November 4, 2007

 "Why We Can Be Confident" 

Hebrews 4: 14- 5: 10; text Hebrews 4: 16

I once heard a talk on the subject of prayer in which the speaker gave an example of farmers who in a time of drought gathered in their church to pray for rain.  They prayed and prayed.  And then they went home.  But, no rain fell.  They gathered a second time and prayed fervently, but again with no result.  They gathered third time and again they prayed in vain.  When they complained to their pastor; he looked at them and said, "You pray again and again for rain, but not one of you brought an umbrella.  And the speaker went on to inform us that like the farmers we often do not get what we pray for, because we lack faith.  And he urged us to pray with confidence-to pray expecting that God will answer us.

What do you think?  Was the speaker right?   What about those times when we pray and pray and nothing seems to happen? I know I've experienced this. Would we have received what we ask for if only we had more confidence-or more faith?   Certainly, in our scripture the Lord through writer to the Hebrews is calling us to be confident.  Look again at chapter 4: 16,

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.

But, exactly what is this verse calling us to do-what does it mean to approach the throne of grace with confidence?  It helps our understanding to first see what these meant to the people who first received this letter and to examine what they were struggling with.  Now,  we are not certain who the Holy Spirit inspired to write the letter to the Hebrews.  But, we do know who it is addressed to: "the Hebrews;"  it is addressed to Jewish Christians.  It was especially difficult to be a Jewish Christian in 1^st century.  Throughout the empire Jews were often despised.  They were a small minority who had their own religion and customs.  Many in the empire viewed them as odd and they were often the subject of ridicule. Acts 18: 17 tells of an incident in Corinth when a mob grabbed the ruler of synagogue and beat him in full view of the proconsul of the city, who did nothing to stop them.  It was hard enough being a Jew.  But, it was even harder being a Jewish Christian.  In many cases the entire Jewish community, including your own family members, would disown you.  They wouldn't speak to you and went out of their way to make trouble for you.  You were no longer allowed to worship in the synagogue.  You were treated as worse than an outsider.  So, to be a Jewish Christian meant that everybody in town despised you.  You were hated by Gentile and Jew alike.  It was a hard life. As you can imagine there was a strong temptation to go back to Judaism.  The letter to the Hebrews was written to encourage these people in their faith.  And that's the emphasis of this verse: to encourage these people to seek help and strength from the Lord.

Notice the emphasis on grace and mercy in the verse.  When I first read it,  I was reminded of Jesus words in Matthew 7:9,

"Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?  If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

How much more will you Father in heaven give good gifts.  God is a loving Father, who cares for his children.  Therefore we should approach him with confidence, knowing he will hear us.

That word confidence is interesting.  The original Greek word that was used is parrasia.  This word comes from the days when the cities of Greece were independent city-states.  The form of governments that some of these cities enjoyed was direct democracy.  In the United States we have representative democracy, a form of government in which we elect representatives- Congressmen, Senators, Presidents-- to make our laws and rule our country.   In a direct democracy the people gather together and do these things themselves.  All the citizens would meet together in one mass meeting place and discuss the laws that governed their city. 

I was able to witness this form of governing when I taught high school in the Navajo Nations.  The Navajo people in our community would gather at the chapter house for a chapter meeting.  The purpose of this meeting was to decide local laws and especially how to use money that the tribe had given to our community. 

Whenever you have a large meeting like this, there are some people who just hang back and say nothing. They might feel strongly about an issue, but for one reason or another they are afraid to stand up for what they believe.  But others aren't afraid and have no problem saying what's on their mind. The Greeks would say that those that got up and spoke had parrasia. So verse 14 is telling us that we should not be afraid to come to God, but that we should have parrasia-  boldness. 

But, why should anyone be afraid to do this?  One reason should be afraid is if we have no standing with him.  What do I mean by that?  Let's me answer that question this way:  Let's say I had decided to go to a Navajo chapter meeting.  If had I tried and get up and speak or vote in that meeting, I would have been declared out of order, because as someone who was not Navajo and I could not be a member of the chapter. Hence, I had no standing and had no right to speak.  To exercise parrasia you must have standing.  You must  be part of the group and have the right to speak. 

Let me explain this in a way that some of the kids can better understand.  When you are home and get thirsty or hungry what you do?  You go to the fridge and get something to drink or eat.   But what would say if some stranger came into your house, went into your fridge and grabbed a pop?  That person would be guilty breaking and entering and stealing.  (Now you might laugh at this, but something like that actually happened.  When I was interning at Roseland Christian Ministries, during share and prayer time on of the band members said that he was frying some chicken in pan.  When he went to check on his little girl in other room, somebody broke into his house and stole his chicken right out of the pan.  But, back to my example:  Kids, why would you have the right to take a soda and not some stranger off the street?  [Because it's your house and you are part of that household]  Another way of saying that is that you have standing in that house.   In order to come to God and know that he hears your prayer you must have standing with him.

