Hebrews chapter 7.
Actually, let's hit the end of chapter 6 just for a little bit of context.
So we'll kind of look back over the verses we talked about last week, and then we will read through the first 10 verses of chapter 7.
But if you want to flip back a page to Hebrews chapter 6, verses 19 and 20, we'll read those as well.
Hebrews chapter 6, verse 19 is where we'll start, and we'll focus most of our attention today in Hebrews chapter 7.
Let's read through the text, then we'll pray. We'll get started.
We have this hope as an anchor for our lives, safe and secure.
It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain.
Jesus has entered there on our behalf as a forerunner, because he has become a high priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.
For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham and blessed him as he returned from defeating the kings,
and Abraham gave him a tenth of everything.
First, his name means king of righteousness, then also king of Salem, meaning king of peace.
Without father, mother, or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God, remains a priest forever.
Now consider how great this man was. Even Abraham, the patriarch, gave a tenth of the plunder to him.
The sons of Levi, who received the priestly office, have a command according to the law to collect a tenth from the people, that is, from their brothers,
though they have also descended from Abraham.
But one without this lineage collected tenths from Abraham and blessed the one who had the promises.
Without a doubt, the inferior is blessed by the superior.
In the one case, men who will die receive tenths, but in the other case, Scripture testifies that he lives.
And in a sense, Levi himself, who receives tenths, has paid tenths through Abraham, for he was still within his ancestor when Melchizedek met him.
Let's pray.
Father God, we come to you today and we thank you for the goodness of your word.
We thank you for the power that we see in this passage that we look at today.
Dear Lord, some of this stuff we look at today, we may kind of scratch our heads
and we kind of may wonder what it's got to do with anything, but dear Lord, it has to do with everything because it points us to Jesus.
And I pray that your word today would point us to Jesus and who he is.
God, I pray that you would help me to preach and teach in a way that brings glory and honor to you,
that you take away any pride that's in my heart, any fear that I have this morning, dear Lord,
that you would hide me behind the cross, that your Holy Spirit would open our hearts and open our ears,
that we would hear, that we would learn, that we would understand, that we would grow in you today, that we would trust in Jesus for those who do not
and for those who do, that we would trust in Jesus more.
God, I pray that you just bless this time we have and I thank you for your good word.
And I ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.
We're going to have a little bit of a history lesson today.
We have been building up to Melchizedek.
Now, you listen and study about Melchizedek, you'll hear it pronounced a lot of different ways.
Melchizedek, Melchizedek, there's a lot of different ways in which it's pronounced.
I don't know which one is the correct.
I say Melchizedek because that's the one that I first heard when I was first learning about Melchizedek.
So call it what you want to, but I'm going to call him Melchizedek.
And the author of Hebrews has been wanting to talk about Melchizedek for a long time.
We saw this begin back in chapter five.
And in chapter six, there are three references to Melchizedek.
Referencing that Melchizedek is like Jesus, or Jesus is like Melchizedek.
And he quotes from some Old Testament passages.
He talks about the fact that Jesus is a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.
Now, when you look back in the Old Testament, you only see Melchizedek mentioned two times.
If you go back and you study Genesis chapter 14, you will see Melchizedek mentioned.
And then if you flip over to Psalm chapter 110, excuse me, verse four, you will see Melchizedek mentioned.
Now, two times you see him mentioned in the Old Testament, and there is not much at all said about him.
Very little.
Pretty much what we know about Melchizedek is repeated here by the author of Hebrews.
And so Melchizedek is somebody in the Old Testament.
It's a name and a person that we may kind of pass over and not pay much attention to and not think much about.
But yet by the time we get to the book of Hebrews, the author of Hebrews is really serious about Melchizedek.
And he's wanted to tell them about Melchizedek.
And he keeps stopping because he's got to deal with other things.
And at the end of chapter five, he says, I want to tell you about this Melchizedek, but I can't because you're spiritually immature.
And so I got to go back and I got to kind of set you straight a little bit.
He gives them some strong warnings and in Hebrews chapter six warnings about standing firm in the faith and not not turning away from Jesus Christ, not falling away, but rather keeping their hope in Jesus Christ.
He says, look, God is a God who makes promises.
