James Merritt - He Gets Us
If you're new or you're joining us for the first time, we're in a series we're calling, "I Doubt It". And we've been dealing with major doubts that both believers and unbelievers have about God, about Jesus, about the Bible, about the church, about truth, about morality, about what's right, about what's wrong. On the one hand, you've got believers like me and I have my doubts, but I believe in spite of my doubts. And then you've got unbelievers who say, "Well, I've got my doubts, and I don't believe because of my doubts".
Well, let me tell you one doubt that all of us probably have struggled with at one time or another. I know I have, and I promise you, you live long enough and you have tragedy or you have suffering come into your life, you will, too. And there's this feeling that we have sometimes that we wonder, "Jesus, I mean, do you really know how I feel? Do you really understand what I'm going through"? Because after all, I mean, how could he know? I mean, he's never been through everything that we've been through. He's never walked in the shoes we've walked in. He's never been to the places we've ever been to.
Well, contrary to that, God's Word's very plain, and that is he really does get us. And if you brought a copy of God's Word today, or you wanna get on your iPad or your iPhone or whatever you use, we're in a book called Hebrews. It's in the New Testament. It's about five or six, seven books back away from Revelation. We're in the book of Hebrews chapter four, and I don't know who wrote the book of Hebrews. Nobody really knows, but whoever wrote this tells us very simply, plainly, but dogmatically, Jesus knows exactly how we feel. It doesn't matter what you're feeling, it doesn't matter why you feel it, he gets us.
Now let me tell you why that's so very important. You see, it's one thing to feel sorry for somebody. It's another thing to feel sorry with somebody. I hope you feel a little bit sorry for me being the pastor on time change Sunday when it's pouring down rain. I hope you feel a little sympathy, but it's one thing to feel sorry for someone. It's another thing to feel sorry with someone. The difference is between sympathy and empathy. Sympathy is when you feel sorry for someone.
So all of, some of you say, "You know, pastor, I really do feel sorry for you," and I appreciate that, but very few of you can have empathy. You can't really feel sorry with me. You know why? You're not a pastor. Doesn't matter to you whether a lot of people come or don't come. Doesn't matter to you if it's raining or not, you know? You don't feel what I feel. You don't have the weight on my shoulders every Sunday, saying, "Man, hope people come, hope people listen, hope people pray, hope people engage, hope people really, really get something out of the day".
Give you a great example. My whole ministry changed, my life changed, my pastoring changed, everything changed in 1998 when my dad died, because for the first time in my life as a pastor or a Christian, I could now say to someone that lost a parent, "I know exactly how you feel". Before that, I couldn't say that. If you've lost both parents, I got news for you. I know exactly how you feel. I can sympathize with you, and I can empathize with you. Let me give you another example. Unfortunately, some of you have lost a child or maybe you've lost a grandchild. I can sympathize with you. I can't empathize with you.
I know how, I sympathize for what you... I really feel sorry for you. I can't feel sorry with you. I can't stand up here and say, "You know what? I know exactly how you feel". Jesus can do that. Jesus can give you both sympathy and empathy. It doesn't matter what you're going through, he knows exactly how you feel. And as we're going to see in all the fights that we face and all the failures we have, and all the faults that we battle, we have a Savior who's not only absolutely perfect, but he can bring sympathy and empathy to whatever you're going through to help us deal with how you feel.
So here's the message I wanna give you. Even on a Debbie downer, rainy day, time change Sunday and all of that, here's the good news today. Whatever you're going through, Jesus will get you through. Whatever you're going through, Jesus will get you through. So how do you know that? Well, in the book of Hebrews chapter four, we're told three facts about Jesus that tells us that's true. Number one, Jesus feels what we feel. He feels what we feel. Now, the author of Hebrews has taken a look back at the life of Jesus. Here's what he says.
