This past Wednesday night, Nightline hosted a debate about whether God exists.

I confess that I didn’t watch it. Kirk Cameron, the former child actor, joined a friend of his who is a street evangelist, and they set out to prove the existence of God without resorting to faith, just using scientific proof.

They were debating two self-proclaimed atheists who have founded the “Rational Response Squad” as a way to come against what they see as ridiculously irrational claims that people of faith make.

From the highlights on the web, it doesn’t look like either side convinced anyone to change their mind. But I’m not sure a convincing win for the existence of God would have made the world a different place.

Depending upon which poll you believe, around 90% of Americans believe God exists. Most of us, then, say God exists. The problem is, what is God like? How do we view God?

What we think God is like makes a huge difference in how much we think we need or don’t need Jesus.

Changing what people think about God very well may change the world…and Hebrews tackles this head on. In the section we’re looking at today, the author of Hebrews comes against two particular views of God, and in doing so, shows us why we need Jesus.

One of the things I didn’t say last week introducing the book of Hebrews is why the book was written. It’s clear from many clues scattered throughout the book that whoever it was written for was seriously considering leaving behind their faith in Jesus. The author wants to take them deeper in their understanding of Jesus, help them understand why Jesus means something to their lives, and why he is worth following. Hebrews wants to get our view of God right.

Before we try to understand the correction Hebrews is trying to make, let’s make the mistaken view crystal clear.

Curt Cloninger is an actor who helps us see our wrong views of God. Some people think God really isn’t that involved in our world anymore. Some think God is blind, far off, not very sharp at all. [CLICK slide] Some see God as…[CLICK] a senile old man. Let’s watch Curt. [CLICK]

Hebrews refuses to let us have an old and sleepy God with bad memory!

Look again at Hebrews 4:12 [SLIDE]

In the NIV, it says, “The word of God is living and active.” Sometimes we limit that in our minds to thinking of the bible as the word of God. But remember the opening words of Hebrews itself… “In the past, God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets…but now he has spoken to us by his Son.”

Jesus is God’s speech, God’s word. Jesus is alive and active. When God speaks, it’s not like an old man, kind but forgetful. It is alive! It is active! Jesus, God’s word, cuts through all our deception and justifications and gets right at the heart, opening our lives before God.

When we understand that, though, another problem comes.

Hebrews wipes out the old, senile, irrelevant God…but if God is so powerful and active, maybe he’s out to get us. Maybe he doesn’t like us. Maybe we have no choice but to be completely afraid.

Here’s Curt Cloninger again, giving us another wrong picture of God [CLICK]…God as [CLICK] an angry sheriff.

Nobody here is named Julie Jones, are they?

These little video clips by Curt Cloninger have helped me a lot since I first saw them over 15 years ago. There’s something about exaggerating a wrong view of God and putting it right in front of our eyes that helps us deal with it.

Because many of us have these incorrect views of God. None of us would come out and say out loud that we think God is sleepy and senile. But a whole bunch of us, if we are honest, can point to times where we rationalize and justify our behavior in such convoluted ways that only a rocking chair God would be fooled by it.

What grieves me even more, though, are those of us who let that sheriff God sneak into our thoughts. I don’t think I could count the number of times that people have had a bad experience…maybe a loss of a job, or a car accident, or a broken relationship…I don’t think I could count the people who wondered out loud if a bad experience in their life was God punishing them for something.

If nothing else happens in our journey through Hebrews, maybe we can let this book re-mold our picture of God.

Let’s let the senile God pass away in his rocking chair! Let’s let the sheriff God be destroyed in a shootout at the OK corral!

Hebrews can re-cast and re-shape our view of God.

Jesus, God’s spoken word, is an untamed, uncontrolled, active force in our world. He created the entire cosmos and he knows the infinitely intimate secrets of our lives.

He became a human being, took on flesh and blood it says in Hebrews chapter 2, and he conquered the power of death. He became like us in every way in order to heal the break between ourselves and God.

That nice old God falling asleep on the porch wouldn’t even notice if we lived our lives selfishly and against his intentions. If God were like that, the idea of our wrong actions causing a problem in our relationship with God would be crazy.

But the truth is, God has a claim on our lives as our creator. He didn’t set the world in motion and go off and leave us; he has a purpose and a direction for us and the world he has created. And our selfishness and distractions and failures, our anger and jealousy and evil, have hampered God’s plan and wounded our relationship with him.

So God did something about it by acting and speaking through his Son.

And this is the part that gets rid of the angry sheriff. Because Jesus became like us, because he walked in our shoes and knows exactly what it is like to face weakness and temptation…Jesus is moved to compassion and sympathy. [CLICK]

He sees everything, but he serves as our high priest. Jesus has access to God, and we can cling to him and trust him without fear. He knows and understands our weaknesses, he faced them, and he conquered them.

But that experience leads him to sympathy.

In the original Greek language, there is a great double negative here. We don’t have a high priest who isn’t able to sympathize with our weaknesses.

In other words, Jesus is able and has the power to sympathize with our weaknesses.

The ancient Greek heroic poems…the Odyssey and the Iliad, along with ancient plays…they paint the picture of gods and heroes who are far removed from ordinary people.

An ancient Greek writer said this:

“Many do not believe the writers of history when they relate the marvelous deeds of one like Heracles, because they judge the power or ability (dunamis) of the divine hero in comparison with the weakness (astheneia) of contemporary men.”

The Greek heroes’ power (same word as in verse 15) seems unbelievably distant compared to the weakness (same word) of everyday people. But in Hebrews, we read that Jesus has the power to sympathize with our weaknesses.

So Jesus’ power, ability, are not like the heroes. Jesus isn’t distant, removed, unattainable. Jesus IS able to sympathize with our weaknesses, because he’s walked in our shoes. He’s been tempted in every way like us, only he’s come through clean. This is what makes him such a great high priest! He has gone through the heavens, and he has walked in our shoes, and he is able to sympathize with us.

Jesus knows us inside and out.

His examining and cutting like a two-edged sword, though, do NOT lead us to despair. It leads to sympathy!

It leads to OUR confidence to draw near to God. We can receive some of that power over weakness. [CLICK]

Here, for the first time in 4:16, is the great theme of Hebrews: Boldly come near to God!

It’s ok! He knows our weakness, but he’s not the angry sheriff. He’s not the old man who can’t do anything about it.

He’s the sympathetic, active, alive Jesus, the high priest who sits at the right hand of God and is on our side!

We can walk right into the presence of God, and the promise of Hebrews is that we will receive mercy. Because of Jesus, we can find grace. Our one supreme task is to draw near to this one who has sympathetic power.

Accept the help!