So some of you may know that every Thursday, every Thursday,
I pack up what I would consider a mobile studio.
I have a bag for microphone and speakers and a mic stand.
I pack it up and I bring it to the Correctional Facility in in
Dorchester. I bring it to a juvenile
Correctional Facility and there I help kids write and record hip
hop music. I really enjoy it for the music,
but also just for the conversations that I get to have
for the ways that I build friendships with these young
men. And as you can imagine, in a
juvenile facility, in fact, this particular facility, most of the
men there are facing some serious, serious charges.
And whether they are guilty or not, it's still a traumatic
thing. Even if they can mount an
incident, it's still a traumatic thing to go through that.
And one of the first things I got asked when I started going
into the facility, one of the first things I got asked was,
have you ever been locked up? Have you ever been incarcerated
or have you ever been in my situation?
And although, come on, cover your ears, although I've been
arrested, I've been handcuffed before being a little
transparent, I've been in a holding cell, I've even been on
probation. And I've experienced probably
some similar traumas and trials as some of these young men have
faced in lock up. I have never been in their exact
situation. I've never been faced in 1520
years as a young kid. I don't know what it's like to
have to deal with lawyers and judges for weeks and weeks on
end. And so while I have a good
heart, there's just a way that I can't relate.
And I understand why they ask me that question because we all
when, when, when somebody's working with us, ministering to
us, comforting us, supporting us, Part of the question we
often have is have you been through what I've been through?
Do you know my context? And so this is a lot of what
this section of Hebrews is about saying.
Jesus is not only who he is, he also understand who we are.
Let's pray. Thank you, God.
I pray that the next few minutes would fall on good soil, meaning
that this word would resonate not just today, but be
actualized to the lives of everyone listening.
I thank you for the opportunity to speak both to myself and to
your people in Jesus name, Name, Amen.
So we're in Hebrews, and unlike several of the New Testament,
the bigger New Testament books, the author and the audience of
Hebrews is not completely clear. Through extensive scholarly
research, I've hypothesized that they probably are Hebrews, but I
think I'm safe to say that part. They had knowledge of Israel's
history. They speak to have some
knowledge of Jesus and the resurrection.
They had knowledge of the law that was given to Israel through
Moses. That didn't save them, but
revealed then and revealed brokenness and kind of ushered
on a legacy toward Jesus. They had knowledge of the
priesthood system of sacrifices. They had knowledge of Israel's
oppression, both by oppression from within, from bad leaders,
and also occupation, colonization from Rome.
They had knowledge of losing and I want to just stop here to say
that the the cultural context of the Bible is always important.
The way that I read Hebrews is just not going to be fully the
way that the Hebrews of the day is going to grasp it.
It's what I think it's important to just realize as we wrestle
with Scripture that there's always a culture and context
that Scripture is speaking to. Sometimes I hear the term like
Christ over culture. And while I understand the
sentiment, I don't think that's an apples to apples comparison,
right? As the gospel was spread
throughout the world, they had to engage the culture of the
day. People had to wrestle with the
aspects of culture that were good.
And Christ was like, let's keep that.
Let's keep, let's keep these elements of celebration.
Let's keep these elements of culture and values and then the
ones that they had to drift away from if Jesus came today.
We have to wrestle with the parts of our culture, each one
of us, from our cultural context, those that we want to
keep or those that we feel like God is challenging.
And I just think that because I think it's important.
One of the reasons why we study the Old Testament is to know
about the culture of the day in which Jesus was coming, to know
about the historical context that we can make it real in our
lives, but also know that in some ways the Bible was written
before us, but not to us. And I think it just makes Jesus
even real. You know, all of us have an
ethnicity, all of us have a cultural background.
And I, as a black man, have to wrestle and reconcile with some
of the things in my culture. And the more I do that openly,
the more Jesus feels real to me. So culture and context.
So within that culture and context, I want to focused on
three areas or three identities that Jesus was expressed or that
was expressed about Jesus in this day.
I want to focus on king, high priest and human.
If I say King, say Jesus is high priest and Jesus was human.
So the king, right, there's a spray training and cultural
remembrance for kingships, right?
It wasn't just about the current king and the current occupation,
but they had a memory of what kings were and what kings
weren't. Just like it's not a it's not a
like for like, but just like we often think of presidents, we'll
think we'll have our opinions about the current president and
it'll also be along the backdrop of all the presidents Before
that. We'll know that some presidents
or leaders were decent and some were just lessons.
