Lindsey Blair and Bobby Gilles recap and discuss Pastor Jonah Sage's sermon from Hebrews 4:15a.
Lindsey Blair and Bobby Gilles recap and discuss Pastor Jonah Sage's sermon from Hebrews 4:15a.
Bobby: Welcome to the Midweek Checkup. My name is Bobby Gilles and I’m joined by Lindsey Blair This past Sunday, we celebrated the second Sunday of Advent and Pastor Jonah Sage continued our Advent series called “A Praying Christmas.”
Lindsey: Pastor Jonah preached from the first part of Hebrews Four verse fifteen. He taught that we pray to experience the nearness of Jesus who understands our weaknesses. And for anyone who missed the sermon or needs help remembering, let’s do the weekly recap:
Bobby: Jonah began by saying that the Greek word that we translate as “understands” in our verse, “This high priest of our understands our weakness,” is where we get the English word “sympathize” from. It means to empathize, to sympathize, and often to suffer alongside. When God came near, he came as one filled with sympathy. He learned about our suffering not by watching and listening but by suffering alongside us.
Lindsey: It’s good that he sympathizes with our weaknesses because we are all weak. And we pray to experience the nearness of one who understands what it's like to be us. We pray to discover the wonder that we are not alone. We are understood, seen, known, and loved.
Bobby: Jesus told us two parables to help us understand the importance of praying to this God who understands and sympathizes with us. Jesus said God is like one of your really good friends. You wake up hungry in the middle of the night…so you go to your BFFs house. Knock and knock. “I’M ASLEEP” he shouts. But he’s your BFF. So you knock and knock and knock. You keep knocking until he finally gives you bread so he can go back to sleep.
Lindsey: Another time, Jesus said praying is like bringing a case to a corrupt judge. The judge won’t listen because you’re poor, and no one really cares what happens. But…you keep asking and asking and asking. It’s like you’re wrestling the judge and won’t let go until he hears the case. Eventually, he rules fairly on the case, so you’ll leave him alone.
Bobby: That friend of yours and that judge don’t understand you.
They don’t suffer alongside you. But they still gave you what you needed because of your persistence. How much more will God supply our needs? This is why we pray and why we’ll continue praying, to experience the nearness of the one who has come and is yet to come again.
Lindsey: This coming Sunday begins the third week of Advent. We’ll continue our series “A Praying Christmas!” And in Bible Fellowship, we’ll discuss an interaction between Jesus and the disciples of John the Baptist, followed by the words of Christ to his own disciples about John … and about us. Join us, and bring a friend.