He made promises to Abraham.
He swore those promises.
He swore an oath to him that he would keep those promises.
And God has kept his promises.
And through the promises of God have come Jesus Christ, who is our hope.
Now, we read those verses last week at the end of verse six that he was getting ready to finally talk about Melchizedek at the end of chapter six.
And we saw in those verses that it talks about our hope that is to come.
And that hope is gone behind the curtain.
That is to offer a sacrifice, to be the sacrifice on our behalf.
And Jesus is our hope, the author of Hebrews says.
And Jesus comes and is a high priest in the order of Melchizedek forever.
And now finally, in chapter seven, the author of Hebrews gets to talk about Melchizedek.
Now, when we talk about this today, it's kind of going to be a little bit of a history lesson.
But I think it's important for us to understand what's being said here.
Now, what's being said about Melchizedek probably doesn't connect with us in the same way that it did with the original audience.
They would have had some knowledge about Melchizedek and probably some understanding about Melchizedek that is beyond most of us,
because we probably haven't ever spent much time talking about or studying Melchizedek.
But he uses this example of Melchizedek because this is an important example for his audience and is a good example for what they are going through.
Now, in Genesis chapter 14, what we see taking place is there are some kings that are battling against each other.
And one group of kings is able to defeat the other group of kings.
And so they go in and they take the land and they take what's there.
And one of the things that is there is Lot, the nephew of Abraham.
So these kings come in, they defeat these other kings, they take Lot, and word gets back to Abraham that Lot has been taken.
So Abraham gathers up 318 guys and they go and they defeat these kings and he's able to rescue Lot.
Now, he gets all the plunder from being able to defeat these kings, Abraham does.
Abraham doesn't keep any of that plunder for himself, as you read through the text in Genesis 14.
But after he defeats these kings, he goes before the king of Salem, a guy by the name of Melchizedek.
And he gives Melchizedek a tent of the plunder that he received.
He gives the rest to the other kings.
And when he goes before Melchizedek, it tells us something that's important.
A, he is the king of Salem.
Now, we see in the text that we look at today that Melchizedek's name means the king of righteousness.
But he's also the king of Salem, and Salem means king of peace.
And so in Melchizedek, what we see is one who is a king of righteousness and a king of peace.
And so Melchizedek was the king of Salem, but it also tells us something else that's of importance in Genesis 14.
It says that Melchizedek was the high priest of God.
And here was Abraham, the patriarch, the one that God made the promises through,
and Abraham was great in the eyes of the Jews.
And indeed he was, because the promise came through him, the promise of Abraham's seed.
That is Jesus Christ, who was to come.
So Abraham is a significant character in the Bible.
But yet Abraham goes before Melchizedek, and Melchizedek blesses Abraham.
And that's what we see referenced here in the book of Hebrews.
What does the author of Hebrews tell us here in chapter 7?
That the lesser, the inferior, is blessed by the superior.
That is to say that Melchizedek was greater than Abraham.
Now, this is significant for the original audience,
because the original audience, they really held Abraham to a high standard, but rightfully so.
But what the author of Hebrews wants the audience to know is that there is one greater than Abraham.
Now, we see this in the New Testament, that a lot of the times that the Pharisees and the Jewish people,
they're really concerned about the law of God.
That is the commands that we see God give his people in the Old Testament.
God gives them a lot of commands.
We may be familiar with the Ten Commandments, but there are lots of commands,
over 600 commands that God gives his people as to how to live, how to treat one another,
how the priesthood is supposed to take place, how the tabernacle is supposed to be built,
the role of the priest, the sacrifices for what sins, when sacrifices are to be made,
what feasts are to be held, and when they're to be held,
and all these commands that God gives to his people in the law.
And so the Jewish people held the law to a very high standard.
But even so, sometimes Abraham is referenced in saying that, look, okay, God used the law for a purpose,
but look, Abraham came before the law and he was justified by what?
He was justified by faith, not by the law.
And so sometimes we see this idea of whatever one holds to greatness,
the writers will point to one who is greater than come before.
Now, Abraham was certainly greater than the law.
He was saved by his faith.
But yet there's still one who is greater than Abraham.
And the author of Hebrews uses Melchizedek to make this example.