Hebrews 4:15. "For we do not have a high priest". He's talking about Jesus. "We do not have a high priest who's unable to empathize with our weaknesses. We have one who's been tempted in every way, just as we are". Listen to those four words, "Just as we are". You say, "Well, how do we really know that"? Well, there's one thing that Jesus has in common, that is in common with every person who's living, ever has lived, or ever will live. He was a human being. If you had lived 2,000 years ago and you'd had the privilege of meeting Jesus, he would have looked like a human being. If you listened to Jesus, he would have talked like a human being. If you had traveled with Jesus, he walked like a human being. Say, "Well, why"?
Well, you know the old saying, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. Well, he was a human being. I'll just give you two or three examples. Do you ever get tired? How many of you ever get tired? How many of you are tired right now? Let let me tell you something. The hardest thing I've done all day today is this morning when my alarm went off to get that bed off my back. I didn't think I could do it. I'm telling you I was tired because I'd lost an hour's sleep. Well, I got news for you. Jesus got tired. He was walking through the country of Samaritans. It was a hot day. His feet were hurting. It was 12 noon. I mean, it was blazingly hot. The sand on the road was sizzling.
Here's what we read. "Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon". That word tired in the Greek language literally means bone tired. Jesus was worn out. He had walked as far as he could walk. He was so tired, he wanted to get off his feet. So if you're like me this morning and you're feeling a little bit tired, he knows exactly how you feel. You ever get sleepy? So I can tell right now, it's a battle for you right now. I love you, but I'm watching some of you right now, and I may yell at you, so be careful. I mean, I think I've told you before, one of the worst things ever happened in my whole ministry is one time, I dreamed I was preaching, and I woke up and I was.
So, you know, we all get sleepy. Well, guess what? One morning, Jesus got into a boat on the Sea of Galilee and they had barely gotten away from the dock, and Jesus is out like a light. As a matter of fact, the Bible says he was so sleepy, he was in such a deep sleep, even when that boat began to rock and roll, and the waves were crashing and the lightning was flashing, he just kept snoring. He was out. You ever been sleepy like that? You say, "Yeah, I have". He knows exactly how you feel. Now here's one. Have you ever been angry? Now, don't look coldly. Have you ever been angry? I mean, I'm talking about popping out of your neck, red faced, eyes bulging, fist clenching angry.
You say, "Yeah". Well, Jesus was that angry. He got so angry at people one time who were turning God's house into a shopping mall, he took a whip and threw a bunch of religious leaders out the door. He was red hot angry. Yeah, I'm angry. I'm angry my spouse walked out on me. I'm angry I lost my job. I'm angry I didn't get into the school I wanted to get into. He knows exactly how you feel. Author Dorothy Sayers put it beautifully. Listen to what she said. This is so good.
"For whatever reason God chose to make as He is, limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death, He had the honesty to take His own medicine. Whatever game He is playing with His creation, He has kept His own rules and He played fair. He can exact nothing from man that He has not exacted from himself". So I want you to understand, let's acknowledge one thing you can never say about Jesus. He just doesn't get it. He just doesn't understand how I feel. He's just never been in my shoes. He's never walked where I walk. You can never say that about Jesus, because here's the truth of the matter. If you've ever felt a hundred pounds of pressure on you in your life, well, he's felt the weight of the whole world. You ever swallowed even a drop of suffering, he's swallowed an ocean.
So one thing you'll never ever hear Jesus say to you is something like this. "I don't know how you feel. I wish I could. I feel for you, but I don't feel with you". He will never ever say that, 'cause listen to this statement one more time. "We do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses". By the way, that word empathize is the Greek word that gives us the English word sympathy, but I like to translate it empathize, because again, Jesus doesn't just feel for me. He feels with me. He puts his feet in your shoes. He puts your hurt in his heart. And one reason he became a human being is so that you could know he knows what it's like to be a human being. I know everything about it.
