SPEAKER_00: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_01: Let me open God's word for us to Hebrews chapter 2.
SPEAKER_01: Hebrews chapter 2.
SPEAKER_01: And we're going to read there from verses 5 to 18, if you will follow along with me.
SPEAKER_01: For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come of which we are speaking.
SPEAKER_01: It has been testified somewhere.
SPEAKER_01: What is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that you cure for him?
SPEAKER_01: You made him for a little while lower than the angels, and you have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.
SPEAKER_01: Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control.
SPEAKER_01: At present, we do not see everything in a subjection to him, but we do see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor, because of the suffering of death, so by the grace of God he might taste death for every one.
SPEAKER_01: For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.
SPEAKER_01: For he who sanctifies, and those who are sanctified all have one source.
SPEAKER_01: That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers.
SPEAKER_01: Sing, I will tell of your name to my brothers, in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise, and again I will put my trust in him, and again, behold, I and the children God has given me.
SPEAKER_01: Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.
SPEAKER_01: For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of his people.
SPEAKER_01: For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.
SPEAKER_01: Let us pray and ask God to bless this word.
SPEAKER_01: I pray, Heavenly Father, that you will guide me through the scriptures here, that your name may be glorified, that the truth may set us free, and that the gospel will once again refresh our hearts and encourage us.
SPEAKER_01: I pray for our time together here in your word.
SPEAKER_01: May it be enriching.
SPEAKER_01: May we be noble Bereans in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure how many of you have become aware of this campaign.
SPEAKER_01: It's an ad campaign that began last year.
SPEAKER_01: He gets us.
SPEAKER_01: The he gets us campaign is a phrase that is appearing all over social media platforms.
SPEAKER_01: And we even saw some commercials aired at the 2023 Super Bowl.
SPEAKER_01: And every commercial connects a modern cultural theme like intolerance, bigotry, religious hypocrisy to the uniquely human experience of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: You see, the the aim of the He Gets Us campaign is to show that Jesus is one of us.
SPEAKER_01: He, like us, faced family strife, persecution, misunderstanding, poverty, loneliness, and even being raised in a single parent household.
SPEAKER_01: He gets us.
SPEAKER_01: The aim of the campaign is to reinduintroduce people to the Jesus of the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: And also help correct some of the distortions created by his followers.
SPEAKER_01: That means you and I.
SPEAKER_01: And how things might have been different if only we would have followed his example.
SPEAKER_01: If we were like him, in his compassion, his acceptance and his love and his forgiveness, the world would have been a better place.
SPEAKER_01: The organizers of this campaign say we believe that Jesus is fully God and fully man, but they're rather inviting us to explore the empathetic side of Jesus, that he is one who really gets us because he became one of us.
SPEAKER_01: And this, by the way, is the title of my message this morning, He became one of us.
SPEAKER_01: And I will show you from scriptures that there's more than him just getting us.
SPEAKER_01: He became man for a much greater purpose.
SPEAKER_01: The question then is: did Jesus become one of us so that he can understand us better, so that he can be more empathetic?
SPEAKER_01: Or maybe he could be an example for us that we can see and feel and touch.
SPEAKER_01: The question is, did God give his only begotten Son to serve as an example of love and compassion and acceptance?
SPEAKER_01: Is our comfort in life and death that Jesus gets us?
SPEAKER_01: Well, if he is one of us, we need to understand what Scripture has to say.
SPEAKER_01: The reasons was for him becoming one of us.
SPEAKER_01: There are many helpful values and principles in the He gets us campaign.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to bash it this morning, but there is more to it.
SPEAKER_01: There's more to it.
SPEAKER_01: If we look at the passage we just read, we will see that there are three accomplishments of the incarnation.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus becoming one of us came to fulfill three purposes.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, the restoration of humanhood.
SPEAKER_01: Number two, the redemption of humanity that is in bondage.
SPEAKER_01: And then thirdly, the reconciliation of humanity with divinity.
SPEAKER_01: Let's take a look at the first point I would like to make here.
SPEAKER_01: And if you could for a moment go back to Hebrews chapter 1, verse 3.
SPEAKER_01: And it reads there speaking of Jesus, he is the radiance of his glory and the exact representation of his nature.
SPEAKER_01: What it's saying here is that Jesus Christ coming in the flesh is an exact representation of the image of God in human form.
SPEAKER_01: And the image here is that of the impression of a king or an emperor or a ruler impressed on the back of a coin.
SPEAKER_01: Even today we have coins that bear the image of the nation's ruler.
SPEAKER_01: And what the author is doing here is saying, look at Jesus, he is that perfect example of the image of God.
SPEAKER_01: But guess what?