Now, there's something that is very, very unique about Melchizedek, and that is this.
Melchizedek was both a king and he was a high priest.
Now, that's very unique because in the law, God had spelled out specifically who were to be kings,
and they were to come from this bloodline.
And specifically who were to be priest.
They were to come from another bloodline.
So you had the kings that were going to come from the line of David and all the way down to Jesus.
And then you had the priesthood that was going to come from the Levites.
And those two positions were exclusive to each other.
No priest would do the job of a king and no king would do the job of the priest.
It was the priest's job to offer sacrifices for the people,
to carry out the sacrifices and to sprinkle the blood and all those things that the law sped out.
This was the job of the priest and particularly the high priest.
It was the high priest who would once a year go into the inner sanctuary,
the most holy place where the Ark of the Covenant sat,
and would do what the law commanded and blood would be sprinkled.
And there were two goats.
There was one goat that would be sacrificed for the sins of the people.
There was another goat that hands would be placed on that goat by the high priest,
and all the people's sins would be cast out.
That was the scapegoat.
That goat would be let go.
He would run away carrying the people's sins away,
and the other goat's sacrifice would cover the sins that the people had done.
And this was part of what God had commanded in the Old Testament,
and this was the job of the high priest.
But the king didn't do that job.
The king had a job.
The king was to lead the people, to take care of the people, to protect the people, to provide for the people.
The king had a job and a responsibility, but the king and the priest were separate.
And so under the law that the audience of Hebrews knew, they had those two separate things.
But what the author of Hebrews is trying to tell his audience over and over
is that there is one better than the law, that there is one better than Abraham.
There is one better than everything you've known.
There's something better that has come, and it has come in Jesus Christ.
And this is where the comparison is appropriate, because Jesus Christ is like Melchizedek,
in that he serves as both our king of kings and our high priest.
This is what makes Jesus unique.
This is what the author of Hebrews wanted his audience to know.
Jesus is both your priest and your king.
Now, he probably realized that he was going to get some pushback.
Well, wait a minute. That's not what the law says.
These people are supposed to be kings, and these people are supposed to be priests.
And so that's why he brings up Melchizedek.
And he says, look, Jesus, as we see in Psalm 110 verse 4,
Jesus is a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.
That is to say, there is a priesthood that is before the priesthood of the Old Testament law.
It says here in Hebrews chapter 7 that Melchizedek is one without beginning and without end.
He's without genealogy. What does that mean?
Does it mean that Melchizedek has lived forever and that he never died?
Does it mean that we don't know where he come from?
He just appeared because he doesn't have any genealogy?
Well, I don't think that's what that means.
I think he's using this as an example.
That is to say, we don't know much about Melchizedek, and we don't.
Genesis chapter 14 doesn't tell us anything about Melchizedek
other than he was a priest and he was a king, and his priesthood is forever that we see in Scripture.
And so Melchizedek is this example here for who Jesus is.
Jesus has always been. He didn't have a beginning and he does not have an end.
Now, I believe Melchizedek did.
I believe Melchizedek was someone who was born by parents,
and he certainly had a family tree, and he died one day.
Certainly those things are true, I believe, but we don't have a record of those things.
And that's what makes this example an appropriate example,
because the people would have acknowledged that Melchizedek was someone special,
and they would have acknowledged the greatness of Melchizedek
because they acknowledged the greatness of Abraham, and Abraham came before Melchizedek,
and Melchizedek blessed Abraham.
And so this stuff's kind of strange to us or weird to us, or we're not familiar with these things,
but the original Hebrew audience here would have been somewhat familiar with these things.
They would have been familiar with Melchizedek and with Abraham.
And so what the author of Hebrews is saying is, look, you put a lot of focus on Abraham.
You put a lot of focus on the law. You put a lot of focus on the priesthood.
That's one of the things that this group wanted to go back to.
They were being tempted to go back to the old sacrificial system.
They wanted to go back to the temple and start offering sacrifices for the forgiveness of their sins.
And the author of Hebrews says Jesus has done that.
That's why at the end of chapter 6 when it says of Jesus that he's entered the inner sanctuary,
that he's gone behind the curtain, what he's saying is Jesus is the high priest once and for all.
