Strathalbyn Church of Christ

Heb 2 Theme: Don’t drift. Sermon by Pastor David Williams.

Strathalbyn Church of Christ. 8 Aug 2021.

Today’s passage speaks of a danger, a hope, and a brother

1. Danger! Don’t drift 1-4

2. The hope of glory 5-9

3. Jesus our brother 10-18

1. Danger! Don’t drift. 1-4

As a youngster, you may have gone out fishing in a tinny. It’s a fine morning, barely a ripple. You are so intent on watching the lines that you hardly notice the grey clouds looming, or the swell building up, or the boat silently drifting. You suddenly realise – you’re a long way from the shore. But wait! Can you even see the shore? Do you know which way is back? And isn’t there a reef somewhere out here?

People rarely make a sudden decision to stop reading the bible, to stop attending church, to stop believing. Rather, they drift. They become lazy, distracted. Drifting is a danger for all of us. Any of us can go from a vibrant faith to one that is hollow, empty. The Bible gathering dust on the shelf.

Our remedy is to “pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it”, v1. In the boat, the remedy against drifting was to keep the jetty in view. So, we need to keep Jesus in view, to fix our eyes on him. Remember what he tells us in his Word.

When life is hardest, fix your eyes on him. Life was hectic for Martin Luther as he led the Protestant reformation. A friend asked, “How will you cope with all your work today, Martin?” Luther replied, “I will begin by spending more time in prayer”. When life is hard, fix your eyes on him.

When we err, fix your eyes on him. This is not our natural reaction – which is to hide - but only Jesus can save us from our sin. When we err, fix your eyes on him.

When you feel tired, sick, emotionally empty, fix your eyes on him. We easily fall prey to bugs when our bodies are weak. Likewise, sin takes hold when our physical defences are down. When tired, fix your eyes on him.

Are you growing in your faith? Are we growing as a church? Margie and I have been delighted at the generosity, and faithfulness shown by you all. We see God at work in and through you in so many ways. But even here, we can drift. In such a lovely church, it is easy just to coast along – “Others can pray, others can serve, but I’ll just put my feet up and have a rest. I deserve it. I’ll be alright!” Are you fixing your eyes on him or are you drifting?

Do you find it hard to listen? Hard to read God’s word? Reading the bible with others is an excellent way of hearing God speak to us afresh. If you are not involved in a bible study group, why not try one this week? If you fall asleep while reading, try an audio bible while out walking. If you’re finding the bible hard to follow, try reading it with some bible reading notes. Come and chat to me about it.

Having a strong hope can help us pay closer attention, to persevere. Knowing there is a gold medal waiting at the end of the pool is a great incentive to those Aussie swimmers. The writer now turns to this hope.

2. The hope of glory (5-9)

The writer quotes from Psalm 8: “What is man, that you should think about him”, v6. What are we, mere mortals in God’s eyes? Actually, God regards us very highly – “you made him a little lower than the angels” v7. In the Garden, men and women were given authority to care for God’s earth, to be his foremen – “You gave him authority over all things”, v8, Gen 1:26, 28_._ For this role, they were _“crowned with glory and honour”,_ v7 – not even the angels had such status.

However, there is a problem. We made a mess of things – we rebelled. Instead of caring for his creation under his authority, we sought to rule our own lives and plunder his creation and our fellow creatures. So now we can’t even run our own lives, let alone have authority over the rest of creation. So, “But we have not yet seen all things put under his authority”, v8.

This quote from Psalm 8 is intriguing. Its intriguing because you don’t quite know who he is talking about. Like a lot of OT passages, it has a meaning for its time, but also looks to a future time. Psalm 8 looks back to creation, to Adam in the Garden, but it also looks forward to the new heavens and new earth.

There is a clue in verse 6 – “what is man?” Literally, it is man, not men. Singular, not plural. And then there’s “the Son of Man”. Now that can mean a typical human. But to the Jews who read Daniel (Dan 7:13-14), to those who heard Jesus call himself, “the Son of Man”, it meant the Messiah. This Messiah was “made for a little while lower than the angels”. He became human. More than that, he suffered and died. Yet in his death, he destroyed death. And so, God “crowned him with glory and honour” by raising him to his right hand. “You gave him authority over all things” - Jesus now reigns over all things, as Adam was originally tasked to do.

What is more, we, who were God’s enemies, are now called by Jesus his brothers and sisters, v11, 12, 17. “He is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters”, v11. But he did not just leave it at that for, “he brought many children to glory”, v10. That is, we get to share in the glory that Jesus has. What is this glory – only that we have been reinstated as rulers of the universe, together with him. “We will also reign with him”, 2 Tim 2:12 (1 Cor 6:1-3; Rev 5:10; 20:4-6). Don’t you find that amazing? What an honour! What a wonderful hope we have.

So, when tempted to grow weary, to drift, remember this hope, remember this Saviour, fix your eyes on him.

But how does Jesus, sitting up there in heaven, help me with my temptations and failures? Jesus is no bullet-proof superhero but came to us as a man and shared in all our messy, gritty struggles.

3. Jesus our brother (10-18)

Jesus is “not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters” (Heb 2:11). Jesus, our elder brother did four things for us:

a. He became one of us

b. He went before us

c. He knows what we go through

d. He took the rap for us.

a. He became one of us.

Jesus our brother “shares in our flesh and blood” (Heb 2:14) – he became a man. Jesus is both God and man. Hebrews teaches that. Hebrews 1 focuses on Jesus as God, made in the “exact image” of his Father, Heb 1:3. Hebrews 2 focuses on Jesus as man.