SPEAKER_01: There were other creatures created in the image of God, not angels, verse 5 of chapter 2.
SPEAKER_01: For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking.
SPEAKER_01: And what the author does here is he quotes for us Psalm 8, which reads as follows, verses 4 and 5.
SPEAKER_01: What is man that you take thought of him, and the Son of Man that you care for him, yet you have made him a little lower than God, or in different translations, angels, and you crown him with glory and majesty.
SPEAKER_01: What the author is saying here is that humans were created in the image of God.
SPEAKER_01: It's an allusion to the Genesis 126, 127 account.
SPEAKER_01: Then God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion.
SPEAKER_01: There are two things evident here.
SPEAKER_01: And it's also evident in verses 5, 6, 7, and 8 of Hebrews 2 is that God, number one, created humans in what?
SPEAKER_01: His image.
SPEAKER_01: But he also gave them the job to do what?
SPEAKER_01: Exercise dominion and rule.
SPEAKER_01: That is how God created humanity.
SPEAKER_01: And guess what?
SPEAKER_01: He did not create angels in the image of God, and he did not give angels rule and authority over his created order.
SPEAKER_01: God made humans in his image to serve as image bearers, and he charted humanity with the duty of exercising authority, rule, and dominion all over all the created order.
SPEAKER_01: And he commissioned human beings to be his image bearers and to be co-regents on this planet.
SPEAKER_01: And he did not do that for angels.
SPEAKER_01: And so the divine design for humanity and humanhood was to be that of being God's representatives, to bear his image, to be his example.
SPEAKER_01: But look at what verse 8 says.
SPEAKER_01: The end of verse 8.
SPEAKER_01: But now we do not yet see all things subjected to him.
SPEAKER_01: Now I agree that this portion of scripture has messianic overtones, and so does Psalm 8.
SPEAKER_01: But the first four verses here, verses 5, 6, 7, and 8, does not speak of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: It speaks of humans.
SPEAKER_01: God's intended design for humans.
SPEAKER_01: And so what is God's goal here?
SPEAKER_01: With the incarnation, making Jesus one of us, making God the second person, God the Son, one of us.
SPEAKER_01: Well, it is one to restore that image, that God-bearing image, and number two, to restore man's proper place in the created order.
SPEAKER_01: Now what does verse 8 say to us?
SPEAKER_01: Verse 8 says, we do not see this.
SPEAKER_01: This is distorted.
SPEAKER_01: The image of God and humanity is distorted.
SPEAKER_01: The rule and authority of man over the creation has fallen by the wayside, and that began in the Garden of Eden where things went south.
SPEAKER_01: The image of God at the fall in humanity, while yet still created in his image, that image became marred, warped, and even distorted by sin.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure if you did these things as kids, but we would put coins on the railway tracks.
SPEAKER_01: Did you do that?
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: And so what you would do is you put the coin on the railway track, and the train goes over it.
SPEAKER_01: And if you look at the railway track, that image often is impressed faintly on the railway track.
SPEAKER_01: But as the train goes over it, it kind of distorts the president's face, and we would go, yeah, we like that.
SPEAKER_01: But that's essentially what sin has done.
SPEAKER_01: The fall has done with the image of God.
SPEAKER_01: It's marred it.
SPEAKER_01: And therefore, God sent his only begotten Son to take on human form, to restore the image of God in humanity again.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 9.
SPEAKER_01: This is how God restores the image of God in humans and restores humanity to its rightful place as co-rulers over all the created world.
SPEAKER_01: Read verse 9.
SPEAKER_01: But we do see him.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 8, we do not see.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 9, we do see.
SPEAKER_01: We do see him who was made a little lower for a while than the angels, namely Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
SPEAKER_01: So he was made human like us in every aspect.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 10, it was fitting for him for whom all are all things, and through whom are all things, and bringing many sons to glory.
SPEAKER_01: And it's speaking of that restoration of the image of God in humans, to the perfect author of their salvation through suffering.
SPEAKER_01: To perfect the author of their salvation through suffering.
SPEAKER_01: All that means is that Jesus had the human experience completely, except becoming a sinner.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus had a perfect human experience.
SPEAKER_01: He experienced humanity in all aspects like us.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus was not, as the Germans would say, an ubermensch.
SPEAKER_01: He wasn't a superhuman.
SPEAKER_01: He was a human like you and I.
SPEAKER_01: He would go, wow, it's dry today.
SPEAKER_01: And my skin is kind of dry.
SPEAKER_01: He would say it's hot and I'm tired.
SPEAKER_01: The eternal son became one of us for this, to restore humanity to its rightful place.
SPEAKER_01: And how does he do that?
SPEAKER_01: Verse 11 has your answer.