As a matter of fact, even down to when you're tempted, he knows exactly how you feel, because listen to what else he says. "We have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are". There's one thing that's true of all of us, even probably today. Well, I'll give you example. Don't raise your hand 'cause you came, 'cause you don't need to feel guilty. But I wonder how many of you were tempted to stay in bed? I wonder how many of you were tempted to say, "Good grief! It's early, it's raining. I could tune in". And there are lots, some of you right now watching me online. I'm glad you are, but that's why you're watching online. You were tempted and you blew it. You were tempted and you caved in.
Well, look, here's the truth of the matter. Nobody's immune to temptation. Nobody's above temptation. Nobody's excepted. Nobody gets a pass, and that included Jesus. He was tempted just like we are, so he can empathize with our weaknesses. I don't know much about music, but I read something the other day that fascinated me. If you take two pianos and you put them in the same room, if you go to one piano and you strike a note on that piano, the same note will resonate a response on the other piano, even though nobody's even touching the other piano. I didn't know that. They have a term for that. It's called sympathetic resonance. Jesus' body was an instrument just like that. He resonates with our temptation.
So when you're in that battle, when you're tempted to do wrong and not do right, Jesus says, "You know what? I know exactly how you feel. I know what it's like to go without food and water for 40 days, and then Satan put bread and water in front of you and say, "Just worship me. I'll give you all you want to eat and all you wanna drink". The point I'm making is this. Jesus got in the game. He played by the same rules. He didn't pull rank. He didn't cheat. He felt what we felt when we go through difficult times. Where we're tempted to do wrong, Jesus feels what we feel. But it gets better. Not only does Jesus feel what we feel, Jesus faces what we face. He faces what we face.
Now the author of Hebrews tells us something else about Jesus. Matter of fact, he makes a claim that nobody else could ever claim for themselves and no one else could ever claim for anyone except Jesus. Listen to what he says. He says, "But we have one who's been tempted in every way, just as we are," but then he adds these five huge words. Yet, yet. What's those next four words? "He did not sin. Yet He did not sin". Literally the Greek language says, "Yet without sin".
Now, before you understand why that's so important, you gotta understand exactly what sin does to all of us, because sin affects all of us in four ways. You might wanna jot these down real quick. If you wanna know why that precious little 2-year-old of yours is not always precious, I'll tell you four reasons why. First of all, sin affects who we are. We are all born in sin. We are sinners by nature. It is who we are. You don't have to teach anybody to sin. There's no course called Sinning 101. We're all born with a sin nature. It affects who we are.
Now because sin affects who we are, number two, it affects what we do. So because we're sinners, we do sinful things. Our sinful nature is the root of why we do wrong, and the fruit of our sinful nature is what we do wrong. The reason why we do wrong is because we are wrong. This is one thing the world does not understand. We are not sinners because we sin. We sin because we're sinners. We do what we do because we are what we are. So sin affects who we are. Sin affects what we do.
Third, sin affects the way we think. Sin is not just a matter of the hands, it's a matter of the head. So we have lustful thoughts, we have selfish thoughts, we have angry thoughts, we have evil thoughts, we have racist thoughts, we have greedy thoughts. Why? Because we're even jacked up in the way we think. Even our mind is jacked up, and then sin affects where we fail, because sin is not just when we're successful in doing bad things. See, we think sin is when you do something wrong. No, there's more than that to sin. Sin is not just when you do the wrong thing. Sin is when you fail to do the right thing. You can sin by commission, you can sin by omission, you can sin by doing something you shouldn't do, or you can sin by failing to do something that you should do.
That's what makes this statement so amazing when the author of Hebrew says, "Yet he did not sin". And oh, by the way, that's not just what the author of Hebrews said about Jesus. That's what his family said about him. That's what his friend said about him. That's what his foes said about him. One of his closest friends was a disciple named John. John saw Jesus up close and personal for three years. He wrote this. "But you know that he appeared so he might take away our sins. And in him his no sin".
