This Jesus Will Never Fail You

This Jesus Will Never Fail You

At Christmas not everyone is celebrating. Some do not know Jesus or do not believe he is the promised Messiah. Others are hurting, because at some point all of us are let down by people, on purpose or by accident. Throughout the Old Testament, God blessed his people with leaders, and every kind of leader failed them. Do we feel that differently today? We look at our jobs, our local and national leaders, and wonder what they are doing to us. But one leader came to earth whom we celebrate at Christmas, and this Jesus will never fail you. He came as prophet, priest, and king, and he perfected all of their failures.

The Perfect Prophet

A prophet was not only someone who foretold the future. His main job was to share the truth of what God had told him with God’s people. Human prophets had a lot of issues. I asked the children if they remember Balaam’s talking donkey. Balak, the king of Moab, was an enemy of the Jews who wanted to take them over, and he sent for Balaam to curse them. God told Balaam not to go. Balak sent more honorable princes and offered to do him great honor. “If you can’t get what you want by asking nicely you offer them something they want.” Balaam was not a false prophet but an imperfect one, with a heart that wanted something for himself. God was angry that he went, and the donkey saw the angel with a sword. We see that people who are supposed to speak for God will fail us.

Prophets could also just be wrong. David wanted to build a temple, and Nathan said, do all that is in your heart. That night God told Nathan that David would not build it. Human prophets can be wrong because they were not listening to God.

But John 1 says in the beginning was the Word. Jesus is the communicator of God to man. We can find the spiritual world hard to understand because we cannot see it. So God sent his Son as a man to communicate in a way we understand. Jesus is not only giving us the message of God. He is the message. And Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” Jesus cannot tell us anything but truth because he is the truth.

The Perfect High Priest

A priest was a mediator who worked between man and God. But human priests failed too. Leviticus 4 says that if the anointed priest sins, he must offer a bull for his own sin. Every human priest had to offer for himself because he sinned. Imagine a 100 yard wire carrying electricity. There is loss along the way, and the current at the far end is less. Human priests were imperfect mediators and there was loss in between.

Jesus, our great high priest, has no imperfections. Hebrews 4 says we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Because he did not sin, he could take on the sin of the world. First John 2:2 says he is the propitiation for our sins. He made it possible to have peace with God by paying the price we deserved.

Even the priests who served in the temple failed. Samuel made his sons judges, and they took bribes and perverted justice. So the elders came and said, appoint a king to judge us like all the nations. That is what we do when a leader fails us: look for somebody else, thinking the grass is greener.

The Perfect King

God warned them about human kings. First Samuel 8 says, over and over, “he will take”: your sons, your daughters, the best of your fields, a tenth of your grain, your servants, and your flocks. “You shall be his slaves.” All human leaders are selfish. God also limited kings in Deuteronomy 17: not too many horses, not too many wives, not too much silver and gold, and they must write out a copy of the law and read it every day so their hearts would not be lifted up above their brothers. Even David and Solomon, among the better kings, fell short of those limits.

Jesus is the complete opposite. At his baptism in Matthew 3, God said, “this is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.” No other king was a true Son of God, and no other king could God say that about. And Jesus has no need for limits. Philippians 2 says that he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, took the form of a servant, and became obedient to death on a cross. He is the perfect servant leader. Therefore God has highly exalted him, and every knee should bow.

Will You Trust Him?

The biggest person who lets us down is ourselves, because we have all sinned against our creator. We deserve death, and the Bible talks about a second death, an eternal separation from God. But Jesus came as the perfect Savior and took sin, death, and hell on the cross and rose again. If you believe on him, you will be saved. And if you are already a believer, ask what you are doing this Christmas to draw close to Jesus, rather than putting all your effort into people who will always fail us. This relationship brings joy, peace, and contentment, just as the angel said to the shepherds: “Fear not, for I bring you good news of great joy.”