Dennis Tuuri

For today’s sermon text, we turn to the passage in Hebrews, which is next, and actually contains an extended quotation from Psalm 8, which is the reason we use that this week for our responsive reading and hymn. We also this week sung that great song that twice in it has this reference to Jesus as Son of God and Son of Man. And in today’s text found in Hebrews 2:5-18. We continue on this second section of Hebrews speaking about Jesus having a better name than the angels and then specifically having considered his name as the Son of God last week.

This week we consider his name the Son of Man. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. Again in the handouts you’ll see I have laid out the text in a way that breaks it up into five sections, five designations of Jesus. And also I’ve broken up each section to make it a little more understandable. At least I hope so. Okay. So, Hebrews 2:5-18, for he has not put the world to come of which we speak in subjection to angels, but one testified in a certain place, saying, “What is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you take care of him?

You have made him a little lower than the angels. You have crowned him with glory and honor, and set him over the works of your hands. You have put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we do not yet see all things put under him. But we see Jesus who is made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor that he by the grace of God might taste death for everyone.

For it was fitting for him. For whom are all things and by whom are all things in bringing many sons to glory to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both he who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all one. For which reason he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, “I will declare your name to my brethren. In the midst of the assembly, I will sing praises to you and again I will put my trust in him.

And again, here am I and the children whom God has given me. In as much then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared in the same that through death he might destroy him who had the power of death, that is the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For indeed he does not give aid to angels. But he does give aid to the seed of Abraham.

Therefore, in all things he had to be made like his brethren that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself has suffered, being tempted, he is able to aid those who are tempted.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for this wonderful set of verses, the exciting description of who it is that we come to you through, the merits of today, who it is that we meet with in holy worship, who it is that the spirit of God comes to us to minister to us, Jesus Christ, Son of Man, and all the designations of the beauties of that in the text before us.

We thank you for the richness of this text and the wonderful good news that it is to us. Help us to focus on Jesus today, to understand him better, to know him better, to believe Lord God and have his faith to the end that we may not shrink back in the day of battle that we may be courageous and brave recognizing that he has brought many sons to glory and restored mankind to his dominion calling in the earth.

We thank you Lord God for these wonderful truths. Transform us by them today in Jesus name we ask it. Amen. Please be seated.

I heard a sermon recently and I sort of maybe I could get in trouble for this, but the name of the sermon was “Gnostic Justification.” An interesting title, a little provocative too, was given by Corey Sariah down in Salem a couple of weeks ago. And what he means by that is when we take justification, the doctrine of justification, God’s verdict of deliverance of his people and restrict it to the cure for our sin as opposed to seeing its declaration of victory and being delivered from enemies and actually being that verdict by God not being something that’s just theoretical or abstract.

But actually accomplishing something in the world when we restrict salvation down to personal salvation our ability to go to heaven it is rather he used the term gnostic. I suppose that these days lots of people ourselves included are calling many things we don’t like gnostic and I don’t know how helpful that is but it certainly is a reduction and what we’ve said for instance in the context of looking at a whole bible approach including the book of Leviticus to worship is that purification from sins.

What we started the worship service with is not the end of it. It’s to the end. It moves on through the transformation, the ascension offering, the tribute offering. Our work is made holy and effective by God. Peace, community exists in the world. All these blessings you see really are all combined in this concept in the New Testament known as justification.

Today in the text we have today, we see much more than simply forgiveness of sins. We have that Hebrews is full of it. Hebrews will become mostly a book talking about the priestly work of Christ. And while we touched on that in the introduction, he purged our sins. Here we get to it finally at the in verse 17 and 18 more explicitly to talk about the work of Jesus as high priest. But it’s placed in the context here of some cosmic truths based on Psalm 8 and other things that Jesus has accomplished.

And so it’s an exciting text. I hope you’re excited to see what this tells us about our savior. And I hope you know what we’re doing here. At the top of the outline, I’ve bolded the section we’re dealing with, section two of this wonderful sermon, a better name than angels, Son of God, Son of Man. So, we’re introduced to the topic at the end of verse four, the introduction. And then we have this topic before us.

And we said that essentially what goes on here is we have an exposition of the Son of God. Then we had the warning section. Now we have an exposition of the Son of Man. And we said that this section is reflected in the sixth part of this sermon which is also bolded in your text section 6:13:12-14 to 13:19 strong hands straight paths and what is that and that is a way to live in heavenly community here on earth and so the implication that Jesus is Son of God and Son of Man the firmament the mediator between heaven and earth is that he comes to bring heaven to earth so we pray it every week right that thy will might be done on earth as it is in heaven And what does that look like?