Here's the guy that lived with Jesus, probably was never out of his sight for three years, 365 days a year, all day, all night, went everywhere with Jesus, was really, really one of his best buddies in the world. He said there was no sin in him. Perfect in who he was. Born without sin. Did not have a sinful nature, pure inside and out. Well, there was another disciple, in fact, you would call him the ringleader. His name was Peter. Here's what he wrote about Jesus. "He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth". So in other words, he was perfect in what he did. Peter said, "Look, I spent three years with the guy. He never said a wrong word. As far as I could tell, he never thought a wrong thought. He never did a wrong deed".
Now you may say, "Well, that's what his friend said. Well, what did his foes say"? There was a man by the name of Paul. He was formerly known as Saul, and there was a time in his life, if you even uttered the word Jesus in his presence, he would deck you and take you to jail. He had a full-time job of shutting down churches just like ours. He hated the name of Jesus, despised the name. He wanted to kill every Christian he could find, until he met Jesus, and then you're talking about changing your mind, here's what he wrote. "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God".
So he said, "Look, Jesus wasn't just perfect in the way he thought. He didn't even know sin mentally. Sin never even entered into his mind". Well, finally, Jesus even made this bold, bold, bold statement, where he asked a question I would never ask, and you better not ask it, either. "Can any of you prove me guilty of sin"? I have two brothers that go to this church, and my mama and my dad used to go to our church. My brother's sitting right back there. If you'd like to know if I've ever done anything wrong, he'll be back in the lobby after the service, so just go to him. He's got all kinds of stories. I would never stand up here, not with my family here, and yet Jesus' own family when is all over said, "You know what? He never, ever sinned". He had a target on his back that said, "Fire every arrow you've got," but nobody ever hit the bullseye. His friends couldn't do it.
Family couldn't do it. His foes couldn't do it. You could put the FBI, the CIA, the IRS, every newspaper in the world on his trail right now. They wouldn't find the whiff of sin. In him there was no sin. I know what you're saying right now. "Well, wait a minute. If the guy never sinned, how in the world can he relate to me? How in the world can he relate to my temptations"? Well, let me give you a thought I bet you've never thought out before. You know what the easiest thing is to do with temptation, right? What's the easiest thing to do? To give into it, right? That's easy. How hard is it to never give in? Tell you how hard it is.
I want you to imagine that the Lord said to you today, beginning right now, this second, "If you will not sin again for the next 24 hours, I will give you a billion dollars". You ain't getting the money. Not gonna happen, because you absolutely cannot do it, because giving in is easy. Not giving in is hard. But here's the good news. Because he never gave in to temptation, he never gave up, that's good news for us. The playwright Oscar Wilde once famously said, "The only thing I can't resist is temptation". That's true. The only thing I can't resist is temptation. So we all know what it's like not to resist temptation, but Jesus did, and here's the thing.
Says Jesus took everything that Satan could throw at him and still never gave in, never yielded. He can help us in our temptation, 'cause he experienced temptation like you and I never experienced it, but he never caved in. I know there are times we face a temptation. We go, "I just cannot resist". No, you cannot, unless the Jesus that resisted lives in you, and that makes all the difference in the world. See, I know every morning when I wake up, I've got someone who walks with me every moment of my life, who in 33 years of living never lost sleep over a guilty conscience, never blushed over a shameful comment, never regretted over a dirty joke he told.
And listen, he did that for 33 years, 396 months, 720 weeks, 12,047 days, 298,128 hours, 17,887,680 minutes. He never sinned, and with Jesus walking with us and Jesus living in us, we can face anything in life, trials and tribulations and trouble and temptation. We can do it, and we can win, we can beat it, because he gets us. He faces what we face. And here's the last thing. Jesus fights what we fight. He fights what we fight. Now I know, again, so you say there, "Look how does all this really help me? I mean after all, Jesus is sinless, but I'm not sinless". Yep, I know. Neither am I. Well, he fought temptation, beat it every time, but sometimes we don't. That's true.
So how can a sinless Savior help a sinful person like me and you live the life we ought to live, even knowing how we feel? Alright, listen to this next verse. It is so rich. He says, "Let us then," that is in light of the fact of who Jesus is, "Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need". Now, listen to how... This is so good. There's sometimes, if you ever wonder, is the Bible really the Word of God? Something like this ought to tell you, man, it has to be. Because when you think about the temptations that we face, you think about the faults that we have, you think about the failures that we've experienced, you think about all the foes that we have to fight, think about all those things.