Not everyone has standing with God.  Only members of God's household-only his people do.  But, even God's people lose their standing when they sin.   For example Psalm 66: 18 says,

If I had cherished sin in my heart,  the Lord would not have listened;

God doesn't listen to those have sin their heart.  Sin is rebellion against him.  It's saying to God, "I don't want to be a part of your household anymore."  (In fact that's exactly what God's people told him time and again.  Hebrews 3: 16 and following refers to the time when the Children of Israel were in the wilderness traveling to promised land.  When things became difficult, rather than crying to the Lord they rebelled.  "Would that were in Egypt."  they cried)

God can't stand that kind of rebellion.  But, there's more to it than that.   Our holy God can't stand even the slightest sin against him. It is precisely that truth that God wanted his people in the Old Testament to realize.  And that is why he established the animal sacrifices and the priests.  On one hand, he wanted his people to realize that they were sinners and that sinners had not standing in his presence.  On the other hand,  he wanted them to realize that in his mercy he had made a way for them to have standing.  They must repent of their sins and bring their offering to the priest.  Then they could be assured that God would accept them and answer them.

So, our sins effect our standing with God and they effect our whether he will answer our prayers.  And that's also true for us God's New Testament people.  In 1 Peter 5: 7 Peter tells husband to be considerate of their wives and treat them with love and respect, , so that (and these are Peter's words) nothing will hinder your prayers.

As I say this, I am acutely aware that many who suffer and struggling realize this truth more than most.  As a pastor I've seen a pattern emerge with Christian brothers and sisters who struggle with sickness or some other trial in their lives.  When their trials first come they often become more devoted to God and to prayer. Sometimes they see tragedy in their lives as a wake up call from God.   If they were in habit of missing church now and again, they are here every Sunday.  They often tell others about struggles and ask them for prayers.  But then as time goes on and their problem doesn't go away and their condition become, they become discouraged.  And they begin to think that God does not hear their prayers.  And it's not too uncommon that they will blame themselves for this.  Sometime they blame their own lack of faith.  Sometimes they begin to think that their sins are simply too great and because of that God won't listen to them anymore.  And they really get down on themselves.  And they keep repenting and repenting.  And sometimes they just give up and conclude they're too far gone for God to care about.  If that is where you are, God is especially addressing you this morning.

Notice that writer the Hebrews makes a big comparison between the priests of Old Testament and Jesus.  As we were saying the priest and the sacrifices reminded the people that their sins effected their standing with God.  The sacrifices were established as a way by which they could deal with those sins, and be accepted by God again. Sadly, as our scripture pointed out, it was an imperfect way.  Later in this letter, in chapter 10: 6, we find that the sacrifices themselves were imperfect: because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

But, here our scripture tells us that the priests who offered these sacrifices were imperfect.  The priests certainly could sympathize with people in their sins, because they were sinners too.  Note that verse 3 says of the Old Testament priest,

This is why he has to offer sacrifices for his own sins, as well as for the sins of the people.

Before the priests could represent the people to God, they had to first purify themselves.  In the laws of Moses there were provisions for them to do just that.  Notice that writer also refers to them as priests from Aaron's line.  Surely this reminded the people of how imperfect the priests were.  Aaron himself was responsible for making the golden calf and leading the people to worship it.  And many of his descendants were no better than he.  They included people like Eli's sons Hophni and Phineas, who would shake down people who came to the tabernacle for worship and steal their offerings.  There was plenty of corruption in the priesthood.  Yet, as corrupt as they were, they were God's chosen vessels to proclaim his grace to God's people and to assure them that God would hear their prayers.  But, it was an imperfect system.

People of God, every effort we make to repent of our sins is imperfect.  We promise God we'll never do it again and we break our promise.  We cry over what we've done only to do again the next day.  And we all realize that I'm not just talking about brothers and sister who struggle with addictions, but also those of us who struggle with our tempers or our laziness or our gossiping tongue.  And that list could go on and on. 

But, the good news is that as imperfect as we people are Jesus is the perfect high priest.  He is a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.  We find the story of Melchizedek in Genesis 14.  He lived during the time of Abraham.  And when Abraham wanted to bring a sacrifice to God he brought it to Melchizedek.  The name Melchzedek means "king of righteousness."  This king of righteousness was king over a city-state called Salem.  The name Salem comes from the Hebrew word shalom-peace.  Jesus is the only high priest who can bring lasting righteousness-or right standing before God, and because of that we can have God's shalom-his peace and his blessing.  Why can Jesus do this?  Because even though he can sympathize with our temptations, he never gave in to sin.  He was the perfect high priest.  And he offered the perfect sacrifice: himself.  He is the also the lamb of God who once and for all has away the sin of the world.

Rick Warren begins his book, The Purpose Driven Life, with the sentence, "It's not about you."  That's good for us to remember when it comes to living a purpose driven life, but it also good to remember when it comes to knowing how we have right standing before God and when it comes to trusting that he hears our prayers.  It's not about you-it's about Jesus.  We can trust that God hears when we come to him in Jesus' name. 

And that includes those times when he doesn't seem to answer right away.  Let's not forget that many of the Jewish Christians who first read this letter were probably martyred for their faith.  And many of their children and their children's children were martyred.  History tells us that the persecution that began in their day continued on and off for about 300 years.  And yet God's people kept their faith.  Faith IS the Victory.

It probably didn't make a difference whether those farmers we spoke about earlier had their umbrellas or not.  God's answer to their prayers didn't depend on them, but on Jesus.  All that mattered was that they continue to cling to him.  That is what matters for us.  That is real faith.

(Romans 8: 33- 29 NIV)

It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died-more than that, who was raised to life-is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:

"For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. "No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  AMEN!