There are many questions that would arise in the mind of anybody reading of resurrection. Some of these questions include: “Who shall be resurrected? In what form shall the one being resurrected be resurrected? Is there any particular order? Shall all people have to die before they are resurrected?” And many other such questions.

In our first discussion, we looked at prayer as our communication with God as His children in Christ Jesus. The Bible assures us that “He who did not spare His only Son, but offered Him for us, would He deny us anything which we ask of Him?” So we are enjoined to pray, believe and we receive as we ask. But Paul here exhorts us to pray for all men especially for those in authority. Does this include the wicked rulers? Should I spend my time both in the public and in the private to pray for those whose rules have caused me so much head and heart ache?

In our earlier series, Christ our Great and Perfect High Priest,  based on Hebrews 7:25-28, we had looked at the High Priestly office of our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ. We saw His merits and qualities that qualify Him to this High office. We saw that He is more than able to perform the mediatorial office in that He lives forever to make intercession for those who come to Him. He is holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners and made higher than the heavens; He does not need to offer sacrifices daily for His own sins but had once offered Himself, a sacrifice that is whole and acceptable to God. Because of all these and more “He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him” 

We now wish to consider the priestly office of the believer. Christ is making intercession for us so that we can “stand against the wiles of the devil”; so that we can “let our lights so shine before men, that they may see our good works and glorify our Father who are in heaven”; so that having reconciled us unto Himself, we can be agents of reconciliation; so that having comforted us in all our troubles and sorrows, we can with the same comfort, comfort them who are suffering; so that having called us out of darkness into His marvellous light, we can “be witnesses unto Him both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria and unto the uttermost parts of the earth”. In short, He is our Great High Priest in Heaven, so that we on earth can be the priest of the otherwise lost world.

This is part three of a sermon series - Christ our Great and Perfect High Priest

The Bible presents the Christian life under a wide range of figures, all of them suggestive and descriptive of the believer’s experience. He is compared to a child, a sheep, a house, a temple, a farm, a pilgrim, a soldier, a bride, members of a body, and many other things. One of the most colourful is that of an athlete, running in a race to obtain the prize or trophy. Such is the figure with which Hebrews 12 opens. “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”(NKJV)