The priesthood has changed hands, and Jesus is the new high priest forever.
Now we'll talk more about that next week because the author of Hebrews for the next three chapters,
chapters 7, 8, 9, and 10, four chapters, he really focuses on what he's talking about.
So this passage today is introducing us to what the author of Hebrews is really trying to tell his audience.
And that is Jesus is greater than everyone. He's greater than Abraham.
He's greater than Melchizedek because he is both our king and he is our high priest.
Now there's a lot of stuff in this passage that talks about tents and the Levites and all this stuff.
And I don't think that the point of this passage in any way is about tithing or about tents.
I don't think that that is the point that the author of Hebrews is trying to make.
I don't think that's the point at all.
He's making the point about the Levites and about the tents and about Abraham to say that, look, Melchizedek was before these things.
Before there was the law, there was Melchizedek. Before there was a law, there was a high priest of God.
And the focus is not even so much on Melchizedek and who he was because as the author of Hebrews says,
we don't know anything about him. But Jesus is like him in that Jesus is eternal.
Jesus has no beginning and he has no end. He is the son of God. He is the king of kings.
He is the Lord of Lord and he is the high priest of God's people.
And so he finally gets to talk about the greatness of Jesus, that Jesus is greater than Melchizedek.
We see this example alluded to in the Old Testament, this idea even back in the book of Zechariah,
that there would one day be one who would serve as priest and as king.
In Zechariah chapter 6, Zechariah chapter 6, verses 12 and 13, it says,
You are to tell him, this is what the Lord of hosts says. Here is a man whose name is Branch.
He will branch out from his place and build the Lord's temple. Yes, he will build the Lord's temple.
He will be clothed in splendor and will sit on his throne and rule.
There will also be a priest on his throne and there will be peaceful counsel between the two of them.
So this passage here that's speaking of something that's going to happen in the future,
it's speaking about Jesus who was going to come in the future.
Jesus is the branch who was spoken of here and Jesus did come.
Jesus is that branch who fulfilled this passage, but it's interesting language that we see here.
What does it say? It speaks of a priest who is to come
and it speaks of that priest who is to come as one who will sit on a throne.
Now that should have been a clue for the people.
That was a clue that's pointing us forward to Jesus Christ
because in the days of when this prophecy was given, there were no priests that sit on the throne.
It was the king who sit on the throne.
But what this passage is telling us about the branch to come, that is Jesus,
is that he will be both a priest and a king.
He is a priest who will do his job.
He is a priest who has given his life on the cross.
Jesus died. He shed his blood so that your sins could be covered.
He was the sacrificial lamb for you and I.
So Jesus as the high priest did not just offer any sacrifice, he offered himself.
And once Jesus did his job as a high priest,
we see at the beginning of the book of Hebrews that he is ascended on high
and that Jesus is seated at the right hand of God.
He is seated on his throne because he is the king.
And this is very important.
And the author of Hebrews tells his audience,
you need to recognize that Jesus is greater than any king that has come before you.
Jesus is greater than any priest who has come before you.
Jesus has succeeded in both of those offices in ways that no man could.
And therefore he is a better king.
He is a better priest and he is better than Melchizedek.
There is a priesthood that has been established before the beginning of time
and it is through Jesus Christ and it is far better than the priesthood that came in the law.
Because the priesthood that came through the law could never give forgiveness of the people's sins,
only momentarily.
Certainly those sins would be forgiven when the high priest would do his job,
but the high priest had to continue day after day, year after year, to make sacrifices for the people.
But when Jesus made a sacrifice, it was once and for all.
The sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross is good enough to cover your sins both now and forevermore.
And that is why Jesus is seated at the right hand of God because he has done his work today.
So the author goes through a whole bunch of stuff about Melchizedek and about the past to make that point,
that Jesus is better, that Jesus is a better king and he has established a better kingdom.
In the old days, the sacrificial system took place in the temple.
But what does it say of this branch here in Zechariah chapter 6?
It speaks of he was going to build a temple.
What kind of temple did Jesus build?
He built us.
In the New Testament, we see clearly that God's people are the temple of God,
that we are being built into a spiritual house,
that we are being built into a royal priesthood upon Jesus Christ.
