When I was young, I remember being fascinated by Catholics. They had all this strange exotic stuff going on in their church that we Protestants didn’t. First of all, they had bingo—legal gambling by which they raised money for their parish school and the work of the church. Back then, we Protestants, at least the Methodists, didn’t gamble. We felt it was wrong to gamble—that it went against the Bible. But the Catholics did it every week, and even advertised it!

The Catholics also had the mass, in which the bread and wine was, at the sound of a chime, (I know because I have actually been to a Mass) mysteriously turned into the body and blood of Jesus.  And then, amazingly enough, the Catholics would actually eat it.  Of course, I didn’t get to eat it, because I was not a Catholic, and I’m not sure I wanted to. We only had bread and grape juice at the Methodist Church. We didn’t even have wine. Wine was alcohol and that was considered bad. Drinking alcohol was something good Protestants shouldn’t do, at least not in church. And when I ate and drank the communion elements, the bread was still bread and the grape juice was still just juice for the Methodists.

Catholics also had levels of sin. There were mortal sins, the bad ones, and venial sins, the not so bad. And I can remember my Catholic friends trying to explain to me the difference. I did find it fascinating. We Protestants had only plain old generic sins, you know, a kind of one size fits all—a sin is a sin is a sin. I remember I used to love it when I would do something wrong and I would hear my Catholic friend, Grace Mulligan, exclaim, “Oooh, that’s a mortal sin!” It made me feel especially proud and gratified by her remark, to know that I hadn’t committed a measly venial sin, but a mortal one.

And then there was confession. The Catholics had confession—formal confession—where they actually had to go to their church, sit in a little telephone booth like cubicle and confess their sins to a priest, a priest who sat behind a screen and listened. I can remember my best friend, Mike, as we were growing up together, telling me about the experience. He would explain to me how, in advance of going into the booth, he would compose the list of sins he would confess, giving me a kind of sample of the sorts of things he would say. Well, his lists always sounded reasonable enough to me, but it also seemed to have little to do with my friend’s actual sinning reality. But I thought it was just as well to make up a plausible list of sins, because I wouldn’t want the priest, sitting behind the screen, to know about the real stuff that was going on in my life. You know, the stuff that I was actually ashamed of and feeling guilty about. And this is where I thought we Protestants really had it over the Catholics. We didn’t have to go to a priest to confess our sins. We didn’t have to sit in a little telephone booth like confessional and tell our secrets to a priest sitting behind a screen. We could go straight to God. We didn’t have to confess through some middle management intermediary, we could go straight to the top. It seemed so much more efficient, I thought, less humiliating, and probably much more effective.

And you know what? It’s true. We don’t need to go to a Catholic priest in order to confess our sins to God. We don’t need a Catholic priest as an intermediary between us and God. Because, we can go directly to God! We can have a personal, intimate, direct, faith relationship with God. But, and this is a very important “but,” so listen carefully, we do need a priest to make this direct personal relationship with God possible. It turns out, we do need a priest to do for us, what we can’t do for ourselves in order for things to be set right between us and God, so that we can have this kind of direct relationship. And the priest we need is Jesus Christ. As the Book of Hebrews says:
…we have a great High Priest who has entered heaven, Jesus the Son of God…(Hebrews 4:14 NLT)

Now Jesus was called many things during his earthly ministry—Lord, Master, rabbi, teacher, healer, miracle worker, son of David, even Son of God, but no one ever called him “priest.” In fact, most people tended to disassociate Jesus from the priesthood altogether. Why? Because his biggest conflicts were typically with the priests. Of the groups of people most resistant to Jesus, his message, and his movement, the priests were at the top of the list. As the story of Christ’s passion reveals, it was mainly the priests who conspired with the Roman authorities to get Jesus put to death—to get him crucified and done away with. That is just how hostile and antagonistic the majority of the Temple priests were to Jesus. And yet Hebrews tells us that Jesus is our Great High Priest.

So if Jesus is indeed a priest, our Great High Priest no less, what does a priest do? Well, the priests are those who work at the Temple offering sacrifices, making gifts, burning incense, and offering prayers to God on behalf of God’s people. The priests are constantly working, almost around the clock, doing those things that are necessary, in order to make a way for God’s people to continue in covenant with him—to continue in relationship with him. Because, you see, the truth is, that most people are breaking the covenant about as often as they are keeping it. Which means that much of the time; people are not in a right relationship with God.  And so, in order to maintain a situation where the people can be in a right relationship with God, living in covenant with God, the priests are slaughtering sacrificial animals and burning them, laying gifts of grain and money on the altar, and doing all sorts of other things on behalf of the people so that a relationship with God can be restored or even made possible.