What do you really need, I mean, to get through all of that junk, when you think about temptation and troubles and trials and tribulation, Jesus would throw things just like us. Now let me just give you one more illustration why this is so important. I want you to hear this. There was an ancient Roman general, and he had legions upon legions at his command, and one of the officers was his own son. Well, they were facing a great, great battle against a very strong enemy, and they were just about to go out to fight the battle, and so his son came to the father who was the general of the army, and he said, "Father, I've been thinking about it. I've come up with a perfect strategy". He said, "What's your strategy"? He said, "If you will fight the battle in this way, and if you'll attack the enemy in this way, we will win, and it will only cost 5,000 men".
And that old veteran general with a sad look on his face turned to his son and he asked this question. "Son, that's great. Will you be one of the 5,000? Great plan. Will you be one of the 5,000"? When Jesus came to this earth, you know what he said? "I'll become one of the 5,000. I'm not gonna sit up in some ivory tower and just command you what you need to do. I'm gonna get on the front lines. I'm not gonna be behind the lines. I'm gonna be sitting on a horse watching the battle. I'm gonna be in the battle with you," 'cause the other thing to keep in mind about Jesus is that even though he's not physically here with us, he is still fighting for us. He's opened the door for us to go into the very throne room of God anytime we want to, and we will find exactly what we need when we face temptation and beat it, or we'll find what we need if we face temptation and we don't beat it.
Because there's two things you must have to succeed are when you fail. And I want you to look at how... This is so good. When you face temptation and it beats you, you need one thing. You need mercy. Can I get an amen to that? You don't need justice. When I failed and didn't do what I was supposed to do, dad would give me justice. I got justice a lot of times, but I like mercy a lot better. He says, "Look, when you blow it, you need mercy, but I don't want to blow it. That's why you need grace". You need grace to strengthen you before the temptation so you can beat the temptation. So when you become a child of God, Jesus comes to live in you so that when you face and fight temptation, you always do it together.
When you blow it, he'll give you mercy, but before you blow it, he will give you grace, 'cause here's the point. He didn't just come to get victory over sin for himself. He came to give us victory over sin as well, and he does it and he can do it because he gets us. He knows exactly how we feel. So I'll share with you an amazing story. I just found this a couple of weeks ago. This, it blows my mind. I never heard about this. It's amazing. Now, when you get to read like I do, you learn all kinds of stuff. I read this amazing story, true story about a neurologist. His name is Dr. Joel Salinas. He has a condition.
Now, listen, this is incredible. He has a condition called mirror touch synesthesia, alright? Mirror touch synesthesia. Never heard of it before. Here's how it works. This is unbelievable. If he sees a person being hugged or punched or pinched, he feels the same physical sensation. So he went to see a movie called "The Last Exorcism". When the neck of one of the characters was broken, he immediately got a flash of intense pain. It almost made him pass out right in the theater. He just saw a guy with his neck broken, his neck started to hurt. He's had this ability his whole life, but he only learned the name of the condition when he was in medical school.
By the way, only 2% of the population have this. So if they see somebody being hugged, they feel like they're being hugged. If they see somebody being punched, they physically feel like they've been punched. If they see somebody being pinched, they feel like they've physically been pinched. I thought, golly, Pete, I would hate that. I would hate having, you know, going through, I mean, gosh, I'd never go see a movie again. I dunno if I'd get out of my house. So you would think this guy would hate this. You'd think you wanna medicate himself or try to get out of it, but he doesn't. You know why? He said, "Because I learned it actually makes me a better doctor".
