we see that Jesus helped a woman he met by a well to be saved. At that time, Jesus was tired and hungry from a long day of traveling on foot. His body was probably telling him, "Just rest; take it easy; don't talk to her; you can talk to her later." But the Spirit of God was telling Jesus to talk to her. Although Jesus chose to obey his Father, he experienced the suffering of denying his human desires. Similarly, Jesus knows how hard it is to wake up in the morning to come to God in prayer--Jesus also suffered from sleepiness, headaches, and he knew how comfortable warm blankets are. Jesus even knows how it is to feel weak and need strength from God (Luke 22:43). Since Jesus knows how hard it is to overcome our human weaknesses, he can sympathize with our struggles. 

When we realize that Jesus sympathizes with our weaknesses, we find confidence to come to him. Verse 16 says, "Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." What is the throne of grace? This expression reminds us of the "mercy seat" that was located in the center of the holy place God commanded the Israelites to make (Exodus 25:17-22). This mercy seat was like God's throne where people could come to ask for forgiveness of sins. Yet, in the system God established for the Israelites, the only person who come come near this seat was the high priest, so he had to ask for forgiveness on behalf of all the people. If anyone who was not the high priest tried to approach the throne of God, they would have died because sinful men cannot approach God who is holy. How, then, can we approach the throne of grace with confidence? The word, "confidence," could also be translated, "boldly." Our weaknesses make us feel timid, not bold; our sin problems make us shameful, not confident. How can we approach the throne of grace boldly and confidently, then? The answer is that we have a great high priest, Jesus, who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses. Because of Jesus, we can come to God boldly and confidently, knowing that we will receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. 

What kind of help can we expect when we come to the throne of grace? It depends on our need, and there are two basic times when we need God’s grace the most: first, when we are being tempted; and second, when we have fallen into temptation. 

One thing that many Christians do not realize is that we need God’s help to overcome temptations. About a week ago, I was deeply convicted through studying a Bible passage in the morning that I should be very careful not to let myself get distracted from the work I was supposed to be doing that day. Yet even though I had strong conviction that God wanted me to stay focused on my work, I didn’t have confidence that I would be able to control myself, and I ended up wasting about three hours doing other things. I felt so bad. I felt like I was hopelessly weak. Yet, later I realized that the one thing I didn’t do was sincerely come to God and ask him for strength to be self-controlled and self-disciplined that day. Instead, I relied on my own strength, which was very little. I missed the chance to come to God and find grace in my time of need. 

Another time of need is when we have sinned. After sinning against God, we go through a whole range of emotions, from a hardened and numb heart to a painful, overwhelming sense of despair. Yet how often do we come to the throne of grace boldly after sinning? It seems that we should come to God crawling on our bellies, not confidently walking up to his throne. Where does this confidence come from? It comes not from ourselves, but from Jesus. When we come to the throne of grace we should put all of our confidence in Jesus, because even though we try hard to wash ourselves of our sins and beat ourselves up with guilt and shame and depression, the only way to come to the Father is through our high priest, Jesus. There is no point in waiting until our shame wears off to come to God. Nor is there any point in waiting until we have suffered enough guilt to come to God. Instead, we should come to the throne of grace to receive mercy without hesitation, boldly and confidently putting our trust in Jesus who understands our weaknesses. 

I am a man of many weaknesses. My way of dealing with my weaknesses is to find some kind of escape. The more I try to avoid these problems, the worse they become and the weaker I become. Because I was too weak, I couldn’t face them. I used to struggle to pray, but I became weaker and weaker until I despaired. I couldn’t face my dissertation, so I looked for all kinds of distractions. I found everything to do except what I needed to do. The more I avoided the problem, the worse it became, and the weaker I became. My experience is that I became weaker, not stronger. The only thing I could do was despair. I just wanted to give up. But since I couldn’t give up completely, I just gave up struggling with these issues--except that I couldn’t avoid them forever. If anyone talked to me about these weaknesses, I didn’t want to talk about it; and even talking about it made me feel my strength draining away. I have no confidence in myself. What I didn’t know was that there was a throne of grace that I could come to. I didn’t know that I had a high priest who understood my weaknesses and through whom I could find mercy and grace in my time of need. If I had known this, I could have had a different direction. Instead of looking at myself and despairing, I could have fixed my eyes on Jesus and come to the throne of grace confidently and boldly, expecting to receive grace and mercy in my time of need. 

Second, Jesus is our one and only high priest 

The author of Hebrews has already covered the key point, yet he goes on to talk more about Jesus’ position as our great high priest. This is because we cannot stress too much how absolutely critical Jesus is for our salvation. If we did not have Jesus as our high priest, there would be no access to the throne of grace; there would be no way for us to come to God. Jesus is the only one from the beginning of all creation to the end whom God has appointed as our representative. 