Amen. And so there was a history.
Also just like us, there was divided opinions upon what their
leadership legacy was based on generation.
But unlike American culture, the kingship had a lot to do with
family and ancestral lives. And also the lines of politics
and theology were pretty much wanted to say right.
I think it's unfortunately getting a little close to the
back in these days, but definitely closer than that back
then. But their, their context was
that prophecies over and over again had been not just talking
about a human king that would come, but an everlasting king, a
kick that would be above all the kings that they had, good and
bad, and not just the king of Israel, but the king of all the
nations. And so that's what they had been
waiting for. They, their culture had been
anticipation for this new king all throughout the storms, all
throughout the prophets. Let's talk about this king with
an everlasting throne. And so as we think about coming
to the throne boldly, we want to rightly relate to who Jesus is.
And so to rightly relate to him as king is to acknowledge his
ruleship, to acknowledge his power, to acknowledge his
guidance, to have confidence that he is the victorious one.
The term good news often was either when a king was born or
when a battle was won and a new era of peace would usher in.
So when we say good news, we're saying there's there might have
been other kings in your life or in the culture, but there's good
news is a new king. This is how we rightly relate to
Jesus as king. All right, So everybody say
Jesus is king. Jesus is also high priest and
there's a without trying to unpack the full system of
priests, the priest also held a very important role in Israel,
Israel's culture. They were from the tribe of Levi
and the later descendants of Aaron, Moses, his brother, and
the the the the priests were set apart after they refused to give
their allegiance to the golden calf.
And so God was like, you people are a holy people that I will
set apart for myself. The priests had a hand in
brokering the relationship between man's sinfulness and
God's holiness. Sin demands sacrifice.
Or the priest would take animals and sacrifice them in the
temple, and that would broker the relationship between man and
God. Also, priests would have to be
sympathetic to sin. They would have to understand
not only the people and the culture sin, but their own sin.
When they would go into the temple, they have to make
sacrifices for their own sin first.
They have to, in theory, get the plank out of their own eye
before they make sacrifices on behalf of the people.
And just like kings, priests were also prone to corruption
and humanity. Now also just the sidebars.
The the priests were supposed to be sympathetic to human
sinfulness. This was an emphasis.
Although I think we should be sympathetic to all humans, to
all sinfulness. This was an emphasis on those
that were ignorant and misguided.
Not as much, though, people just out there celebrating their
sinfulness, although I do think there's a way to engage
sympathy. But it was talking about folks
that were misguided, the ignorance, the fallenness of
humanity. And if we want to follow that
blueprint, just to just to pause, we don't always do that.
We're not always sympathetic, right?
How many times have you like overcome something or in a good
season and then somebody comes to you with a similar problem
and that judgment switch just just flicks on.
All of a sudden you forget where you came from.
You forget the sympathy and the compassion and the patience that
you needed to overcome. That was a qualification of
priests. Amen.
So we relate to Jesus. We relate to Jesus as high
priest by confession, by being honest with where we are, honest
with our sinfulness and also by finding joy in the relationship.
One of the first times where where the priest offered
sacrifices and God's fire consumed it, the people shouted
with joy because they were like our sacrifice is acceptable.
The relationship is popping now. So we relate to Jesus as a high
priest by finding joy in the relationship, by finding
intimacy in the relationship. So we have king and priest
kings, political, military authority, representation of
power, priests as spiritual authority, broken the
relationship with God, still with me.
OK, They came from different ancestral lines, right?
Kings were from the tribe of Judah, priests were from Levi.
But later it says Jesus is in the order of Melchizedek.
Melchizedek, as I like to call this, is Melchizedek, who is
Melchizedek. So Melchizedek is a mysterious
figure in the Bible. He showed up in Genesis.
His name means king of righteousness, or his name means
righteousness. He was also called the king of
Salem, and Salem means peace. Everybody says peace.
He's really the first actual priest mentioned in the Bible
that he's mentioned before. The priestly system is even set
up. So this is the mystery, this is
the wondering. Like some figures in the Bible,
his death is never really mentioned or emphasized.
Not saying he didn't die, but there was a level of mystery and
a level of kind of elevation of this.
This man was more than just a priest, and he was also a figure
in the Bible that was mentioned as a king and a priest, a king
and a priest. And so in that order, Jesus
brings these two roles together, king and priest.