SPEAKER_01: For both he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one Father, or if you have an ESV, one source.
SPEAKER_01: And therefore he is not ashamed to call us his brothers.
SPEAKER_01: You can't call somebody a brother if you're not a human.
SPEAKER_01: For the express purpose of restoring that image of God, that former glory that humans had.
SPEAKER_01: John 17, 22, I have given them the glory you gave me.
SPEAKER_01: 2 Corinthians 3.18, we are all with unveiled face, as in the mirror, the glory of God, and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory.
SPEAKER_01: Paul also reiterates this idea that humans not only will their former glory be restored through the second Adam, but he will also put them in a place of rule and authority.
SPEAKER_01: 1 Corinthians 6.3.
SPEAKER_01: Do you not know that we shall judge angels?
SPEAKER_01: Did you know that, brothers and sisters?
SPEAKER_01: You will, as 2 Timothy 2.12 says, if we endure, we will also reign with them.
SPEAKER_01: And so here we have one of the great purposes of Jesus becoming one of us, and that is to restore humanity to its former glory and to restore its place of rulership.
SPEAKER_01: And he does that through regeneration, verse 11.
SPEAKER_01: But he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified.
SPEAKER_01: The NIV reads as follows, and I think it makes it clearer: both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy.
SPEAKER_01: I believe it was A.
SPEAKER_01: W.
SPEAKER_01: Tozer who once said that salvation does not restore our happiness, but it restores our holiness.
SPEAKER_01: That's a sweet saying.
SPEAKER_01: Not our happiness, but our holiness.
SPEAKER_01: Diedrich Bonnoffer lamented the fact that human beings who are unsaved live without an essential purpose, and that purpose of being the image of God.
SPEAKER_01: How can a human being that is in sin and that is kept in darkness accurately represent the image of God and man?
SPEAKER_01: But he says, Don Ofer says, he believed that salvation does not make us less human, it actually makes us truly human again.
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
SPEAKER_01: When we become children of God, brothers of Jesus, we do not become less human, we become what?
SPEAKER_01: Truly human.
SPEAKER_01: We don't become little gods, we become the way that God intended us to be, to be image bearers.
SPEAKER_01: Horatia Bonner once said, conversion, conversion as God's restoration of humanity to its original nature.
SPEAKER_01: He says the act of conversion or salvation is God restoring the original nature of humanity.
SPEAKER_01: God made Adam and Eve holy and righteous.
SPEAKER_01: They were made holy and righteous.
SPEAKER_01: And you too, dear brother and sister, you too have been made holy and righteous.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, we are not only holy and righteous, we are holy and righteous rulers to be.
SPEAKER_01: Look at uh, well, I'll just read it for you, 1 Peter 2 9.
SPEAKER_01: It says, but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation for God's own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
SPEAKER_01: There's this glorious return of human holiness, but also the glorious return of man's rule over the created order.
SPEAKER_01: But there's a second reason for Jesus becoming one of us.
SPEAKER_01: God, the second person of the Trinity became one of us to redeem slaves from slavery.
SPEAKER_01: The word incarnation comes from the Latin word or the Latin concept of being made flesh.
SPEAKER_01: Being made flesh, and we see that in Hebrews 4.15.
SPEAKER_01: Go back one verse there for me in chapter two.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise also partook of the same.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus became flesh and blood.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus would bleed if he cut himself by accident.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 15, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to Slavery all their lives.
SPEAKER_01: You see, what is happening here is the author is explaining to us how the Son of God partook of that which is unnatural to him, that is, being flesh and blood.
SPEAKER_01: God's not flesh and blood, but God was made flesh and blood for the purpose of breaking Satan's power and freeing those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.
SPEAKER_01: Death and dying are the consequences of sin and rebellion.
SPEAKER_01: And Satan knows that.
SPEAKER_01: Satan knows that you and I'm flesh and blood.
SPEAKER_01: And he also know we fear death and dying.
SPEAKER_01: And he uses it as a terrible weapon against us in one way or another to enslave us.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew Henry once said, Satan terrifies the consciences of men with the fear of death.
SPEAKER_01: Anyone who is flesh and blood will at some point in their lives grapple with this concept of death.
SPEAKER_01: And John Owens said that people are full of the fear of death, and so they live a life of anxiety because of the fear of death.
SPEAKER_01: You see, you and I, who are born again, Jesus took care of this fear of death.
SPEAKER_01: And so we are not quite as obsessed with this idea of death as much as it is for the unregenerate.
SPEAKER_01: And Satan knows that every person made of flesh and blood have certain anxieties when it comes to death and dying.
SPEAKER_01: And he uses that as a weapon to hold them in bondage.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 15.