Well, eventually in this text, he gets to some very specific instructions as to what it looks like down in section six. But he doesn’t start there. Our problems are not primarily, you know, that we need more understanding of the specific things we’re supposed to do. There’s some other deep motivational stuff going on. What we need first before we get to all of that is an understanding of Jesus. When we drift away, we drift away from commandment-keeping.

Yeah. But it’s because we’ve drifted away from a full apprehension of who the person of Jesus Christ is and what he has accomplished and the purpose for his suffering and the way it should energize us to move forward in boldness.

On the outline, I’ve bolded again Son of Man now because that’s the section we’re dealing with. But what I’ve added as well here is after Son of God, I say see Hebrews 12:15-17. After hear him, Hebrews 12:18-29, Son of Man, Hebrews 13:1-19. And if you could just turn there for a moment, I want to show you the parallelism here between these texts and the one we’re dealing with now. Okay? So, as you’re turning, you can hear me. And what we’ve said is that this second section that matches the sixth, Son of God, warning, hear him, attend to what he says, and then Son of Man, And if you look at chapter 12 verse 14 as the beginning of this sixth section what does it say?

Pursue peace with all people and holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

Now see two subjects and this is like these typical headers in Hebrews where two subjects are given at the end of today’s text in verse 17 and 18 it talks about Jesus’s compassion and faithfulness. But it addresses this in reverse order. So at compassion, faithfulness. He’s going to talk about faithfulness. Then he’s going to talk about his compassion.

So here peace with all men, holiness, and what he’s going to do is direct the conversation, a little expansion first of holiness, and then he gets to peace with all men. Okay? So verse 15 really is directly related to the holiness, not so much to peace with all men. It starts with holiness. Son of God, holiness to God the Father. Verse 15. Looking carefully, lest anyone fall short of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled, lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright.

You see, what he’s addressing here is not living at peace with all men. He’s saying the problem wasn’t that Esau wasn’t concerned to have good relationship with Jacob. The problem was that Esau wasn’t holy. He wasn’t committed to Jesus Christ. He wasn’t committed to Yahweh and the birthright given to him by Yahweh was far less important than a bunch of pottage. You see, he’s not holy. And what does it refer to him as?

A fornicator, a defiled person, profane person, unclean. You see, it’s addressing his unholiness. For you know that afterward when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, found no place for repentance, though he sought it for digitally with tears. Okay? So, first he addresses holiness where he addresss to a warning section. In verse 18, for you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire and be blackened in darkness and tempest and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words so that those who heard it begged at the word should not be spoken to them anymore.

You didn’t come to that awful fearful place where the voice was so powerful that it caused those to hear it to say, “Please don’t speak to us. You’re killing us. We’re so frightened of this. See, we haven’t come there. And a lot of Christians like that part of the verse in today’s day and age. And they don’t get to the rest of it. They sort of assume that, yeah, we come to the place of grace. Remember in Chariots of Fire when they were interviewing the Jewish guy.

Well, he, you know, he worships on a different mountain. They were referring to Sinai. Whereas we’re the mountain, you know, the mountain where Jesus gave the Beatitudes, the sermon on the mount, all grace and love and kindness. Not understanding Jesus’s context. It is parallel with Sinai. So the text tells us that we’re not like the Old Testament. They could not endure what was commanded. And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow.

So terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.” Even Moses said that you haven’t come to that. But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God. Worship at Zion, David’s tabernacle, all referenced here. It’s New Testament worship being described. This is what worship is. We come to the mount Zion, the temple of the city of the living God, heavenly Jerusalem.

See, heaven to earth. Jesus is bringing it to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven. To God the judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that spoke better things than that of Abel. See that you do not refuse him who speaks. What’s the purpose of the parallel?

The comparison of the contrast. See that you do not refuse him who speaks. If they did not escape, who refused him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape. Much more shall we not escape if we turn away from him who speaks from heaven. It’s not better. It’s not Oh, it’s better. It’s not easier. You know, it’s not less frightening now to come to work. Worship it is that’s the way we treat it. But you know to a church that was drifting along and drifting away, God hammered at them.

He pounded the pulpit. You think it’s better that you now are going to ignore what’s spoken to you from heaven? It’s not better. It’s a lot worse. He’s saying whose voice then shook the earth. But now he has promised saying, “Yet once more I shake not just the earth but also heaven. A more diligent, boisterous, fearful shaking is going on now than it was to the people who worshiped at Sinai. Now, this yet once more indicates the renewal the removal of those things that are being shaken as of things that are made that the things which cannot be shaken may remain.

Is your life being shaken out? Yes, it is. Whether you know it or not, God is removing the things that can be shaken from you. Holiness is what God is after in your lives. Consecration and commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ. And you would best be afraid if you’re not moving that direction. That’s what he’s telling these men. Therefore, since we receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.

Why? For our God is a consuming fire. Hell is what he’s talking about here. If you drift away and you think that things are better now and it’s not so heavy duty anymore. You’ve missed everything that he’s saying. He’s warning you just like he warned us in the complementary section. Second, Jesus is the Son of God. Listen to him then. If Jesus is really God, if what we say every Sunday is true, you had better listen carefully, he says.

Now, he talks about Jesus’s Son of Man. And now he goes from the warning to the implications of Jesus’s Son of Man. Jesus brings us into rule and reign with him in the earth to the end that we might indeed live at peace with all men. The way this section started, peace, holiness, holiness, warning, now peace, let brotherly love continue. Hospitality can entertain ministers. Remember the prisoners. Marriage is honorable among all men.

Verse five, let your conduct be without covetousness. Don’t be greedy. On and on and on. He gives a whole series of practical commandments to them. Why? Well, we can assume that he’s telling them these things because these were the ways they were drifted off. Goes on to say, remember those who have the rule over you. In verse 7, verse 12, Jesus also that he might sanctify the people with his own blood. The purpose of Jesus, Son of God, Son of Man, is that we might be sanctified, have holiness, be warned not to ignore God, and then apply that holiness in our personal relationships. Do good, communicate, and to share to communicate.

Verse 17, obey those who have the rule.

Now, you know, last week we talked a little bit during the question and answer time about who this epistle is written to. And I’ve done a little more research this week. And modern commentators think it was written probably to an urban house church of some type. And where? Well, we don’t know where. And tell us where it tells us at the end of the sermon that it’s written from Italy.

Some people think and there’s a lot of people that are kind of leaning this way that this was a house church in Rome. Other people say it was a house church in Jerusalem. Some say it was in Spain. But everybody’s pretty well agreed because of the sort of exhortations that we just read that this is in an urban setting. And you know, it’s very applicable to us, isn’t it? Then if it’s in an urban setting, then it’s much more applicable to us because nearly all of America whether you’re living in the countryside or here, you got internet, you got TV, you got the cable, you got all that stuff going on.

And we live in an urban setting, too. And the very things that pulled them away that caused them to drift slowly away from Jesus Christ and which while they don’t know it, they’re about to drift over Niagara Falls to their damnation and destruction. Okay, that’s what he tells them. The very faint things there are addressed, I think, in these practical we would say sections the agenda of what to do. Sexual immorality says the marriage bed is undefiled.

Fornication’s bad. Why does he need to say that? Probably because the urban environment remember at this marriage seminar I went to a few months back. I’ve mentioned it before, but guy said, you know, it was different 100 years ago. If you’re out there plowing every day and you’re behind a horse or an ox and smelling what comes out of the end of the horse or an ox and you go home at the end of the night and that’s the only competition, your wife looks pretty good.

She smells pretty good, too. You’re pretty happy to go home and be with a woman. But today, when you go to the workplace, what do you got? You got women dressed scantily in many workplaces, smelling probably better than your wife’s going to smell when you get home. Because wife has lots of competition. And even if it’s not in your workplace, you turn on the television and there they all are. Mini skirts, deep cut tops, yada yada.

And then pornography readily available. All that stuff is hard and men need exhortations backed up with the warnings of damnation and hell fire to avoid sexual immorality because once it gets its hooks in you, you drift away. You see? Well, what other things do they have to be worried about? Well, they got to be worried about covetousness and greed. Again, for the farmer and the agrarian economy out in this country, I you know, I’m sure we everybody struggles with covetousness.

But greed is what it talks about here. And I think again that is heightened in an urban setting. Once again, you go to the office place and you see guys dressed to the nines and they got all the new cars all, you know, based bought with debt, typically big new houses that you don’t have. And it’s tough. It’s tough for your life not to become dominated by greed. You see, want more things, thinking that’s what it’s all about.

You watch TV and they’ve done studies, you know, the average sitcom, you got to make, I don’t know, 140,000 bucks to have the kind of lifestyle that the average sitcom person has. Perpetually, you’re being urged and motivated to envy. They’re not stupid. They do it to sell you things on TV, right? It’s all part of the whole the gig. It’s the whole purpose is to get you discontent with what you got so that you’ll get what they want to give you so you can get some satisfaction, but you never can get satisfaction.

You buy more and more and more. Those are the things that they’re warned against. They’re warned against treating Christianity as just kind of an option. You know, pluralism, he’s telling you, he’s telling them, you know, you think that you’re doing okay stuff, but you’re drifting away. Okay? You don’t come to church every Sunday. You’re drifting back toward Judaism, but we can put it in our setting. We tend to drift away.

It’s not so important. A lot of people think a lot of things. We kind of drift away. You see, pluralism, they don’t obey the rulers anymore. Well, church is not that significant. Well, house church only 30 40 people maybe in the middle of Rome. How important can it be? Come on. And that’s what happens and that’s what happens to us. You see all these are very common temptations for us as well. It’s particularly germane book to us and but he doesn’t start with a bunch of stuff they ought to do.

He grabs their attention with a whole bunch of doctrine first. See, he focuses on the person of Jesus. But now the way it’s going to match up as we get down to section six on these specific things that are going on. They need and we need the strong exhortations, the warnings that you know this is not some light thing. He tells them this in Hebrews 10:26-31. If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth.

Hey, these are Christians. They’ve come to the knowledge of the truth. They’ve been faithful for Jesus. We’ll see as we go along in the series that they were actually pretty strong for Jesus at one point. Suffered For no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has tempted the son of God under trampled the son of God underfoot?

Who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him and who has insulted the spirit of grace. For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge. I will repay.” It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. I’ll tell you something else that we have in common with the Hebrews. It’s fear. Today’s text, it says that Jesus came to deliver those who through all their lives were held in bondage to sin through fear of death.

In an urban culture where you’re a tiny little house church or a little congregation of 200 in this huge metropolitan area of Portland, you know, you don’t want to be too distinctive about talking about holiness and sexuality. And holiness in the workplace, diligence in the workplace, the need to keep Sabbath. That’s what the next section’s going to be about. You’re tempted to slide away from keeping the Sabbath, slide away from making stands because you don’t want to be persecuted.

Nobody’s going to kill you. Maybe in their culture, some did die martyrdom, but more than that, people are going to make fun of you. They’re not going to give you promotions. You’re not going to go as far. My son was turned down for promotion a couple weeks ago, and one of the big reasons was he didn’t want to work on Sundays. Well, that’s okay. I mean, there are other reasons. He’s new. He’s young. No leadership skills, but you know, it makes a difference to corporations today.

It’s hard to hold the line, you see. So, we’re fearful. I’m supposed to go down to Salem couple weeks maybe and address the homeschool rally. And, you know, I’m thinking 20 years we’ve held the line on homeschooling. We’ve got our nice little families. But, you know, if all our families are is just a place to kind to have peace without expanding that peace outward to the culture. You know, the state’s going to say, “Yeah, you can have your rubber ducky.

You can have your little churches. You can have your families as long as it doesn’t get public. As long as it doesn’t, you know, you know, rattle the orthodoxy of what we got going on out there.” And it’s disturbing to me that we’re 20 years into the beginning of or 30 years into the beginning of the homeschooling movement in Oregon, and it’s going to be harder than ever to go down to Salem and say, “Well, you know, homosexuality.

We don’t hate those people. They’re deluded. We know. But it’s sin. It’s wrong. It should be punished. It shouldn’t be allowed to go on. Forget civil unions. And it’s hard to go down there and say, you know, hell is real. And one of the ways we remind men of the judgment of God temporally at the end of time, at the end of their lives, as we bring the judgment into their lives, we’re supposed to execute certain people.

And you know, to try to speak in favor of the execution of criminals is a demonstration of the of the correct chastisement and judgment of God on sinners. It’s going to get us mocked. It’s going to get us made fun of. It’s going to hurt us in our work. It’s going to alienate friends. So, we’re fearful of all that stuff. And the Hebrews church was fearful, you know. So, you got fearfulness of really being explicitly overtly Christian.

And then you’ve got all the temptations that an urban environment bring. And the end result was they’re drifting, drifting, drifting When Lana and I went down and picked up Elijah from wherever it was, Wachi or some place a few months ago, we were driving along and I like to, you know, turn the radio stations in the middle of the country. What’s going on out there? Happy Mexican music. Always love to hear that.

And then in religious station and the guy’s talking about drifting and he didn’t talk about a text, but he was talking about this same thing. He played some song, some hymn about drifting away, but it was kind of ironic because the song was sort of dreamy and sort of made you want to just sort of drift away. Well, that’s the way it can be in our day. We’re just drifting away. And what the author of Hebrews does is he slaps you in the face three, four times in the midst of this sermon.

Wake up. Wake up. You’re drifting over Niagara Falls. Wake up. And he wakes them up with preaching on the reality of hell and eternal damnation. One commentator said that the kind-hearted humanitarians decided to improve on Christianity. The thought of hell they thought the thought of hell rather offended their sensibilities. They closed the door to hell. And to their surprise, the gates of heaven closed also with a melancholy bang.

C.S. Lewis in his letters to Malcolm said this, “I have met no people who fully disbelieved in hell and also had a living and lifegiving belief in heaven.” So to the extent that hell is left out of the Christian message, heaven disappears as well and salvation becomes irrelevant. You see, and so it’s easy to drift into this way of thinking and Paul or not Paul, whoever wrote Hebrews, we don’t know who wrote Hebrews, whatever wrote it, slaps them to an awareness of the necessity of hell, of this just judgment.

We need to escape something, he says. And it’s not just, you know, not having a wonderful fulfilled life and then going to heaven and God’s patting us on the head and saying, “Ah, it’s okay. You did your best. Uh-uh. No. He says we got to escape something. And what he tells us over and over again is we got to escape damnation. We got to escape judgment. We got to escape hellfire. And that’s supposed to wake us up and stop us from drifting downstream.

Rob Raburn put it this way. Take away the threat of punishment. Take away the wrath of God and soon it will no longer be clear what we need a savior for and Christ will appear a different person, a different figure than the God man, the redeemer the scripture reveals him to be. Take damnation away and the argument of Hebrews falls apart. And so it has fallen in our day. Take damnation away and the gospel of Christ fails.

So warnings and I’m, you know, I know it’s not to the text we read already. But see, it’s it’s the match. It’s the it’s the match to what we’re doing in this section. These warnings that we have not come to a place that’s safer. It’s not safer to be a Christian than it was to be a Jew. Just the other way around. The writer of the sermon of Hebrews calls us to a renewed commitment to Jesus Christ in the practical affairs of our life, our sexuality, our business.

Our relationship to the church community. There’s so many more things. And he does it on the basis of what we’re going to look at now. Who Jesus is. Son of God, better hear him. Son of Man, better understand what it is that he has done for you. If you don’t do what he has called you to do, then you’re not those that are really saved, maybe is another way to put it. Well, okay. So, let’s look at the text now.

And I’ve got it under five headings. Five names for Jesus. And the first is Jesus the Dominion Son of Man will be a little easier for you to follow along if you use the text handout that I’ve prepared because I kind of try to break it up in a way that makes it easy. This is helpful to me. I don’t know if it’s helpful to you. It is to me to sort of see that there’s these messages have little discrete elements to them.

Look at the beginning and end. He was not put the world to come of which he spoke in subjection to angels, but at the end for the suffering of death. Jesus has been crowned with glory and honor. So Jesus is the one who gets to rule. See here and this is in opposition to angels. So he’s picking up the same general theme, a better name than angels, but that better name now is Son of Man. And it is immediately linked in the get-go in verse 5 to the subjection of the world to come.

Verse six, no one but one testified in a certain place, saying, “What is man that you are mindful of him or the son of man that you take care of him, you have made him a little lower than the angels. Okay? And then I got an indent because those first few sections, first few statements talk about man being lower than angels, so to speak, not having power and dominion. You have made him a little lower than the angels.

And then we have a central section, but then we get back out when the text zings out again at the but statement. But now we do not yet see all things put under him. But we see Jesus who is made a little lower than the angels. You see, so he’s saying first of all that Jesus is going to be crowned with glory and honor. All things are going to be put in subjection to him. And he gets to the middle by saying, well, but you know, Psalm 8 said he’s made a little lower than the angels, and we don’t see Jesus head of everything yet.

And that takes us to the middle section. Then you have crowned him with glory and honor. Set him over the works of your hands. You have put all things in subjection, there it is word again, under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not under him. So what is all this telling us? Well, what it’s telling us is that Jesus is the Son of Man. And because he’s the Son of Man in Jesus, the original purpose, the plan that God always had for you and me, men and women, you and me, boys and girls, we’re men.

We’re humanity. What are we here for? To escape hell? No, we are here to exercise dominion over the world. That’s what God told Adam. Adam is created in the image of God, righteousness, holiness, knowledge, and dominion. What’s the image of God? When we find everything out in that first chapter, second, first couple of chapters of Genesis, the image of God is to have dominion over the world and the image of Christians.

You see, Christians are the image of Christ. That Christ here is Son of Man. And what that means, that simple title doesn’t just mean he’s human. It means that he has come to bring humanity to its original intent to exercise dominion over the world. He’s writing to a little tiny house church in Rome. And he says, you know, you got to understand that everything here has been put in subjection to Jesus Christ.

And just like it didn’t seem like it when we saw Jesus and it doesn’t seem like it now. Still, that’s what’s going on. That’s the purpose for which Jesus Christ came. That you might be holy and live at peace with men. That you might have proper sexual relationships. That you might engage in proper business practices. That you might have a proper community with leaders who are respected, listened to because they’re speaking for Christ.

That you’d be diligent in your Sabbath observances. All this stuff comes out as the way by which this world should be governed by the church. And so Jesus is the Son of Man in contradistinction to the angels and specifically he’s the Son of Man in bringing man back to the place of being crowned with glory and honor over the works of all of God’s hands. You put all things in subjection under his feet. Everything he said.

Now he repeats it after he quotes from Psalm 8. He says, “Well, what does it mean when it says He put all in subjection under him. Well, here’s the explanation. He left nothing that is not under him. Absolutely everything is what he’s saying. There’s no areas of neutrality. I don’t care what your culture teaches you when you want to be neutral and kind of blend in as just some sort of conservative or some kind of compassionate person.

Forget it. He said everything in your life is marked by your commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ. God’s purpose is restored from mankind goes on from there. Well, see, he talks at first about Jesus the Son of Man. So Jesus is ruling and that’s where he sort of leaves it. Then the second section he brings us into this picture. So the second title, Jesus is the captain or champion maybe is a better word. Jesus is the champion.

It’s the champion of our salvation. Okay? That he by the grace of God, this is grace. Even though there’s frightening stuff, this is the grace of God. This is what God’s grace does. Might taste death for everyone. So now that image of Jesus as the primary subject in Psalm 8 is being broadened out to humanity. And that’s a little introductory sentence there. And then he gets into it. It was fitting for him for whom are all things and by whom are all things in bringing many sons to glory.

So Jesus was crowned with glory and honor. Now he’s bringing those many sons to glory. He goes ahead of us. He’s the trailblazer. And unlike the Portland Trailblazers, he goes up, not down. He brings many sons to glory to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering. So, it’s fitting for him, from whom are all things to whom all things to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.

Well, a couple of important things to point out here. First of all, what’s going on with that last verse? Captain of their salvation. Well, this now this is an urban culture that this epistle is written into it’s a Hellenistic culture but you know these early churches were in the midst of Greek culture Romans had brought in a concept of the state and statism but the Greek culture Hellenistic culture is what pretty well everything was doing we saw a movie last week Mr.

Deeds not goes to Washington but does something I don’t remember it was called and it’s I realized that it’s kind of a remake of Mr. Deeds goes to Washington right I mean it’s Adam Sandler which doesn’t Jimmy Stewart. It’s a modern version, modern telling. We saw it on TV, so that all that horrible PG-13 stuff. This is just about every movie. I think PG-13s are worse than ours often times, but all that stuff’s edited out for TV, so it’s kind of nice.

And I realized, you know, a third of the way into it, oh, this is kind of a remake. You know, he’s not going to Washington. He’s not going to the source of political power. He’s going to the source of business power. And there’s a girl that he gets mixed up with. And now she’s like you know, in the modern version, it’s a retelling of this because now this girl is a, you know, TV reporter for a scandal sheet, you know, whatever it is.

So, it’s kind of a retelling. You see, there are only a few stories and we retell them, we recast them, we put them in modern settings, and that’s what we do. Well, when the author to Hebrews of Hebrews says that Jesus is the champion, this is a word that was used to refer to Hercules. Hercules was the champion. Now, a champion is like a representative of a group of people. You know, they were a little smarter than we were.

Let’s not send out 10,000 guys on each side to fight a war. Let’s send out five of their best and brightest and strongest against five on their side, and whoever wins, they win the war. A little easier way of doing it there. So, we got the representative nature of Jesus Christ as our champion. Hercules was supposed to have wrestled with death. Black shrouded guy death according to Euripides. And what we’re going to see here as the text goes on is that Jesus is our champion and he wrestles with death and he frees us.

Hercules had to go down there to Hades and take that three-headed dog or whatever it was and bring him out and so that people wouldn’t be intimidated. Jesus wrestles death and does away with him and frees us from the intimidation of death. You see, the three-headed dog is removed for us and we don’t have to be fearful. So when it says champion here, it’s kind of drawing on that imagery. Now Hercules is not the origin.

Hercules is a false Greek counterfeit of Messiah champion. And in the Bible, Jesus is referred to in the Old Testament several times as this champion who will bring many sons to glory. I’ll read those in a few minutes, but just so you don’t misunderstand, but that’s kind of what it means. The representative nature of this champion, God of God, man of man, made perfect through sufferings. This is a tough phrase, too.

I’ve often wondered about it. Well, the word perfect here, the Greek word is used in the LXX the Greek translation of the Old Testament to translate among other things consecration. In the Old Testament to consecrate somebody meant literally to fill his hand with the office or he had to be consecrated so he could put on the robes of office. You see? So he’s made perfect. He’s consecrated to do this champion task.

And that’s what’s being talked about here. It isn’t that Jesus somehow was lacking. But it’s saying that in terms of his representative nature for humanity, bringing us to salvation, his hand is filled. He’s fully consecrated through suffering. See, now that’s the twist. This is what makes it unlike the Greek story them suffering is all bad. Jesus to become the champion is consecrated fully to the task and given the rule of champion by suffering.

And notice that it links up with it was fitting. It was fitting. for God the Father or God to make Jesus perfect, consecrated for the task through suffering. Why is that fitting for him? Think about it a little bit. We’ve talked about it a lot the last couple of years, haven’t we? Hopefully, you’re you’re making these connections. It’s fitting because that’s who God is. God is a God who dies for you, who loves you dearly and deeply.

And he’s not a God who is all demanding. He is a God who is all giving. He gives the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s fitting because it’s the nature of God. It’s just what we’ve said about the Philippians 2 stuff. Jesus doesn’t do something extraordinary suffering for our sakes. He does something godlike when he suffers for our sake. He says, “Look at me in John. You’ll see the father.” Father isn’t just some horrible.

He’s not at all some mad nasty person the son has to plate. There is propitiation for our sins and all that stuff. But Jesus says, When you see me suffering on the cross, the moment of my glorification in John’s gospel, it is the, you know, it is the center of history, the revelation of the nature of God that it is fitting for him to accomplish our salvation through suffering. You see it and you see when you get to the law, yeah, you know, we can just tell you these are the commandments, you got to follow them.

But that’s not the way God work. He says, “Consider this Jesus that he’s Son of God and he’s Son of Man. He’s brought you here to restore you to exercise dominion over this earth. And consider that this Jesus was made perfect, made the champion through his sufferings on the cross for you as your representative. Surely, but more than that, as someone who loves you and who loves you deeply.”

So Jesus is the captain of our salvation. And as such he does this work through suffering. And again here this reminds us so God’s fixed purpose is to bring many sons to glory and honor and reign and dominion over the earth beasts fields hills all that stuff we sang about doesn’t mean in the future way off there somewhere says we don’t see him now ruling the passage we just looked at but we see Jesus who is ruling now and so the hope for the future is that the future will play out just what Jesus has accomplished.

Then he’s been given as Son of Man all rule and authority sits at the right hand of the father. And so he gives the Hebrews hope in this life in this life that the justification the verdict of God changes what happens in the world. It’s not just about avoiding uh hell. It is that. But more importantly is the overall purpose of God. is to create man to exercise dominion in the earth. This is what it’s all about.

He said, “And you’re that.” Now, you see, see, not only is that the overall purpose, the way this works out, God’s fixed purpose is to bring you into that position of dominion. The divine intention is to lead human beings to the goal for which they have been created. This appeared to be mocked by human experience. It was entirely congruous, however, with the primal intention celebrated in Psalm 8. That God should graciously decree that his son identify himself with the human condition and rescue humanity through his own humiliation and death.

This is God’s purpose. This is what he comes to affect. This is Jesus. All right. Third, Jesus is our brother. Jesus is our brother for both he who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified. So Jesus is the Son of God. He’s the representative captain of our salvation. And now we’re going to hear about his unity with mankind. And you see it’s all set up here. He who is who sanctifies, who consecrates you.

Okay? And they were in danger of losing their sense of consecration. One who consecrates you. And those who are being consecrated are one. We have unity in our humanity with the humanity of Jesus Christ. For which reason he is not ashamed to call them brethren.

Let’s just stop there. I’ll pick up the rest of this next week. Jesus Christ comes as brother. You know, there was a movie several years ago called The River Runs Through It, and there was an older brother and a younger brother. The older brother was stable, and the younger brother was kind of wild. And the movie was about the younger brother just, you know, kind of drifting away down his path. The older brother saw it happening. The father who was a pastor saw it happening. He couldn’t do anything to stop it. They felt horrible. They love the younger brother. Younger brother’s eventually beaten to death in a brawl. And what empathy that movie should drive home in us.

I remember when I was a kid, I rode over my bicycle to my younger brother Rick’s school. See how he was doing. And there he was on the ground being pummeled by some guy. Man, I jumped off that bike. I grabbed that guy off of him, you know, pushed him away. Now I know, I’d done the same thing to my brother that this guy was doing to him, you know, so I don’t want to make myself into anything, but you know, you just if you imagine seeing one of your siblings attacked by a wicked person, and I don’t know who this boy was, but you know, the imagination, wicked person, the younger son being beaten to death by these hoods, you know, this beautiful spirit of a guy who could fly fish with the best of them.

I mean, it just it’s you’re so empathetic with that. And when it talks here about Jesus being our brother, he has that kind of compassion, sympathy, love, deep love for us. And he sees the devil beating on us. He sees us in subjection. And he’s like that older brother in that regard. He sees it all happening. But he’s unlike him in this regard. The older brother couldn’t do a thing about it. Jesus can. Jesus is not just caring.

Jesus is capable. He’s come and once for all ripped the devil off your back, got him out of your face, picked you up, and said, “Exercise dominion for me. You’re my brother.” Amazing statement here. Jesus is our brother. He’s our Lord. He’s our king. Yes, but he’s our brother. You see, he loves us more than a brother. And notice what it says here about that. For which reason? He is not ashamed to call them brethren.

That’s kind of sting to these Hebrew Christians. It isn’t obvious apparently. You know, we’re thinking doctrally here, but see, it’s Got a little sting to it, doesn’t it? Because these Hebrews were ashamed of Jesus. They didn’t want to hold a full testimony of Christ and suffer persecution, martyrdom, or even the embarrassment in a pluralistic large city like Rome or Spain, wherever, Madrid, wherever it was.

You see? Well, that’s us. We’re like those Hebrews. We our tendency is to drift away. And you know, he he equips us to reconsecrate ourselves afresh to Jesus Christ with this little sting. Jesus is not ashamed loved ones of him to call you brother. Will we be ashamed of Jesus? Will we go to Salem? When we go to political action and talk just like the conservatives of traditional values when we go to the workplace, people commend us for our diligence.

Yeah, I’m a pretty good guy. When we put in the time properly, when we be holy in our marital relationships? Will we avoid greed? Will we enter into the Lord’s day and keep it? Will we live in community properly? Or will we drift away? Will we not be ashamed of calling Jesus our brother? And will we repent today for the times in our own lives, this past week, this past month that we’ve drifted away from Jesus to some extent and been ashamed to bear a full witness to him.

Let’s pray. Father, Father, we ask your forgiveness. We thank you for the delightful imagery given us in this text of Jesus Christ, our savior, Son of Man, Son of God. Father, we think of that song we sang earlier. Fairest Lord Jesus. We know Lord God that this song has connections all the way back to the children’s crusade when those 12, 13, 14 year-old boys and girls marched across the meadows of Europe, climbed over difficult heights, mountains because they thought with their holiness and consecration to Jesus Christ, they could accomplish what the warriors couldn’t.

We thank you, Father, for the song that comes down to us to remind us of that thinking and meditating on the beauty of the created order and that Jesus Christ is fairer than any of these. Help us, Lord God, to have the zeal for holiness and a holiness that leads toward proper relationships to our brothers and sisters and also a holiness that leads us to want to get rid of the lawlessness, the wickedness and evil in our culture the way that those young people did.

We don’t know what happened to them, Lord God. Many of them died. Many all of them were betrayed. And yet, we know also that the reports come down that not one of them was ashamed of Jesus. Even while serving as slaves to the Muslims, they maintain testimony to the Lord Jesus Christ. Help us, Lord God, who have not had to resist the point of shedding blood to walk into this week with a renewed consecration to not be ashamed of Jesus indeed to have everything that we do lived to the purpose of exalting him.

In his name we ask it. Amen.