Everybody say king and priest, He brings these two roles
together. He brings righteousness and
peace. He brings power and humility,
strength and sympathy. This is the God we serve, right
man. So we got king, we got priest,
we got human. The premise of the gospel is God
wrapping himself in human limitations to walk with us, to
sit with us, to be tempted with us, to suffer with us.
You know, some of the critique from other ideologies and other
especially ancient religions is that the Christian God was too
weak. God should never make himself
that vulnerable. Ibn I'm going to butcher the
name, so forgive me. Ibn Tim Miya, a Muslim.
Many of scholars say if the Messiah was God or the Son of
God, as they claim, then how could his enemy seize him, beat
him, spit on him, and crucify him if he was unable to prevent
him? That he is powerless if and if
he was able to prevent it and did not, and he is not fitting
to be God. That is a critique.
But I think the paradigm of Christian and biblical power is
different. The paradigm of Christian power
is different. It's not all about domineering
and having your way all the time.
It is about sacrifice. It is about servant leadership.
It is about humility. It's about servanthood, and I
understand if your paradigm of power is different, then Jesus
might look weak to you, and Christians following Jesus might
look weak to you. But if you subscribe to Jesus,
this is how we show our power through servant leadership.
Amen. And so it says God is not.
Jesus is not unable to sympathize with our weakness,
but tempted in every way. In every way.
And I was curious about like what the actual translation of
this word sympathize. It was from the Greek word
sympathy. O.
And I was just, I was really curious about it.
So when I looked it up, it's, I was like, is it sympathy?
Because sympathy is like feeling bad for somebody, right?
And, and, and research said it's not just sympathy.
It's not just sympathy. That's not enough.
I said, OK, it's an empathy. Empathy is entering emotionally
into the state of somebody else, right?
It's not just empathy. This word in Greek includes
sympathy, includes empathy, but it also means actually having
suffered, like physically suffered, either present or past
with the person. It's more than just emotionally
entering it. It's more than just feeling bad.
This word is tough, but I have suffered with you.
And so back to the story I said. I've ministered to brothers that
are incarcerated. I haven't.
I can't fully enter into that suffering.
I don't have a context for that. My friend can tell who was
incarcerated for 19 years as a kid.
He goes into the same prisons. He actually goes the day before
me and speaks to the same kids, same young men.
He can sympathize in that way. He can sympathize.
Oh, he can say, I know what it's like, exactly what it's like.
And there's ways in you in which you and your story and your
context can minister and sympathize to somebody to say, I
know exactly what it's like to be from your context, to suffer
in that way. You know, if you were, if you
were injured, whether it be through war or street violence,
or just just say you were injured in the abdomen and or
just at the wrong place in the wrong time, you would comfort,
you would accept comfort, you would accept support, you would
accept sympathy. But it's another thing if
somebody comforts you and then lifts up their shirt, since I
have the same scars. Amen.
And so this is the Jesus we follow.
This is the blueprint that that was tempted with us and
sympathizes with us and has suffered with us.
And so I want to share a quick piece that I did this.
This is a, a poem or a spoken word piece that is called
forsaken. It was done in the context of
Good Friday from Jesus perspective, what I imagine
Jesus might be saying, what Jesus might be saying about the
feelings and the emotions of abandonment and suffering.
And so the first part of it is my me speaking from the
perspective of Jesus. And then the next part of it is
Jesus making what Caleb might say about it.
And so it says God's still loved the world, but it hated me.
A sacrifice for sin is how this came to be.
And right now the suffering is overtaking me.
So my God, why has thou forstaken me?
I mean it hurts me to my core, I mean this pain is deep, but
still my love is pure. Go ahead, taste and see my body
broken. Half this bread, take and eat my
blood spilled. Hold this cup, take a drink.
So my disciples in the garden, please pray with me.
I checked back with them later and well may asleep.
And before a decision was made to stay or leave, Judas came
with a kiss. He was betraying me, the Son of
God, wholly on the throne, reduced to a beaten man, feeling
lonely and alone, suffocating on the cross, trying to take a
breath only to exhale and continue dying a painful death
that costing evils too much. I had to pay the debt, and that
price is pretty great, but greater is thy faithfulness.
Still. The closest friends I thought I
had came and when I tried to warn about the human hearts
deranged intent, I took the people's hands and fists and I
handled it. I felt the plant, the whips man,
it was scandalous because with physical pain there's
manuscripts to managing, but there ain't no manages for
abandonment. So God still loved the world,
but it hated me. A sacrifice with thinness.
