He Knows and He Understands

Pastor Dave Monreal, Lead Pastor

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Hebrews 4:15

Sometimes we feel all alone. We think that no one understands what we are going through. The things that we are facing seem insurmountable. The problem is too big. The temptation is too great. The struggle is overpowering. This is compounded when we think that God is aloof or that he just won’t understand what we are going through. The Triune God is holy, and we are so sinful we wonder how he can even relate!

The high priest was the one appointed by the other priests to be the one to enter the holy of holies on the day of atonement and make sacrifice for his sins and the sins of the people. He sprinkled the blood of the lamb on the ark of God which was the mercy seat. But Jesus is a high priest unlike the earthly high priests. He was born sinless and lived a life of perfect obedience without wavering and never failing. I can understand how a sinful human high priest could relate to us as a fellow sinner, but how can the perfect high priest relate to us?

The writer to Hebrews reminds us that Jesus is our perfect high priest, and he can sympathize with us more fully than a human priest ever could! How is that? The word for testing and the word for tempting are the same word in Greek. How we translate it is based on the context. Jesus, being fully God and fully man, was of such a character that he felt the pressure of sin but was not internally motivated to sin. We feel both the pressure to sin and are motivated to sin because of our fallen nature.

Here’s the thing, when we are tempted, unless God gives us his strength or delivers us, we will inevitably give in to that sin. We are not strong enough and our sinful desires motivate us to eventually give in to sin if the pressure is on too long or the temptation is too strong. So, we have never felt the full effects of the temptation because, left to ourselves, we will always eventually fail. Jesus, on the other hand, never gave in to temptation so he felt the full, unmitigated pressure of that temptation and did not cave under the pressure! He endured it to the end.

How does this apply to us? This means that no matter what type of temptation we go through our Savior can relate to us because he felt that same pressure to an even greater degree! For from Jesus being aloof or unable to relate, he can relate more fully than we can even comprehend because he knows the full weight of our temptations. We never have to worry that he won’t understand or can’t relate. We don’t have to run away from Jesus. We can run into his arms and know that he sympathizes with what we are going through, and he cares. His sinlessness is not a hindrance to relating to us but a great asset. Whatever we experience or feel, he has experienced and felt to the superlative degree.

Run to the One who knows what you are going through and sympathizes with your weaknesses.