Verse 1 says: “Every high priest is selected from among men and is appointed to represent them in matters related to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.” Here was see that the job of the high priest is to represent the people in matters related to God. This was necessary because the people could not come to God directly. The benefit of the high priest being chosen from among men was that people could go directly to the high priest without fear. Verse 2 says, “He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray, since he himself is subject to weakness.” Yet this good point was also a problem. Verse 3 says, “This is why he has to offer sacrifices for his own sins, as well as for the sins of the people.” The problem here is that there is still the problem of sin getting in the way of the relationship between the high priest and God, so the high priest could not truly stand before God on behalf of the people. 

Verses 4 and 5 point out that all priests are chosen by God. Just as God chose Aaron to be the first high priest, and God chose later high priests from among Aaron’s sons and his sons sons, so also God chose Jesus. Yet God’s choice of Jesus was special because Jesus is not a descendant of Aaron; he is the son of God. Melchizedek was a priest who appeared in Genesis 14; he was a foreshadow of Jesus. The point here is that Jesus is the one God chose once and for all to be the high priest for all people on earth. Unlike all other high priests of human descent, Jesus was also from God. Since Jesus is both the son of God and son of man, he is uniquely qualified to represent man in matters related to God. 

Verses 7-10 explain Jesus’ human struggle more clearly. Verse 7 says, “During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.” Here we can see what Jesus went through in order to submit himself to God. Not just one time, or during one day of Jesus’ life, but during the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he cried out to his Father earnestly. Why did Jesus cry out like this? It was because it was so hard to be obedient in all things. Jesus had to die to his human self daily in order to do only his Father’s will. Ultimately, obedience to God required Jesus to die on the cross. This was so difficult for Jesus that he prayed earnestly on the Mt. of Olives. He prayed for God to take away the suffering he was about to face if God was willing. Jesus didn’t want to suffer. Yet he struggled in prayer and submitted himself reverently to God, and God gave Jesus strength to follow through. 

This is why Jesus is the only one who can help us with our weaknesses. Verses 8 says, “Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered...” The fact that Jesus learned obedience is important because this is true for us as well. If a child wants to eat all the cookies in the cookie jar and his mom says, “Now, son, I want you to eat all those cookies,” we would not praise that boy for his obedience. True obedience is obedience when it hurts. We are so weak that we easily give up when we face sufferings, but Jesus didn’t give up. He endured real sufferings in obedience to God, and the result is explained in verses 9-10: “and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek.” 

The fact that Jesus is perfect is not simply because he is the Son of God, but that he learned obedience by what he suffered. Jesus did what we are too weak to do. Jesus overcame all his human weaknesses, endured every suffering involved in obedience, and he never sinned. Jesus was made perfect through his life of obedience to God. He is the only one who is truly qualified to mediate between God and man, for he is the only one man who is perfect. He is the only one who is holy as God is holy. Jesus is, therefore, the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him. He is our high priest who represents us in matters related to God. 

We need to understand how important Jesus is in all of this. Without Jesus, there would be no way for us to come to the throne of grace. Jesus is the only one God has provided and who could be qualified to do this job, because he is (1) able to relate to us and (2) able to relate to God. If we don’t understand this point, we will fail to understand the nature of our problem. The nature of our problem is that sin separates us from God. If we don’t understand this separation, then we will think that sin is not that big of a deal. We can’t just come to God. We might think that we are good people, so we can come to God. “Me and God are friends.” How is this friendship possible? You are a sinner. Your sin separates you from your Creator. So, there is no way for you to come to God on your own. 

Because of this problem, we need mercy and grace. We need a high priest, and there is only one high priest who both shared in our weaknesses and yet was made perfect by obedience--Jesus. The practical application is that we must fix our thoughts on Jesus. Jesus is one God has glorified as the great high priest. He is God’s chosen representative. He is the bridge between sinful man and God. He is the source of salvation. 

Anyone who rejects Jesus rejects the source of salvation. There is no way for them to come to God. Yet, those who live by faith in Jesus have the one and only solution. Therefore, we must come to Jesus and remain in him. Jesus’ disciples are those who obey him. This does not mean that they are perfect or do not fail, but Jesus’ disciples are obedient to Jesus. They have committed their lives to Jesus and obey his word. They are the ones who have access to the throne of grace. They are not defeated by their weaknesses because their high priest, Jesus, is always with them, interceding on their behalf. 

One word: Come to the throne of grace with confidence because of our high priest, Jesus. 

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