How it just came to be. And right now the suffering's
overtaking me. So my God, why has thou fast
thanked me? I said God still loved the
world, but it hated me. A sacrifice with sin is how this
came to be. And if I'm really thinking about
how all this weighs on me, it reminds me of what my servant
Caleb prayed to me. He said, dear Lord to the holy
God above me. Sometimes I'm afraid to share
because I think that people will judge me.
And though I've got a bunch of friends and family that love me
as often, I can't deny that I'll be feeling like it's just me
when that loneliness seems unbearable and my own spin seems
unshareable. And the last time I felt OK was
1000 prayers ago. And the only thing I want to
know from God is where he go get me off this ride.
I'm screaming. I don't like this merry grow,
this merry go this troubles tangible inside my heart.
I'm feeling damn bit cold. I believe in the light, but this
darkness is just terrible feeling like no master strike.
I'm just looking for a flare of close, something to remind me of
that resurrection. Something.
Because right now I feel like I'm second guessing.
And even though I know how the story has amended, it doesn't
stop me from putting everything into question.
Jesus, please, Jesus says. These are the prayers that I
often hear, but right now it's me, the Son of God, fighting
thoughts and fear. See, I was sent to love as the
sinners judge, but I was also going through it in that dark
and straight sweat and blood. Without me, death would come and
be never done. I had to disconnect it at the
root to get the plug. And when I say I was tempted,
listen up. It means I've dealt with all
those private thoughts you're thinking of.
So join me as I pose the question.
When it seems like the omnipresent God is God missing,
go to God with it because he said He'll be God with us and a
relationship can't last if it's only long distance.
So listen, let me make it real for you.
If you feel stuck up in that space and feel forsaken, you can
tell the truth. I'll hover that tree in your
place so I can help you through. And if you're feeling far away
from God, just know I felt it too.
So God still loved the world, but it hated me.
A sacrifice was thin is how this came to be.
And right now the sufferings overtaking me.
So by God, why has thou forsaken me?
See Jesus know what it's like to be tempted.
He knows what it's like in that garden.
When he said let this cup pass, he was basically saying God God.
He was saying Father God before he had to go die, he said,
Father God, please let this cup pass and since your will.
But if it's not, I'm still going to be obedient in in in an
interesting way. Jesus knows what it's like to
want a shortcut, to desire a shortcut.
Jesus know what it's like to pray for that shortcut and your
prayer not be answered and still be obedient.
Amen. In Luke 18, so it says approach
boldly. What do we mean approach boldly?
In Luke 18 two men went up to the temple and prayed.
This is a parable. In Luke 18 two men went up to
the temple and prayed. 1A Pharisee and the other a tax
collector. The Pharisee stood by himself
and prayed. God, I thank you that I'm not
like other people, robbers, evil doers, adulterers, or even like
this tax collector. I hope the tax collector was out
of here shot because that's pretty shady.
Even at this tax collector, I fast twice a week and give a
tenth of all I get. But the tax collector stood at a
distance. He would not even look up to the
heaven, but he beat his breast. Is that God have mercy on me, a
thinner mercy on me, a thinner. I tell you that this man rather
than the other went home justified before God.
For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and
those who humbled himself will be exalted.
We ask for mercy and grace. Mercy to be OK with our lack and
not in a self depreciating way, not in a self penny kind of way,
but in a way that invites intimacy.
There is something beautiful that happens to a relationship
when you acknowledge your brokenness, when you acknowledge
your spinfulness. This is in part why we fast, we
put ourselves in a state of lack to remember our brokenness, to
remember the sorrow for sin. And a little cheat code is even
when we're feeling at our best, we're always at a lack compared
to the holy God. And so the more we can get in
touch with that and be comfortable with that, the more
boldly we can approach. Correction is part of the
process. I think we're in a day and age
where because of the Internet, everything lives forever.
We're all scared to be corrected.
This is part of the process. This is part of discipleship.
If you haven't got it corrected, then you're not close enough in
relationship. And as you you, you show your
sinfulness, you show it to God and ask for mercy.
It spills out into other relationships.
You get more confident showing your brokenness to other people.
It creates deeper intimacy in your community.
