Jesus is not a distant priest who stands apart from human pain. He is the great high priest who has felt every weakness we carry, and he is praying for us right now. Walking through Hebrews 4:14–16, Evan Wilkerson speaks to anyone tired, distracted, or tempted to let go when life gets hard. Like the pressured believers to whom Ephesians was first written, we can drift away, telling God we’ll come back once we’ve figured things out. Evan answers with the gospel. Because the veil was torn, the throne of judgment has become a throne of grace, and we are invited to come boldly, speak frankly, and receive mercy and grace in our time of need.

Preached: August 23, 2026

Main Points:

• Picture walking a bridge 150 feet up and gripping your phone tight. Now picture a car coming toward your daughter in the street, and the grip you’d use to pull her to safety. That’s how tightly we’re called to hold fast to Jesus.
• Play a note on one piano and the same note hums in another piano across the room, with no one touching it. Jesus put on our human body and carried it into heaven, so when the chord of our fear is struck, it resonates with him.
• He was hungry, thirsty, and sorrowful to the point of death, so stressed that he sweat drops of blood. Whatever you’re facing, he knows what it’s like.
• C.S. Lewis said that only those who resist temptation know how strong it is. Because Jesus never gave in, he alone knows temptation to the full.
• Once a year, a high priest stepped into the holy of holies with a rope tied to his foot. If the bells stopped ringing, they pulled him out. Now, because of Jesus’ blood, every prayer brings us into that same holy place with confidence.
• To “come boldly” means freedom of speech: frank, honest prayer. You don’t need polished words or a cleaned-up life, just your heart, told to a God who wants to hear it.
• Evan shares how a confusing season about his work exposed that he’d placed his identity in his job. His distracted prayers ended up stirring a deeper hunger for God’s presence, until he could say, “God, I want only you.”
• Like a dad who loves it when his little girls run up to show him their drawings, God delights when his children come near and tell him what’s on their hearts.

https://wcmin.us/WS261014c