Jesus is both God and man. This is not abstract theology but goes to the heart of our salvation. Virtually every heresy that has arisen – like Mormons or New Agers – they all deny one or other of these truths. But does this matter today? What does it matter what I think of Jesus as long as I trust in him? Actually, it makes all the difference. Who Jesus is determines what he can do.

You would not trust someone to operate on you if they only had a TAFE certificate. I heard of a doctor who was trained in Russia and was appointed as head of gynaecology of a hospital. This hospital had problems recruiting. The problem was, he had never witnessed a real birth. He had never examined a pregnant woman. His training had all been on plastic models. You would not have a lot of confidence in someone like that! So, with Jesus, does he have the right credentials to heal our sin? Who he is determines what he can do. It is important that he is both God and Man. It is important to our salvation. If he is not God, he could not turn away God’s wrath for the sins of the world, for only God can atone for sins against himself. A mere man could not do this. If he was not man, he could not suffer and die for out sins. A god cannot suffer as a man. You wouldn’t trust a gynaecologist who has only worked with dummys. It could prove fatal. Nor should you trust a heresy that denies that Jesus is God and man. That could also prove fatal, taking away your hope of salvation. For Jesus to bring salvation, he had to be both God and Man.

But how does that work in practice. When Jesus was dying on the cross – what do you think? Was he, maybe, 80% God and 20% man, or 50/50? Or what? The Bible is clear that Jesus was and is fully God. The world was made through him (Jn 1:3; Heb 1:2). But Jesus became a man, born of Mary, and he remains a man. One day you will see this man in heaven. Jesus is not part God, part man but fully God and fully man.

b. He went before us

Jesus, “the author of their salvation was made perfect through suffering”, Heb 2:10. Jesus is called “the author of our salvation” (Heb 2:10, 12:2). He is our pioneer. David Livingstone was a pioneer explorer and missionary. He was attacked by a lion, many times he was near death from malaria, cholera and tropical diseases. His supplies and medicines were stolen. He completely lost contact with the outside world for six years. He penetrated further and further into unchartered territory. He was surrounded by hostile tribes, wild animals and ruthless slave traders. It was no surprise that his African porters and guides often deserted him. Yet he kept going, ill and alone.

Jesus, our elder brother is like that pioneer explorer – going into unchartered hostile territory – even tasting death for us, Heb 2:9. “Through death he destroyed the one who has the power of death, the devil”, Heb 2:14. Certainly he is no bullet-proof superhero, yet he is a hero. Jesus is an incredible hero – in the terrors he faced, in the satanic powers he overcame. He is our heroic older brother!

c. He knows how we feel

When Jesus became man, that means he is exactly like us – except for sin. “He made himself nothing” (or, “he emptied himself”), Phil 2:7. Jesus didn’t cease to be God, but he limited himself to being human. He got tired, hungry, sick; he experienced pain, temptation. He got diarrhoea. There were things he did not know (Mk 5:30, 32; 13:32, 33). When you stumble, or feel weak, or can’t cope – he knows how you feel. He is our older brother.

There was an older brother who watched on helplessly as his younger brother fell into bad company and drugs and was killed in a brawl. He was helpless to help. But Jesus is our older brother who could and did come to help. He came to where we were wallowing in sin and guilt, hell bent on our own destruction. He is no patronising, superior brother who stands aloof and says, “I told you so”. Rather, he identified with us in all our mess, without judgment or condemnation, and rescued us. He knows our pain and shame for he experienced it: “Because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted”, v18.

d. He took the rap for us

Jesus made “propitiation for the sins of the people”, Heb 2:17. God hates sin – he loathes it. It is so alien and repulsive to him that we cannot begin to imagine how he feels. We have no idea for we are soaked in sin from birth. We are blind to it. But think of a paedophile who grooms a small child. He earns his trust and the trust of his parents. Don’t we feel anger for such crimes? This perhaps gives us a hint of the anger God feels at our own evil. A holy God cannot tolerate it. He must deal with it. His wrath on sin is dealt with by the death of the sinner. But he didn’t leave it there.

Jesus died to deal with God’s wrath – he propitiates it. Propitiation means a putting away of wrath. Jesus, our elder brother, took the rap for us. He took the full force of the Father’s wrath against our sin. There are two misconceptions I need to clear up:

a. Propitiation is a biblical concept. This term occurs 4 times in the NT (Rom 3:25, Heb 2:17, 1 Jn 2:2; 4:10). We can’t get away from it – God is angry at our sin. Many translations water this down to say atonement or expiation but there is no word except propitiation that translates this adequately or accurately. Jesus didn’t merely die for our sins but turned away God’s just wrath against us.

b. Secondly, don’t get the idea, as some do, that Jesus was some hapless victim. Jesus shared his father’s hatred of sin. Revelation speaks of “the wrath of the lamb” (Rev 6:16-17). The father and son were united in exterminating sin. Jesus willingly drank the cup of God’s wrath for us (cf., Luke 22:15)!

What a great older brother we have! He shared in our lives – our pain, our struggles, our temptations. He knows exactly what it feels like. He died in our place, turning away the father’s just wrath against us. What a great hope we have. What a great saviour. Fix your eyes on him!

Lord Jesus, you shared in our flesh and blood, that through death you might destroy the one who has the power of death. You have delivered us from lifelong slavery, from the fear of death. And as you suffered when tempted, you are able to help us when we are tempted. Jesus, you deserve all our thanks and praise. Amen.

Sources:

· Wright, N. T. (2015). Hebrews for everyone.

· Adam, P. (2004). The majestic Son: Reading Hebrews today. Sydney South: Aquila.