Listen what he said. Why? "Because I'm able to vividly, even if involuntarily, to put myself in the shoes of my patients". When Jesus came to this earth, he needed to put on his shoes. He put on your shoes. He put on my shoes, 'cause he wanted us to know one day, 2,000 years later, "I really do get you. I really do know how you feel". So let's take a few things. Rejection. He experienced it on steroids. How would you like it if your brothers and your sisters called you a whack job and a nut job? Rejection. Yeah, he experienced it. Temptation. Yeah, he faced it big time. You go out into a desert without food or water for 40 days, much less try to live, and see how you handle it when Satan comes to you.
How about loneliness? You ever thought about this? The loneliest person that's ever lived and the loneliest moment of anyone's life is when Jesus was hanging on that cross, and even had to say to the one with whom he had never had a cross word for all eternity, "My God, my God". Couldn't even call him Father. Why couldn't even call him Father? Because the Father had turned his back on him. Why'd the Father turn his back on him? Because if he had not turned his back on Jesus, he would have turned his back on us. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me"? Even an atheist on his death bed is not forsaken by God 'til he dies. Loneliness. Yeah, he felt it. How about stress? Wanna talk about stress? Have you ever been so stressed out that you sweat drops of blood?
Every time I go to the garden of Gethsemane when I go to Israel, I think about the drops of blood, sweating drops of blood. Oh, how about death? Oh, he tasted it. The one human being that didn't have to die. The one human being who should have never died. The one human being, had he not voluntarily done it, could not have died. Oh, yeah. He tasted it, just like everybody does. So whatever you're going through, no matter how deep the hole, no matter how dark the valley, no matter how desperate the situation, he knows exactly how you feel. He gets us. He really, really gets us. You see the problem with those He Gets Us campaigns, and I don't wanna get into this, but I'll do super quickly.
The problem I had with those advertisements, there's no gospel, there's no death, there's no burial, there's no resurrection, 'cause here's the truth of the matter. Everybody agrees he was a great teacher. Everybody agrees he was a great man. Everybody agrees he was just good as gold. Just don't come any better than Jesus. But what does it matter if he gets us if he's just as dead as Muhammad or just as dead as Buddha or just as dead as any other religious leader? What does it matter? What does it matter if he gets us? If he died on that cross as a sinner, just like everybody else, what does it matter?
Here's why it matters that he gets us. Because he lived a perfect life. He died a perfect death. He was raised in a perfect resurrection, and because he's alive right now, he can walk with us. He can live in us, he can lead us, he can direct us, and it doesn't matter what temptation, what trial, what trouble, what temptation we face. We can't overcome it. We can win. We can be victorious. Not only because he gets us, because of who he is, who gets us.
Lord Jesus, I can't even put into words how much this message encouraged me, because there are times, I'm not trying to whine or complain, there are times that you know this. Nobody knows how a pastor feels except another pastor, but you're the Great Shepherd. I'm just a shepherd. You're the Great Shepherd, and I'm so glad to know that in my deepest, darkest times, you've always known exactly how I feel. You get me.
And with heads bowed, with eyes closed. The issue is not, does he get you? The issue is, do you get him? Have you ever trusted him as your Lord and as your Savior? Have you ever surrendered your life to him? He died on the cross, and he could pay for our sins, 'cause he had no sin. He had no debt to pay, so he paid ours for us.
And to prove that God cashed the check, he raised him from the dead. You can believe that in your head and it won't make a difference, but it's not until you in your heart realize I needed him to do that, because I am a sinner who needs a savior. I know what it's like to fail when I'm tempted, because I've done it many times. Yes, so have I. But you can have mercy and you can have grace when you come to the throne of God, but you can only walk into the throne room of God because of who Jesus was and what Jesus did. And if you've never trusted in that Jesus, you've never surrendered your life to that Jesus, why don't you do it right now? Why don't you just say to him:
Lord Jesus, you get me, and I'm so glad you do. Now I want to get you. I'm a sinner and I need a savior. And I'm telling you today, I believe you died for my sins. I believe God raised you from the dead. I believe you're alive right now. I repent and turn away from my sin. I surrender my life to you and I confess you as my Lord.