We are the temple of God in which God indwells in the New Testament.
In the Old Testament and up to the time of Jesus, the temple is a physical building.
But after the time of Jesus in the New Testament, God's people are referred to as his temple.
God's people are referred to as his sanctuary.
And so this branch who is going to come, who is Jesus Christ, has built a temple,
and that is those who have put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ today.
Now when we speak of the role of the priest and the role of the king,
the role of the priest was to offer sacrifices for the forgiveness of sins.
Jesus has accomplished that for you today.
The role of the king was to provide for and to protect his people.
And Jesus as our king has done that for us today.
Jesus offers us protection. He offers us provision.
He gives us all we need. It is found in Jesus Christ and Christ alone.
And that's important. That's important for his audience
because they were tempted to turn from Jesus Christ to other things.
Now you and I today in this room are not tempted to turn back to the old sacrificial system.
We don't want a temple to be resurrected and goats of blood and bulls to be sacrificed,
and we don't want to bring our goats and animals here today to sacrifice them
because we know that Jesus Christ is our sacrifice once and for all.
So that's not our temptation today is to go back to the old sacrificial system.
At least I hope it's not.
But there are certainly many temptations today that may tempt us to be pulled away from Jesus Christ,
things that may cause us to turn from Jesus Christ, things that we choose sins of the world,
things that may...we get into those things and we begin to drift away from God as we see in Hebrews chapter 2.
And what does he say to them? He says, be careful that you do not drift.
In chapter 6, be careful that you do not fall away.
So we need to be careful this morning.
We need to be careful that we are not those who fall into the same trap of the audience of the book of Hebrews.
Jesus has done his part. As priest, he has been a sacrifice for us.
As king, he has provided for us.
And as servants of the king, we have a role as well.
And that is to serve our priest and king, Jesus Christ.
That's to serve him.
Now the thing about Jesus being priest and king is maybe still today there's some part of us
that wants to separate those two offices, but they're not separate offices.
They're not held by separate people. They're held by the same person.
You can't follow one and not the other.
You can't say, I'm going to serve the priest, but I'm not going to serve the king.
That's not the way it is. He's the same person.
Too many times in our lives, people want to serve Jesus and they want the priestly part of Jesus.
They want to serve Jesus as high priest because he forgives them of their sins.
And that's what we want is the easy way out.
Jesus, forgive me of my sins and let me go on and continue to sin because I know you'll forgive me for them.
And people like that part of Jesus, the one who died for our sins so that we could be forgiven, praise God.
But then as king, we are called to serve the king.
We are called to be obedient to the king.
We are called to be submissive to the king and that part we don't really like.
And so too many times people want to have it, well, I'll serve Jesus as my savior,
but I'm not going to serve him as my king.
Sometimes people even say that, well, Jesus was my savior for years, but he wasn't my king.
We need to make sure that Jesus is both our savior and our king.
We need to make sure that our sins are covered by the precious blood of Jesus Christ,
who is our priest, who gave himself as a sacrifice for us.
And we need to submit to him and say, Lord Jesus, you are the king of my life.
Lord Jesus, you are better than my career.
Lord Jesus, you are above my family.
Lord Jesus, you are above my wealth.
Lord Jesus, you are above my fame and popularity.
Lord Jesus, you are above everything in my life.
You are the king of my life and I submit to you.
But that's hard for us to do.
Even if we really desire that in our heart, it's hard.
We have to pray. We have to seek God because we like to be the kings and queens of our own life.
We like to be the ones who are in control.
We like to do what we want to do, when we want to do it, how we want to do it.
But when we become a Christian, we are submitting ourselves to Jesus Christ.
When we become a Christian, what we are saying is, Lord Jesus, I accept your sacrifice
and I praise you for it and I submit myself to you.
I submit to do what is right by you.
I submit to do by what you command.
I submit to do by what is good, by what you want, not what I want.
And that's a struggle sometimes.
Because sometimes the things that you and I want are not the things that God wants for us.
So when we look at this passage today, yeah, we talk about a lot of stuff about Melchizedek
and about the Old Testament and the way in Abraham.
But the point is this, is that Jesus is greater.