This is mercy, acknowledging that we need forgiveness, we
need restoration. We need somebody to look us in
the eyes and say, I know you're wrong and I'm still with you,
but we have to be able to admit that we're wrong.
On the way here, On the way here, my wife and I almost got
ran on. My wife and I almost got ran off
the road by a driver that probably just wasn't looking
where they were going. But they literally, quite
literally almost ran us off the highway.
And we pulled up next to them. And I was, I was confident to
like give them a look of compassion, but still look at
them. Now that person, she was
probably nervous, OK, did not look in our direction at all.
And then two, and you know, thank God, we're OK, but it was
harder to give compassion because there was no high
content. There was no like gesture of
apology, right? So mercy becomes harder to give
when nobody's asking you to be merciful.
And I know God has infinite mercy, but the posture he wants
from us is brokenness is honesty is saying I understand my
sinfulness, Lord, I need you with me and then grace.
We say mercy and grace. Everybody say mercy and grace.
We ask for grace, the natural or and or supernatural for what you
need to do and who you need to be to be a child of God.
Man, I think it's never goes under stated or never could be
overstated that we should be praying that we become mature
believers. That prayer alone scolds us in
different ways, praying that we become more and more mature and
close to Christ, praying to overcome temptation.
Danisha theologian Soren Kierkegaard said temptation is a
cheat and a liar. It is careful not to tell the
truth, for its power lies precisely in the lie.
If you want to get the truth from it regarding how great it
really is or not, then you have to be stronger than it.
Make sure that you prevail in temptation.
Then you will know the truth or you will get the truth from it.
That is why there is only One who truly and precisely knows
the size of every temptation. And he was completely able to
put himself in the situation of everyone who was being tempted,
He who was tempted and all thinks in the same way as we
tempted, but who prevailed in every temptation.
We're going to get ready to respond.
So I invite the worship team to come on up as we get ready to
respond to praying to God. God, give me the grace.
Give me the grace to resist temptation.
Give me the grace to overcome temptation trying to be more
mature in Christ. I think God loves when we pray
to God, scold me, mold me to be more mature.
God give us the grace to be generous in a world that's
filled with selfishness. God give us the grace to be self
controlled in a world that's always like I need my knees met
right now. God give us the grace to forgive
when somebody may have done something that was unforgivable.
God give us the grace to be peaceful when violence seems
like the even easy Easter. Help us.
God help us to strengthen our character to give us the grace
of who we need to be. One of the times, you know, one
of my first actual what I remember, like actually
repenting, I come into the altar and repenting.
One of the pastors, Pastor Val asked me, you know, she said,
repent for your sins. And then she said, will you
pray? Pray that God gives you a vision
of freedom to actually just see yourself, not in an idealistic
way, but in a way that says God, I know I'm not there, but this
is who I'm praying to be. When we lack something, we don't
even always have to know the solution right off.
We could come to God and just acknowledge that lack and
acknowledge that brokenness. Sometimes we think we have to
get it all figured out and categorize before we bring it to
God. But God gives mercy and grace
just for those who have a posture that's willing to
receive it. And so as we as I close and we
do this next song, I invite you to pray for his mercy and grace.
Where do you need mercy? Where do you need to overcome
shame? Where do you need to overcome an
insecurity or a way that you know you are his sinfulness that
you're maybe holding on to bitterness?
Where do you feel out of alignment with God?
And maybe you've already made it right, but you just need to feel
God's mercy. You need God's presence to say
I'm still with you. I invite us to pray for that
mercy. And it might not be a one and
done thing. There's some areas in our life
that we continually, continually feel inadequate about.
Can we pray for that mercy, Church and then grace God, give
us the vision of who you are making us become and pray for
that grace. Pray for that character
adjustment. Pray that God molds us and
shapes us and walks with us and strengthens us so that we can
approach the throne boldly. You know, part of the boldness
about approaching the throne was because back in the days when
they sacrificed animals, there was some kind of touch and go
about like if God would accept the sacrifice, it wasn't always
a guarantee based on how the nation was going.
And so with Jesus, we know that the perfect sacrifice has
already been made. The relationship has been made
right. There is an Ave. there as though
we don't have to be kind of standing in in fear and
anticipation, wondering if God's fire is going to consume our
sacrifice, the sacrifice that's been made.
And so we can approach boldly, knowing that if our posture is
out of humility in a contrite harp and a humble harp, that the
sacrifice will be expected and the relationship will be made
right.