Well according to Hebrews, Jesus, as our Great High Priest, has done everything needed, everything necessary to set things right between us and God, so that we may live in relationship with God—a personal, intimate, direct relationship. As it says in chapter five:
While Jesus was here on earth, he offered prayers and pleadings, with a loud cry and tears, to the one who could rescue…from death. And…God qualified him as a perfect High Priest, and he became the source of eternal salvation for all those who obey him. (Hebrews 5:9-11 NLT)

Salvation is living in a right relationship with God! That is the Biblical definition of Salvation! Thus, Jesus, our High Priest, has indeed accomplished, on our behalf, everything necessary for us to live in a direct, ongoing, personal relationship with God. As it says, “He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.”  And what he has done for us, as our High Priest, is sufficient for everybody for all time. As it says elsewhere in Hebrews:
Under the old covenant, the priest stands and ministers before the altar day after day, offering the same sacrifices again and again…But, Jesus, our High Priest offered himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time. For God’s will was for us to be made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all…(Hebrews 10:10-12 NLT)

Thus we don’t need an intermediary anymore. We don’t have to go to a person called a priest to confess our sins. We don’t have to rely on a “go-between” to bridge the gap between us and God. Jesus has already done it. He has bridged that gap and brought us and God together. As Jesus proclaimed on the cross, “It is finished.” In other words, our salvation is accomplished; everything needed to make us right with God has been done. All we have to do is believe and obey. Believe Jesus is our Great High Priest who makes us right with God, and demonstrate our belief by obeying him—that is, doing what he says, living the way he calls us to live. Because when you really trust Jesus, you take him at his word, and when he tells you to do something, you do it, because you trust that what he is telling you to do is true and right and in your own best interest. Obedience is the natural outcome of authentic belief.

So here’s the challenge this morning. How many of us are willing to take God at his word and believe that Jesus our High Priest has done everything needed to make us right with God? How many of us are willing to stake our lives on it? Me! Me! Me!

Yet, how many of us actually operate as if I make myself right with God. It is all up to me and not Jesus our High Priest? After all isn’t that what religion is all about—making restitution, getting right, getting close to God, proving myself worthy? For example, why are you at church this morning? Some of you may say, “I’m here trying to figure out who Jesus is and what life is all about.” Great! Now you know who Jesus is. Jesus is the one who makes you right with God so that you can have a relationship with God. Jesus makes friendship with God possible, and through that friendship relationship you can discover who you are, who God is, and what life truly is all about.

Some of you may say, “God has given me so many blessings in my life. Going to church is one way of expressing my gratitude.” Great! You are grateful for all that your High Priest has done for you and you’re here to give him thanks and praise. That is as it should be.

But how many would say something more like, “Church is where I go to get right. I feel I owe a debt to God. I know I haven’t always lived the way God expects me to live. So I go to kind of pay him back. I mean, coming to church and being willing to suffer through Randy’s sermons Sunday after Sunday, has got to count for something. Surely, God notices me here, on my best behavior, singing and praying. I even give some of my hard earned money to the church. You know, that’s a real sacrifice. There’s lots of other things I could spend that money on. Surely God notices what I am doing for him by showing up here.” You notice the subtle shift? No longer is it what Jesus our High Priest has done for us, it is what we are doing. It is the sacrifices we are making, that save us, that count. After all, we surmise, I could be home sleeping, or watching the pre-game show on television before the big football game this afternoon. But I chose to sacrifice my sleep, or I chose to sacrifice the pre-game show (which I’d rather be watching) and be here instead. Surely these sacrifices on my part have to count for something! And before you know it, it’s what I do that makes me right with God. I’m the priest offering sacrifices in order to make restitution and restore the broken relationship. It’s not Jesus anymore. But Hebrews tells us:
Jesus, our High Priest offered himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time. For God’s will was for us to be made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all…(Hebrews 10:10-12 NLT)

As Watchman Nee says,

Christianity begins not with a do, but with a done. We begin our Christian life by depending not upon our own doing but upon what Christ has done. Until you realize this you are no Christian; for to say: “I can do nothing to save myself; but by his grace God has done everything for me in Christ” is to take the first step of faith.

Let us take that step this morning.

Let us pray: