Hebrews chapter two, really the
story of Christmas, as we like to say, is throughout scripture. It's about the condescension
of the Son of God, who is God overall, taking our nature and
taking our case, bearing our sins and the penalty due us for
our sins in order to redeem us from our sins and from all the
enemies of our soul. This is a story of infinite grace. It's a story of incomprehensible
love and humiliation and humility, willing humility of the Lord
Jesus Christ. When we see him, of course, there's
many things that you would expect me to say after that. One of
the things we're going to realize is his majesty as God. And the thought of that and the
realization of that is going to put us in a posture in our
hearts and in our bodies, if we have our resurrected bodies,
of being in the dust. And His greatness is beyond all
measure, all ability to comprehend. And so we see, when we see the
Lord Jesus Christ coming into the world, what is this world? And what is man? That he would
be mindful of us. And yet, not only mindful, but
to, from that point in time, taking our nature and a body
like our body, and in all appearances was a sinful body, but wasn't
sinful, and taking that nature to union with himself as God
forever in order to save us from our sins, what we committed against
God. Like Rommel said, this is us. He's saving us from ourselves.
That's astute. that's beyond expression. We can't really get it. But when
we see him, then I think it'll be like Thomas said, my Lord
and my God. Let's pray and ask the Lord to
be with us. Gracious Heavenly Father, we pray that through
the Lord Jesus Christ, your only begotten Son and our only Savior,
that you would bless us now with what we need. You know our needs
before we ask, and we know that we need life. We need your spirit. We need grace. We need faith
to see our Savior, and we need the perseverance of that faith
to know Him and to walk with Him. And we need the grace of
your spirit living in us to give us the fruit that you, that brings
you glory in our salvation. And help us, dear Lord, help
our children and our parents that we would that your word,
the gospel, would be written on our hearts, and Jesus Christ
and his name would be lovely to us, and we would say, as we
just sang, tell me the story of Jesus, the one who saved his
people from their sins. Thank you for your word. Thank
you that men cannot erase it or change it. They can't change
the history of the Lord Jesus Christ's accomplished, finished
work and the salvation he obtained for us. And yet we know that
only by the spirit of life, the spirit of your grace and truth
do we know these things. So please teach us now and save
us from our sins for his sake. In Jesus' name, amen. In Hebrews
chapter two, And we're going to probably have two more sermons,
just so you're wondering when we're ever going to get out of
this chapter. Maybe one more sermon. We find
in here the great stoop that the Lord Jesus Christ made. we
see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels. Not so
much lower in degree, though it was in a degree lower than
the angels, but lower for a time, for a short time. And this is
what it says in verse nine, for this purpose he was made lower
for the suffering of death. So he couldn't be, he couldn't
die unless he was made like us, a man. And then it says, because
he did suffer death, crowned with glory and honor. This is
the way we see him. The one who came, made lower,
suffered death, and now is crowned by God, exalted for his great
work in our salvation. And he did this by the grace
of God, in order that by God's grace, he would taste death for
every son, for every one that God is describing in the verses
that follow. In verse 10 it says, for it became
him, now this is speaking of God the Father, for it became
him, God our Father, 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. Many things could
be said about this text of scripture. First of all, that it was God
the Father who made us his sons. And He made us His sons before
He sent His Son into the world. He made us His sons in His will
and by His predestination. It says in Ephesians 1.4 that
He has chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having
predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to
Himself. That's what God the Father did.
So we were his sons in his will and by his predestinating grace
through Jesus Christ before the world began. Therefore he says
here, it was fitting. It seemed good to God. It was
right. It was appropriate. It was everything
that seemed good to God in order to bring those many sons predestinated
to be his sons by adoption, to bring them to glory by what?
by the captain of our salvation, whom he would make a perfect
champion for us through his sufferings. That's what verse 10 is saying.
Verse 11, now, for both he, Christ, that sanctifieth, and they who
are sanctified are all of one. Now, he just said that it was
good, it seemed good to God the Father to do this, to make the
captain of our salvation perfect through sufferings. And now he
says why he did this in order to sanctify
us, and the one who sanctifies us is Christ. But he goes on
to say we're all of one. One what? One Father. Right? And so believers are of one father. And we have Christ, the Lord
Jesus Christ, as our eldest brother. Because he goes on, he says,
he that sanctifyeth and they who are sanctified are all of
one, for which cause he, Christ, is not ashamed to call them brethren. So he's our brother. And when
we say those things, it's almost like we're reluctant, doesn't
it? Don't you seem reluctant? Have you met somebody and you
greet them, and you know, this is Henry, or this is Charlie,
or whoever it is, and you meet them, but you never say, they
don't introduce them as your brother, do they? It's only a
few people in the world that you can identify with as a brother
or a sister. But in the Lord Jesus Christ,
we're all brethren. And the Lord Jesus himself is
not ashamed to call us his brethren. And that is a condescension.
That is condescending grace. And then he goes on, he says
in verse 12, saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren. This
is the proof that he's not ashamed to call us his brethren. In the
midst of the church. So all in that congregation called
the church. The church is another name for
the elect. Another name for the congregation, God's people, called
out a holy nation, he says in 1 Peter 2. A holy nation, a chosen
generation. So these things are synonyms
or different descriptions of the church, the body of Christ. Those are the ones he says, I
will declare my name to. I will declare thy name, my father's
name, to my brethren. I'll make known to my brethren
my father. I'll declare his person, his
name, who he is, his will, his purpose, his work, his heart. He's going to declare. And how
does he do that? He's going to declare to us the
gospel of his grace. He's going to make himself known
to us. No man knows the Father save the Son, and he, to whomsoever
he will reveal him. It comes from the will of the
Father and the will of the Son to make himself known in the
Lord Jesus. And to whom he makes himself
known, they are his brethren. And so he says, in the midst
of the church will I sing praise to thy name. The Lord Jesus Christ
praising our God and His God, our Father and His Father. Remember
last week when we took part of the Lord's Supper? It says at
the end when He had given them the broken bread and the cup
with the wine representing the New Testament in His blood, what
did they do next? After they had all eaten and
drank, He said they sang a hymn. They sang a hymn. They were together
there meeting as his body and they sang a hymn. I will sing
praise unto thee in the midst of the congregation. He identifies
with us so much that he is with us now by his spirit and he's
revealing himself to us in his gospel, and he's telling us his
heart for us, his heart towards his father, and he's bringing
in his declaration, and his singing, and his praise to God. He's bringing
us into the awareness of who his father is. and who he is
to us, one with us. He's one with us in this family,
in this relationship as father. He has the same relation to his
father as we have, his God, our God, his father and our father.
As he says in John chapter 20 and verse 17, I'll just turn
and read that to you, you don't have to turn there, but when
he was speaking to Mary and telling her to go tell his disciples,
he said this, Jesus said to her, touch me not, for I am not yet
ascended to my father, but go to my brethren and say to them,
I ascend unto my father and your father and to my God and to your
God. That's grace, isn't it? He teaches
us what he's done for us. How he brought us to God, to
bring us to God is his work. It's all His doing, the captain
of our salvation, bringing God's many sons to glory. And He tells
us now, He declares the name of His God and His Father to
us, my God and your God, my Father and your Father. And yet the
Lord Jesus Christ also is our God. He says, the Father has
declared in the Psalms, Psalm 45, 6 and 7, and in Hebrews 1,
8, He said, to the Son, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. He speaks to His Son. Unto the
Son, He saith, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. And we just
read when Rommel read from Matthew chapter one, verse 23, his name
shall be called Emmanuel, Jesus Christ, God with us. So here
is the one who has done this for us, who declares the name
of his God and our God, his father and our father to us and sings
with us in this body, this church. He leads us, he's the forerunner,
the one who's gone in first, the one who has brought us and
in himself going and entering into the presence of God and
taking possession of his inheritance, he's saying he's bringing us
to his God as our God and bringing us into his inheritance as our
inheritance. This is amazing grace. And then
he goes on in verse 13. Not only does he declare his
unashamed identification with us as his brethren, and having
the same father and praising his God with us and singing praise
to his God and his father with us in the church. But he says
this, I will put my trust in him. I will put my trust in him. He identifies with us in trust. He says he trusts his God as
we trust him. And how did the Lord Jesus Christ
trust him? He trusted him with not only
his own deliverance from death and from all of his enemies,
as we read throughout the Psalms, but he trusted him to save him,
having taken our sins as his own, to save him and deliver
him from those sins, receiving from him a just compensation,
a ransom to God, not only to deliver him now from death, but
to deliver with him all of his people. And so he says, I put
my trust in him, just like they do. He so identifies with us
that he himself trusted God as we trust God. That's an endearing
thing, isn't it? To trust God as we trust him.
We learn to trust him because he trusted him. It says in Psalm
22, let me read this to you. He was on the cross when he prayed
this prayer in Psalm 22. I'll pick it up at verse 7, Psalm
22. He says, all they that see me
laugh me to scorn. They shoot out the lip. They're
scorning him. They're mocking him. They're
deriding him. They're trying to claim power
over him. They're trying to claim superiority
to him. They see him in his sufferings,
and instead of sympathizing with him, they add cruelty to it all,
and they accuse him of being worthy of it, of being lower
than them. So they mock him, they mock his purpose, they mock
his salvation, they mock him and his father. They hate him
without a cause. This isn't who we are. Then he
says, So they said, they laugh me to scorn, they shoot out the
lip, they shake the head saying, he trusted on the Lord that he
would deliver him. Let him deliver him, seeing he
delighted in him. You experienced this when you
were growing up, didn't you? Mocking and scorn. You're on
the playground and the crowd gathers around and they look
at you and they say, see he's weak, and they all shout names
at you or whatever they do. You know what it's like. You
know the pain of that. Look, he can't even get up. He's
such a wimp. This is what they're saying.
He trusted the Lord, let the Lord deliver him. If he's truly
the Lord's, if he's the son of God, why is he hanging on the
cross now? This is evidence that the Lord
has forsaken him. And he himself cried this, my
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And yet, in that moment,
in that hour of being forsaken by his father, for us, he says,
he trusted. He rolled himself upon Jehovah,
literally is what it says in verse eight. He says in verse
nine, but thou, see how he trusts him? But thou art he that took
me out of the womb Thou didst make me hope when I was on my
mother's breast, even from infancy, I was trusting my God. See how
he fulfilled all righteousness? He trusted in the Lord. And he
says this, to identify with us, he says, I will put my trust
in him. Can we trust God? He did. He
has given us warrant here as his brethren. He has given us
an example here as his people. He's our forerunner, our champion.
He's showing us to trust his God and Father. And then he goes
on. He says, and again, in verse
13, not only I will put my trust in him, but again, behold, I
and the children which God hath given me. He's given them to
me. They're mine. They were his,
he gave them to me, now they're mine, but they're still his.
In John 17, verse 10, he says, all thine are mine, and all mine
are thine, and I'm glorified in them. So the children of God
never stop being his children, and yet they're given to Christ
for a purpose. His name shall be called Jesus, for He shall
save His people from their sins. That's the purpose, to bring
His many sons to glory. He, God the Father, entrusted
to His Son as the Lord Jesus Christ the entire salvation of
all of His people and the upholding of His oath that he has sworn
by himself to bring them to glory and give them with Christ all
the inheritance he promised to them in that everlasting covenant.
He staked himself by an oath on his word, he staked his person
and his reputation, his name as God, that he would do this
and he then gave it to his son to fulfill it. And God the Father
upheld him in this. And so he trusted in the Lord
and God the Father kept him in this and upheld him so that he
was successful. And so he says, behold, I and
the children, they're mine. I'm not ashamed to call them
brethren. They're God's children. They
were given to me. These are the ones that he spoke of in verse
nine, which we just read a moment ago, that he tasted death for
them, for every one of these. And then in verse 14 he says,
for as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood,
he also himself likewise took part of the same, that through
death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that
is the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were
all their lifetime subject to bondage. And now I'm going to
skip to verse 16, and we'll come back to verses 14 and 15. For
verily he took not on angels. I'm skipping over the words in
italics in the King James, because they were inserted in an attempt
to clarify this. But he didn't take on angels. Now, what is the first thing
you think of when you read those words? Well, one of the things
we should think of is that God's grace towards us is a discriminating
grace. He did not take on angels, fallen
angels. He didn't take on to save angels,
but he took on another group. So that's distinguishing, isn't
it? He chose not to save the angels from their fall, but he
left them to perdition. He left them to suffer a judgment
that's eternal and indescribable and yet just. A punishment indescribably
horrible and yet just in the eyes of God. And he left them,
the fallen angels and the devil, to that. And think about what
the devil is. And you don't have any problem
that God left him to this, do you? He's the father of lies,
it says in scripture. We know he hates righteousness
and loves iniquity. This is the devil. He hates righteousness. He loves iniquity. When he tells
a lie, Jesus said, it's from him. He's the father of it. And
for these things, he's under the condemnation of eternal judgment.
The hell and the lake of fire, according to scripture in Matthew
25 and Revelation 20, were made for the devil and his angels. Now think about that. God created
this place of torment for the devil and his angels because
they deserved it. And the devil's desire has always
been to rule over God's people over men to rule over them for
his glory, for the devil's own glory. He wants to rule without
God's intervention over God's people for his own glory and
his own enrichment. And so he rebelled. And having
rebelled and offended God, many angels followed him in that rebellion. And so God has given the devil
himself authority over those fallen angels And he himself,
the devil, is waiting the greatest punishment for eternity at the
very hand of the Lord Jesus Christ in eternal perdition and torment.
And who has a problem with that? The devils are awaiting their
torment. Remember when Jesus came to the
demoniac, they cried out, have you come to torment us before
the day? So here we have this fact. The greatest of all punishment
for all eternity will be poured out on the devil himself and
the angels. He's gonna be punished. But in
this same place, God will send all those who believed the lie
and who followed him, who were part of his kingdom. Now the
devil's purpose is to kill all of God's people, to kill the
children of men. And how does he do that? Well,
he seeks to murder them at God's own hand. He tempts them to sin,
knowing that God promised, in the day you eat thereof, you
shall surely die. So the devil, knowing that God
will hold them to justice and he will bring death upon them
for their sin, he tempted men to sin in order to murder them.
That's cruelty, isn't it? That's a devious motive, the
height of cruelty and an ill motive. And yet he's still more
cruel still. Because knowing that men are
under this sentence of condemnation, he says in verse 14 of Hebrews
chapter 2, that those who are the children that Christ took
their nature, he came to deliver them because by the devil they
lived in the fear of death. The devil afflicts them and torments
them under the fear of eternal damnation from God. So he seeks
not only to instill fear in them, but also to, as he always does,
to create a rend, a separation, a hostility in their minds towards
God, because God's going to punish you. So they immediately become
hostile towards God. And this is all with the devil's
craft. This is the way he works. He deceives men. He falsely represents
God and his truth. And he puts the blame on God
instead of man's sin, on man. And so he tries to put himself
in this place. And he seeks to murder men. And
he wants to afflict them in the torment of this, the constant
fear of this. Isn't that cruel? And he rules
over mankind, fallen mankind, as a king, according to Jesus
in Luke chapter 11. As a king rules his palace with
high walls, and all of his goods are inside of that palace, the
devil rules as if he is in peace. He has a palace, it's strong,
and his goods are safe. So he rules in peace. And all
of the children of the devil, all those who are in the kingdom
of Satan, which we were until we were delivered from it, We're
completely oblivious to the fact that we're in captivity to Satan.
We think we have an independence. We boast of our free will. We
go about our lives thinking we're free, but we're not free. We're
subject to eternal damnation. We've believed the lie. We've
served the one who is seeking to murder us, and now we live
in the fear, in a subconscious mind, of eternal death. That's
cruelty, isn't it? But at every turn, we see the
very opposite in our Savior. Satan seeks to deceive men, tempt
them to sin, murder them, and then raise enslaving fears in
their minds of God's judgment. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
exactly the polar opposite. Christ is God's chosen. He is God's elect. And He was
set up by God from eternity to rule forever and ever. And His
desire is to serve God. not to rebel. His desire is to
serve God's people. That's why he came. That's why
he was born and as an infant laid in a manger. That's why
he lived a life in poverty. Foxes have holes, birds of the
air have nests, but the son of man does not have place to lay
his head. He came in humility and he suffered
in humiliation. In the words and in the torment
of men, he suffered unjustly at their hand, although it was
for our sins that he suffered. Christ's desire was to serve
his God and to serve his people. I didn't come to be served, but
to serve and give my life a ransom for many. Not to murder them,
but to actually give myself as a ransom in payment to release
them from their sins and from death and from the judgment of
God. And so the Lord Jesus Christ
loves righteousness and he hates iniquity. He himself is the truth,
not the father of lies, the truth itself. And he doesn't have to
seek to acquire a people. They were given to him by his
father. He's not out to gain something. He made himself lower,
and God rewarded and exalted him and made him heir of all
things. This was God's doing. Therefore, it's right. It was
good. He's the only one worthy of it. His only desire has only
been and ever been to do the will of God. and to give himself
for his people and then give himself to his people and to
rule over them for their salvation by the will of God and to God's
glory. You see the difference here?
It's as different as light is from darkness, as kindness is
from cruelty, as salvation and life is from death and murder. Why would we ever serve the prince
of darkness? because we're foolish. And though
the Lord Jesus Christ loves righteousness and hates iniquity, and though
He never knew sin, never did sin, and in Him is no sin, yet
in the greatest act of love and humility. He took the case of
his people to save them from their sins by burying their sins
in his own body as his own in the shame of them and the guilt
of them before God and therefore suffered that cruel instrument
of death on the cross. Because the cross is called,
he that hangs on the cross is cursed of God. The Lord Jesus
doesn't deceive men. He reveals the truth to us. He's
so far from bringing men to sin that He Himself worked out a
righteousness for His people and delivers them from sin and
clothes them in His righteousness. He saves those who in themselves
are sinners and ungodly and enemies of God and have no strength but
have ruined themselves, He comes to them who are without understanding
and strength, ignorant and sinful and helpless, and He delivers
them from the mess we got ourselves into. You see how He is a Savior,
the only Savior, so far from being the cause of our destruction.
He is Himself the way, the truth, and the life. So far from murdering
men's souls, he is the life to their souls, their life to God. So far from cruelty that he himself
has compassion on sinners like us who destroyed ourselves by
following after and worshiping Satan. And so the Lord Jesus Christ
in righteousness has delivered us from this tyrant of our souls,
this fiend of hell. and he's therefore called the
captain of our salvation. Now it says in verse 16, he did
not take on angels. The Lord Jesus Christ did not
take on to save angels. He left the devil and fallen
angels who serve him, who are part of his kingdom, he left
them to the destruction that justice demanded for them. That's
distinguishing grace, isn't it? That's justice. Who can fault
God for that? And yet he goes on, but he took
on the seed of Abraham. Now he took on the seed of Abraham.
Who is the seed of Abraham? Well, it says in Galatians chapter
three that believers are the seed of Abraham. Believers are
justified. by Christ just as Abraham was
justified, every believer. Abraham himself and all believers
are justified in the same way, by the Lord Jesus Christ. The
Lord Jesus Christ has delivered believers from the curse of the
law so that the promise of the Spirit might be given to them.
And the inheritance that God promised to Abraham, which includes
justification and everlasting life and eternal glory as God's
sons, that promise, that inheritance, is not ours, just like it wasn't
Abraham's, by our own works to keep God's law, but it is ours
By what? By Christ's work, the captain,
the forerunner, the champion, the pioneer, if you will, of
our salvation. The one who went before and accomplished
all for us as Joshua, and then gave the land by lot to Israel. So our inheritance is within
Christ's inheritance. And it was promised to him. and
to us in him. And Abraham is the first one
to whom God made known this promise in Christ. Now, this inheritance that was
promised to Abraham is ours in Christ and it's known to us. How? How do we know it? How do
we know it's ours? God gives us something by which
we know it. It's called faith. It's compared
to sight. Just like we see with our physical
eyes, God gives us a spiritual sight to see that our inheritance
is in Christ. But we don't see it that way
at first. What we find is as sinners, we're delivered by the
Lord Jesus Christ. He came, He took our place, He
stood in our place before God, He answered all for us that we
should have answered but couldn't. And He did it for us, and we
see Him as sinners as all sufficient to save us. And we realize from
the gospel, God's word, that He stood in our place. And He
did all God required of us, which we could not do. And so in doing
that, He obtained for us a salvation, an eternal salvation. And He
obtained for us an inheritance. And then we know, when God gives
us this grace of faith, to see it's all in Him, we rest in Him,
we trust in Him. And we find ourselves trusting
in Christ, that God would receive Him for us. And in so seeing,
we realize by the Spirit of God that we too are the seed of Abraham. We're the children of God. We're
the sons he was sent to bring to glory. Faith in Christ is
the way we know we're the children of Abraham. And so he says this
in Galatians 3. All who believe are like Abraham,
the seed of Abraham. Let me read that to you. In Galatians
chapter 3 and verse 7, he says this. He says, know ye therefore that
they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. And look at the last verse in
Galatians chapter 3. If you be Christ's, then are
you Abraham's seed and heirs according to promise. And then
look at Galatians 4 and verse 28. Now we brethren, as Isaac
was, are the children of promise. What did God say about Isaac?
In thee and in thy seed, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. In
Isaac. So what he's saying here is that
God, before Abraham had a child named Isaac, before his son was
even born, he was already, Isaac was, a child of promise. He was the one through whom Christ
would come, and he was promised to Abraham, promised to Sarah,
promised to be Abraham's true son. promised not only to be
his son by physical birth, but also one by spiritual birth. And so he says here in verse
28, now we brethren, we who believe like Abraham believed, we believe
Christ and him crucified as all of our salvation, we're the seed
of Abraham. We're Christ's and we're also
the children of promise. Before we were born, before we
were given faith, we were identified in God's purpose and will and
predestinated to this, to be the children of promise. And
so, we see from this the proof that we are the children of Abraham,
the seed of Abraham, if we believe Christ. Okay? But this faith that God gives
to us enables us to see this. Look also at Galatians chapter
four, verse four. For when the fullness of time
was come, God sent forth his son made of a woman. This is
the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. At the appointed time, at the
fullness of time, all those years, the many years, all the promises
of God lay there in the hearts and in the trust of God's people. They were waiting for the Lord
Jesus Christ to come, and in the fullness of time, God sent
forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem
us, to redeem them that were under the law, that we Notice
the pronoun that includes all of God's people. We might receive
the adoption of sons. We ourselves personally receive
adoption because Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law.
We're no more servants but sons. Verse 6, and because you are
sons of sons by predestinating purpose of God, sons by redemption,
God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts,
crying, Abba Father. You see that our sonship preceded,
it predated, our birth as sons. God calls us his sons when he
gave us to Christ, the children God has given to me. Bring many
sons to glory. He identified us as his sons
and he predestinated us to sonship by Jesus Christ to himself and
we are redeemed from the curse of the law. Therefore, we are
eligible to be his sons, and we were made sons, and we experience
that sonship when the Spirit of God is sent forth, the Spirit
of God's Son is sent forth into our hearts, which causes us to
cry, Abba, Father. But the way we cry this, the
way we know this, the way we see that God is our Father, is
our view of Christ as our Savior. We don't know our sonship, our
relationship to God as our father, until, as Jesus did to his disciples,
tell them. He sent Mary, he said, go to
my brethren. Now he identifies himself as
their brethren, their brother. And he says, tell them, I go
to my God and your God, to my father and your father. Now,
because of the cross, Because of his redeeming blood, the way
is open now for us to be purified and holy and blameless before
him in love as sons. That's what we were chosen to.
Ephesians 1, 4, and 5. We were made accepted in the
beloved, in Christ, and in his body. And we were redeemed by
his blood. And that's the reason we can
be the sons of God. But when God sends his spirit
into our hearts, then we see Christ. as the one lifted up
by God, bearing our sins and bearing the curse of God for
our sins, and so seeing him as all of our salvation from the
curse we deserve because we were bitten by the serpents, as it
were, the serpents of God's justice, because of our sin, and we're
delivered from it in Christ, bearing our sins and bearing
our curse, and we know our sonship then. Because it's this faith
in Christ that is the evidence that we're born of God, and God's
Spirit in us teaches us that by his redeeming blood we're
made sons of God. He did this not for angels. but for the seed of Abraham.
Faith is God's gift to us. It's a gift of His grace. And
by this grace of faith, we receive Christ. And in receiving Christ,
as he says in John 1, 12, and 13, we receive all that is His,
all that He accomplished. Think about this as a sinner.
We have nothing. We ruined ourselves. We're under
the wrath of God. We're sentenced to condemnation
with the devil and his angels. We're under the deception of
Satan. We belong to his kingdom. We have to be translated out
of that. How is this done? Christ comes. He binds the strong man. He goes
to the cross. He receives a decision from the
court of heaven. On our behalf, He wins the battle
in that court and the court justifies us and Christ's righteousness
and therefore gives us everlasting life. He delivers us from the
death we deserve, from the curse of the law, and from our own
sin. He clothes us in His righteousness.
And having done this, he sends his spirit to us that we might
know it, that we might know that it was God, our father, who did
this, and he did it by his son. And so we look at the Lord Jesus
Christ and we say, this is all my salvation. He's everything. He did this. I had no part in
it except he called me his own and he took my sins before I
even knew it. And he did all the work and brought
me to glory. We see our sonship by the warrant
of God's word. As he said, to them, to as many
as received him, to them gave he this authority to be called
the sons of God. This is what he did, the Lord
Jesus. Now, I mentioned this, I want
to bring your attention to something here in Hebrews chapter 2 that's
most precious, how the Lord Jesus Christ became one with us. In what way did the Lord Jesus
Christ become one with us? Well, there's many ways. But
one we have pointed out a number of times so far is that we have
one Father, one God, and one Father, and therefore we're of
one family. In order to redeem us, what did
the Lord Jesus Christ have to do? He had to be our brethren. He had to be our near kinsmen. Remember the book of Ruth? In
the book of Ruth, there was a woman named Ruth who was married to
one of the Israelites, her mother-in-law, Naomi, and Naomi's husband. They left the land of Bethlehem. They went to sojourn in the land
of Moab. And while they were there, their two sons, each married
wives, one of the wives was named Ruth, she was a Moabite, she
wasn't part of Israel. And then Naomi, after her husband
died and her two sons died, she said, don't call me Naomi, call
me bitter, Mary, is what the name was given to her, Mara.
And so she said, I'm leaving this place, I'm leaving Moab,
I'm going back to the land of my inheritance, to Bethlehem.
And one of the Moabite women who married one of her sons,
she would go with Naomi. She decided to stay in the land
of Moab, but Ruth clung to her mother-in-law, to Naomi, and
she pleaded with her, don't let me leave you. Don't ask me to
leave you. Wherever you go, that's where
I go. Wherever you stay, that's where I'm going to live. Your
lodging will be my lodging. Your God will be my God. Your
people will be my people. In fact, where you die, that's
where I want to be buried. Remember that? And so Ruth traveled
back with Naomi, her mother-in-law, to the land of Bethlehem. She
was an outsider. She had no part, except she had
been married to one who was there. And so she, by inheritance, owned
some land there. Ruth had claim to this land,
but she didn't have it because when they left, her husband who
died had forfeited that land. He was impoverished. And so it
had to be purchased back. But Ruth couldn't buy it. She
had no money. She was poor. And she was from
Moab. And so she needed someone to
act as her redeemer. to buy back the land she lost. And lo and behold, God had arranged
for this because there was a wealthy man whose name was Boaz. And
he saw Ruth and he recognized that she was a woman of virtue. God had blessed
her. And so he set his heart on her.
And he determined not only to buy back her land, but to buy
her. And so he realized, he knew that
he was actually a near kinsman because he was related to Ruth's
now dead husband. And so he determined to buy her
back and he presented his case to the elders of the city. And
he said, first he approached the one who was nearer in kin
to Ruth. And he refused. I don't want
to buy her land. I'd have to buy her. I don't want her. She's
a Moabite. And she has no part in this place.
But Boaz loved Ruth. And he identified with her as
her near kinsman. And he said, I will buy her land
and I will buy her to be my wife. And Boaz purchased Ruth as his
wife and her land that she had lost. for her, and not only did
he purchase it, but he married her. She became his wife, and
so that she was not only purchased, but married, and she inherited
all that was Boaz's too. And this is redemption, you see.
The Lord Jesus Christ, in order to take on the seed of Abraham,
had to be made like his brethren. He had to take on flesh and blood.
And it says later in Hebrews 2, in all things it behooved
him to be made like unto his brethren, in everything. And
so he could purchase us, he could redeem us, the seed of Abraham,
and not only redeem us, and we know what that means, but to
redeem us from sin and from the death we deserve, and to buy
us out of the prison that we ourselves sold ourselves into,
to ransom us with the price of his blood. So that like Judah
did for Benjamin to Joseph, he says, take me instead of the
lad and let him go up free. with his brethren to his father. And so we go out free with Christ's
brethren to our father because Christ laid his life down and
purchased us by the price of the ransom of his own blood.
He purchased us, we become married to him and we inherit all that
is his. And if you be Christ's, then
are you Abraham's seed. And all the promises God gave
to Abraham, he was really giving to Christ prophetically, so that
all God gave to Christ is given to us with Abraham. All the promises
of God are yes and amen in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so he
says in 1 Corinthians 3.21, and I love to refer to this, but
if you want to go back to that in 1 Corinthians 3.21, remember,
if you're Christ, you have the inheritance. 1 Corinthians 3.21,
he says, therefore, let no man glory in men. Don't boast in,
I became a believer by Peter or Apollos or Paul, don't boast
in that, don't glory in men. He says, for all things are yours,
not only the apostles, but all things are yours, whether Paul,
or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or
things present, or things to come. All are yours. Why? Because you are Christ's, you
see. Christ purchased us. What he
inherited as the obedient son and captain of our salvation,
we inherit. He did it for us. And not only
do we inherit what he inherited, but we ourselves are his inheritance. He says in Deuteronomy 32 9,
the Lord's portion is his people. And then he says in Ephesians
chapter 1 and verse 18, He says this, he says, the eyes of your
understanding being enlightened that you may know what is the
hope of his calling and what the riches of the glory of his
inheritance in the saints. God's inheritance, Christ's inheritance
is his people. He gave all to have them. They were not only his by election,
but they were his by purchase. And we are his, in verse 11 of
Ephesians 1, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance.
The Lord is my portion, he says in Psalm 16, 5. And to Abraham,
God said in Genesis 15, 1, I am thy shield and thy exceeding
great reward. Christ is our reward, and all
that is His is therefore ours. The fullness of the Godhead bodily
dwells in Him, and you are complete in Him. If you're Christ, everything
is yours. If God has delivered up His Son
for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us
all things? You see how big our salvation
is? Not only were we delivered from
the lowest ruin in which we had plunged ourselves, but we're
lifted up to the highest possible place with Christ in glory. Therefore, he says in Ephesians
1.3, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in him. This is why He chose us, that we might receive all
these things in Christ. And it is the delight of the
Son to give all that He has to His people. Remember the woman
at the well? I refer to these things over
and over, but remember He said to her, give me to drink. And
then in verse 34, the same chapter, John 4, He says, my meat, What
delights me is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish
his work. To save this woman by giving
myself to her and then from her receiving drink because he saved
her with his own blood and made himself known. That's his delight.
Like a husband whose greatest delight is to give himself for
his wife and to his wife. That's his delight. That's the
reason he married her. Not to get from her, but to have
her for himself in order to serve her in love. And this is our
Lord Jesus. He didn't take on the seed of
Abraham. He took on the seed, I mean, he didn't take on the
angels. He didn't take on the seed of
Adam. He took on the seed of Abraham.
And because of this, in all things, he had to be made like his brethren.
And notice how he delivers us from the fear of the bondage
of death. In 1 John, in chapter 4, I'll
read this verse to you. And we're getting to the end
here, so I've got to wind it down. But I wanted to get to
this, and I'll have to defer it till next time. Look at this
in 1 John, chapter 4. In verse nine, in this was manifested
the love of God. First John chapter four, verse
nine. In this was manifested the love of God toward us. This
is the way God's love towards us was made known. Because that
God sent his only begotten son into the world that we might
live through him. We did not make ourselves alive. We did not do something from
our deadness and sin to make ourselves alive. We were under
the sentence of death because of our sin. God had to do something
outside of our own personal experience, outside of our ability. He sent
his son, his only begotten son, into the world that we might
live through him. Herein is love. Not that we loved God, but that
He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our
sins, the satisfaction to God in justice, the appeasement of
His wrath. What is it? It's His Son and
shed blood. And then look at verse 16. We have known and believed The
love that God has to us. What do we believe? God's propitiation
in Christ. And that's where we see the love
of God. Oh, the love of God that he would send his son to be the
propitiation for our sins. The focus of our faith is Christ
and him crucified. And in this sight of him, we
see the love of God. Paul prayed it in Ephesians chapter
three, that you might know the love that passes knowledge, the
love of Christ, the height, the depth, the length, the breadth
of the love of Christ. And so he says, we have known
and believed the love that God has to us, Christ and him crucified. God is love and he that dwelleth
in love dwelleth in God and God in him. You see that union between
us and God? Herein is love, is our love made
perfect that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because
as he is, so are we in this world. Our boldness comes from knowing
that God has looked to and received from Christ all for us and received
us with him. Verse 18, there is no fear in
love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear hath torment. And he that feareth is not made
perfect in love. What was the devil's purpose?
To hold us in bondage. How? The fear of death at the
hand of God's justice. And that fear kept us in torment.
But here, the love of God, we've seen it in Christ. Now we realize
it was God's love that did this. And we believe the love that
God had toward us. And therefore, the torment of
that fear is removed. because God has received His
Son. We look to His Son. We see that God has done everything
for us by His Son, and has received Him for us, and given us all
things in Him. He doesn't look to us for one
thing. Of course, there was nothing in us to look to, and He provides
all things for us. It's all one-sided, God giving
and giving and giving, and us receiving from Him. Even the
faith whereby we know the love of God. whereby we know our sonship. It's all of God's grace by His
Spirit given to us in this precious faith. And in the knowledge of
this, we're set free from this fear under which we were held
in bondage by the devil. Now we hate that, don't we? We
hate those lies. We love our Savior because He's
done this for us. And I want to talk a little bit
next time about the fear of death. As I said, I would do this time,
but it took a while to build up to it. So we'll, Lord willing,
cover that next time. Now all these things really are
the Christmas story, aren't they? We can talk about the very details
of the birth of Christ. And usually on that Sunday, nearest
the 25th of December, I do that. But I'm probably gonna just plow
ahead here in Hebrews, because it all ties together. And you
can read Luke chapter one and two to your children at home.
And I encourage you to do that, because God did send his son.
He did come as a baby, made of a woman. He took the body God
prepared for him. But don't ever forget, it was
because he as God, took our nature that he might be made the propitiation
for our sins, to save us from our sins. He was made lower than
the angels for a short time that he might suffer death. in order
that he might taste death for every son. And now he's crowned
with glory and honor, and we see him victorious. Our captain
has entered and taken possession of our inheritance for us. It's
certain, therefore, that we will have that inheritance with him.
We already have it. And we know this by faith, but
in hope we live in anticipation and expectation of receiving
that. We live in this world of strangers
looking for the world to come. Let's pray. Father, thank you
for this great love that you had toward us. We say the words,
we read them in your word, and yet we're lost in the It surpasses our ability, really,
to believe until we see that the whole ground of your love
towards us was settled on Christ and Him crucified. That you never
once looked for reason in us to save, but you looked to your
Son and laid our case on Him. He took us. He made our case. He made us His case. He made our salvation His case. All that we did in sinning became
His to pay, and all He did in obedience and suffering to obtain
our salvation became ours to have, all by Your grace. Lord, we pray that at this time
of the year and every time, we would look to and see the Lord
Jesus Christ, exalted because he took our place as our sin-bearing
substitute. He stepped from glory, came to
Bethlehem's manger, walked this world, mocked, scorned, and went
to Calvary's cross and to the grave, and then in total victory,
conquering our sins and death, rose from the dead, ascended
to glory, and is exalted, and He is our forerunner. He is there
as the first fruits for us, and we shall be with Him. Help us,
Lord, by this mercy and grace that's in Him, to believe Him. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.