Hebrews 4:14-16 - Real Help for Real Life

Listen along as we continue our series through the book of Hebrews.

Notes//Quotes:

Hebrews 4:14-16 - Mike

Heb 4:14-16

1 Tim 3:16

“As I reflect on Jesus’ temptations … I realize they centered on his reason for coming to earth, his “style” of working. Satan was, in effect, dangling before Jesus a speeded-up way of accomplishing his mission. He could win over the crowds by creating food on demand and then take control of the kingdoms of the world, all the while protecting himself from danger” - Philip Yancey

AFTER CENTURIES of handling and mishandling, most religious words have become so shopworn nobody's much interested anymore. Not so with grace, for some reason. Mysteriously, even derivatives like gracious and graceful still have some of the bloom left.   Grace is something you can never get but can only be given. There's no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about any more than you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks or bring about your own birth.   A good sleep is grace and so are good dreams. Most tears are grace. The smell of rain is grace. Somebody loving you is grace. Loving somebody is grace. Have you ever tried to love somebody?   A crucial eccentricity of the Christian faith is the assertion that people are saved by grace. There's nothing you have to do. The grace of God means something like: "Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are, because the party wouldn't have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It's for you I created the universe. I love you." There's only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you'll reach out and take it.   Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too. Frederick Buechner

I wrote a book on grace, and grace is a free gift, but to receive the gift you have to have your hands open. And a lot of people don’t have their hands open, there’s something they’re grasping because there’s a lot of things to grasp in a prosperous country.” – Philip Yancey

"aid rendered to someone who is miserable or needy, especially someone who is either in debt or without claim to favorable treatment.” - Dictionary of Biblical Imagery

"Mercy is kindness exercised towards the miserable, and includes pity, compassion, forbearance, and gentleness, which the Scriptures so abundantly ascribe to God.”
Charles Hodge

Love without truth is sentimentality; it supports and affirms us but keeps us in denial about our flaws. Truth without love is harshness; it gives us information but in such a way that we cannot really hear it. God's saving love in Christ, however, is marked by both radical truthfulness about who we are and yet also radical, unconditional commitment to us. The merciful commitment strengthens us to see the truth about ourselves and repent. The conviction and repentance moves us to cling to and rest in God's mercy and grace. - Tim Keller