Hebrews 4:14-5:10

Have you ever walked into a room and immediately felt like you didn’t belong? Perhaps you showed up at the wrong interview location, entered the incorrect hospital room, or attended your spouse’s class reunion where everyone knew each other except you. That uncomfortable feeling of being out of place can be overwhelming—the sense that you’re intruding somewhere you shouldn’t be.

Many people carry this same feeling into their spiritual lives. They approach God with hesitation, convinced they’re not good enough, not clean enough, not worthy enough to enter His presence. They believe church is for “good people” and that God’s throne room has strict admission requirements they simply cannot meet.

But what if everything we believed about approaching God was wrong?

Jesus: Our Great High Priest

The book of Hebrews offers a revolutionary perspective on our access to God. It tells us that we have a great high priest who has passed into the heavens—Jesus, the Son of God. Because of Him, we can hold fast to our profession of faith.

Think about what a priest does. In many religious traditions, a priest serves as a mediator between people and God. They go to God on behalf of the people, and they bring God’s word back to the people. The Catholic Church has helped us understand this concept through their priesthood structure, where priests serve as intermediaries, with the pope serving as a kind of high priest.

But here’s the incredible truth: we don’t need an earthly priest or pope. We have Jesus Himself sitting in the throne room of heaven, arguing our case before the Father.

Imagine having Abraham Lincoln as your lawyer in a courtroom. Before becoming president, Lincoln was a brilliant trial attorney. Having someone of that caliber defending you would provide tremendous confidence. Yet we have someone infinitely better—Jesus Christ, who represents us before the supreme Judge of the universe.

Our confidence to approach God isn’t based on our performance. It’s not about how well we’ve behaved, how many prayers we’ve said, or how many good deeds we’ve accumulated. Our access to God is based entirely on Jesus and what He has done for us.

A High Priest Who Understands

Hebrews 4:15 reveals something profound: “For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”

Jesus understands our struggles. He knows what it’s like to be tempted. He experienced trials and difficulties. He walked through the shadow of death. He’s been there.

In fact, Jesus understands temptation even more deeply than we do. When we face temptation, we often give in relatively quickly. We try to resist, we do well for a while, and then we break down. We don’t feel the full force of temptation because we surrender before experiencing its complete weight.

Jesus, however, felt the full force of every temptation and withstood it. He never gave in. He knows what it takes to resist until the very end.

This matters tremendously when we approach God. Jesus isn’t standing there saying, “You should have been stronger. You should have handled that better.” Instead, He’s saying, “I understand how you feel. I know what it’s like. I get it.”

It’s like going to a doctor who has personally experienced the exact illness you’re facing. When someone has walked through the same situation, they truly understand you. They get it in a way that theoretical knowledge alone cannot provide.

Come Boldly to the Throne of Grace

Here’s the key verse that changes everything: “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).

We can come boldly. Not timidly. Not apologetically. Not sneaking in through the back door. Boldly.

Notice it’s called the throne of grace, not the throne of judgment. Yes, there will one day be a throne of judgment, but when we come to God now through Jesus, we approach the throne of grace.

What do we find there? Two essential things:

Mercy – God forgives us for the things we’ve done wrong. When we confess our sins, He forgives us. This is grace in action—God doing for us what we don’t deserve.

Help in our time of need – God provides assistance when we need it most, even when we don’t deserve it. He gives us the strength to take the next step forward.

Jesus has opened the door wide. When children come to their parents’ house, they don’t knock—they walk right in. In fact, when parents see their children pulling into the driveway, they often rush to open the door and welcome them inside.

Are the children always perfectly clean? Not necessarily. Are they always quiet and respectful? Sometimes they track in dirt or pull out all their toys and scatter them everywhere. But good parents don’t turn them away. They clean them up. They help them. They want their children in the house.

God wants us in His house. Even with our mess. Even with our struggles. He’ll clean us up.

Learning Through Suffering

Hebrews 5 reveals something profound about Jesus: “Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.”

How could the all-knowing Jesus need to learn anything? He learned not through gaining knowledge, but through experience. He lived it out. Jesus suffered, so He learned what suffering was truly about—not just theoretically, but experientially.

This is intensely practical for us. Most of life’s deepest lessons come during our hardest times. We learn more about ourselves, about the people we love, about God, and about life itself during valleys and struggles than during mountaintop experiences.

We wish we could learn everything from books or by watching others. We wish we could avoid the school of hard knocks. But there’s something about hard times that brings us to a place where we truly learn.

Whether it’s sickness, death, relationship breakups, heartaches, loss of jobs, or financial struggles—these difficult seasons teach us that God will get us through. They teach us that the sun really will come up tomorrow, even when we doubt it will.

Jesus understands this because He experienced it. When you’re going through hard times, you can go to Him and say, “Jesus, please help me get through this.” He understands the pain because He went through pain.

The Invitation Stands

You don’t have to clean yourself up before coming to God. You go to Him to get cleaned up. You don’t have to wait until you’re good enough, because you’ll never be good enough on your own. That’s the whole point.

Some people think they can’t go to church or approach God because their life is in shambles. But God essentially says, “Why not? I’ll fix it. Come to me. Let me help you.”

Good parents want their children to come to them, even when those children are involved in things the parents wouldn’t approve of. They don’t want embarrassment or disappointment to create a barrier. They want conversation. They want relationship. The door is always open.

That’s what God offers us. Because of Jesus, we can walk right in. We can approach the throne of grace with confidence, knowing we’ll find mercy and help when we need it most.

So whatever you’re hesitating to talk to God about—whatever sin you need to confess, whatever direction you need, whatever burden you’re carrying—remember this: Jesus has opened the door. The throne of grace awaits. Come boldly.