Jesus is greater than all that has come before Him.
And there are none greater coming after Him.
Jesus is in. Jesus is the beginning, He's the end.
He is all things in between, all things were created through Him, for Him, and by Him.
He is the King of kings and Lord of lords, the high priest of His people,
and He is seated at the right hand of God.
And there is no other we can turn to in this world or in this life to Jesus Christ.
Jesus is better.
And that's the point that we've seen throughout the whole book of Hebrews,
again and again and again.
Jesus is better.
What is He better than? He's better than everything.
You fill in the blank. Jesus is better.
Now the people here in the book of Hebrews, they were in difficult times.
They were experiencing hard times and they were tempted to give up on God.
But we must trust in God even in the midst of those hard times,
to know that God has not left us or forsaken us.
Times are difficult and they are painful and they are hard.
Sometimes we wonder where God is. Is He listening? Does He care? Is He coming?
Yes, He cares. Yes, He's listening.
And one day He will come to your aid and maybe in this life or maybe in the life to come.
But God has not forgotten you. God will bless you. God will deliver you.
We see that in Genesis chapter 14 when Melchizedek blesses Abraham.
Melchizedek praises God. And he says to Abraham, he says of God, he says,
I praise God because He has delivered you.
And there is one who has come to us who is greater than Melchizedek
who gives us that same hope and that is Jesus Christ.
He is the one who has come and He has delivered us.
It doesn't mean that your life is going to be perfect.
It does not mean that you're not going to have hard times today.
It does not mean that you're not going to struggle this week and next month and next year.
There are going to be hard times and struggles that are going to come in your life.
But we have a deliverer in Jesus Christ.
And even if we don't see the light at the end of the tunnel, it is there in Jesus Christ.
Perhaps we don't see the light because we're not looking in the right place.
Perhaps we need to refocus today. We need to refocus on Jesus Christ.
We need to be reminded that Jesus is better than the things of this world.
And we need to be reminded that Jesus Christ is seated on the throne because He is victorious.
I hope you've put your faith and trust in Him today.
And if you have not, I pray that you will. Let's pray.
Father God, we come to you today. We thank you for this word, dear Lord.
It's a lot to think about with Melchizedek and all this stuff, dear Lord.
But let us not miss the forest for the trees, dear Lord.
Let us not fail to see what your word is pointing us to here,
and that is the greatness of who Jesus is.
God, I pray that perhaps today we will be reminded of the greatness of Jesus Christ,
for those who know Him. Sometimes we need to be reminded of Him, dear Lord.
We need to be reminded of His sacrifice and Your grace, God.
Maybe there are some today and they've never known the greatness of Jesus Christ,
but maybe today through these words they have.
Maybe today, God, they have made that decision to put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ.
God, you call us to repent of our sins, that is to turn away, to stop what we're doing.
To turn to You, to turn from our sin and to turn to Jesus Christ.
God, you call us to stop being the King of our own life and to trust Jesus as our King.
So, God, maybe we need to lay down our crowns today,
and we need to worship the one who is seated on the throne in Jesus Christ.
God, maybe there are some today who do not know Jesus Christ.
Maybe they've been searching and seeking, and maybe they've tried everything in the world.
But, God, I pray today that they would know that Jesus is better,
that they would trust Him and seek Him this morning.
God, maybe there are some here today and they're yours.
And maybe they're just in the midst of a really difficult time.
I pray today that they would not give up on you, dear Lord,
that they would not lose hope, that they would continue to put trust in Jesus Christ,
that they would today be reminded of the greatness of the power of who Jesus is.
God, we thank You that Jesus has come to give His life on the cross so that we may be forgiven.
But we must ask for that forgiveness, and we must put our faith in Jesus Christ to receive it.
So, I pray today, God, that we would do that this morning.
God, I thank You for who Jesus is.
God, I thank You for the fact that He is seated on the throne as King,
because, God, that tells us that He is victorious.
His work is done, dear Lord.
And one day He will come back for us, God.
But until that day comes, let us be found faithful to be a servant to You.
Let us be found a faithful people, dear Lord, that never question You, never doubt You,
but know that You are our deliverer, no matter what we are up against.
And I ask these things in Jesus' name, Amen.