SPEAKER_01: And might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.
SPEAKER_01: I don't understand it when people say to me, Well, I want to be free.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to be held in bondage by religion.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not in for your Christianity because I want to be free.
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's the exact opposite.
SPEAKER_01: Let me explain to you.
SPEAKER_01: Take, for example, addictive habits or other codependent types of behaviors.
SPEAKER_01: Are these not forms of escapism, the possible escaping from anxiety over death?
SPEAKER_01: Addictive habits and other codependent behaviors, are these not coping mechanisms for terrified consciences?
SPEAKER_01: Let's take it, dear brothers and sisters, let's think about legalism, alcoholism, sexual addiction, any other ism that there is.
SPEAKER_01: Don't these offer some temporary relief and some escape from the anxiety caused by the fear of death?
SPEAKER_01: People will say they uh they they they they don't think about death, it doesn't bother them, they kind of macho about death.
SPEAKER_01: But guess what?
SPEAKER_01: The behaviors tell a different story.
SPEAKER_01: If you drown yourself in alcohol, or or you take partake of some psychedelic drug, why are you doing that?
SPEAKER_01: I can see that you're all relaxed and nothing makes you anxious.
SPEAKER_01: No, that Slatan is using that to enslave people because he knows they fear death, as our passage says.
SPEAKER_01: John Owen says this slavery is involuntary.
SPEAKER_01: No one is in slavery because he wants to be.
SPEAKER_01: This slavery generates a strong desire to seek freedom.
SPEAKER_01: He's onto something.
SPEAKER_01: This slavery generates a strong desire to seek freedom by any means possible.
SPEAKER_01: This slavery clouds and tires the mind.
SPEAKER_01: Where slavery is total, it generates greater future evils.
SPEAKER_01: What he says, this attempt to escape, this burden that people carry, it clouds their minds and tires them.
SPEAKER_01: But all it does, it pulls them down even further and they wind themselves tighter into the chains and shekels of slavery.
SPEAKER_01: You see, Satan is very clever in this sense.
SPEAKER_01: On the one hand, he drives people in a direction with the fear that he has in his hands through death.
SPEAKER_01: But on the other hand, he offers relief.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Oh, look at this, you gotta die.
SPEAKER_01: This is terrible, you gotta die.
SPEAKER_01: But look, I've got an answer here for you.
SPEAKER_01: But those answers are what I call pseudo-reliefs, pseudo-escape.
SPEAKER_01: Let's think about legalism.
SPEAKER_01: If I could just make myself think that I'm a good person, a faithful attender to church, a generous giver, yeah, I now I don't need to worry about death.
SPEAKER_01: I often have people, I ask them, my office, they hit some hard times, and I say to them, so uh how's your relationship with God?
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I've got a wonderful relationship with God.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, really?
SPEAKER_01: Tell me about it.
SPEAKER_01: Uh oh, I talk to him all day long.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so so tell me more about that.
SPEAKER_01: Well, no, I talk to him all day long.
SPEAKER_01: You see, that person, Satan has convinced that person that you don't need to worry about death.
SPEAKER_01: You are talking to God all day long.
SPEAKER_01: And where does talking to God all day long really give us a true escape from death?
SPEAKER_01: But let's think of other things like opioids and benzodiazepines and all kinds of therapies that are packaged in a way that people are given this coping mechanism, this promise of escape, offering people freedom.
SPEAKER_01: If you only take these things, you will feel so much better.
SPEAKER_01: But do these things offer permanent escape from death?
SPEAKER_01: Does it offer true peace and comfort to souls who have gnawing fears of death and dying?
SPEAKER_01: And as John Owen said, that these temporal escapes will only generate greater evils in the future.
SPEAKER_01: You see, people do one thing, and guess what?
SPEAKER_01: They don't feel better, they're still anxious, they're still worried.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's try this, and and then they go one step down into the abyss.
SPEAKER_01: Those of you who've been around before, let's say the 1990s, will remember something of the GDR and the Stasi, the infamous Stasi.
SPEAKER_01: Who remembers the Stasi?
SPEAKER_01: Well, really, you uh okay.
SPEAKER_01: Cold War, yeah, Paul Paul.
SPEAKER_01: The Stasi was uh the secret police in the former Democratic Republic of Germany, and it was a terrible regime there for over 40 years.
SPEAKER_01: But what they would do is they would take the captives, uh, take captive so-called enemies of the state, and they put them in prison, and they will wear these prisoners down.
SPEAKER_01: They will interrogate them, torture them, and they would do that for weeks on end.
SPEAKER_01: And you know they had a clever tactic.
SPEAKER_01: And I thought, man, these communists are smart.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: What they would do after weeks of being tortured and interrogated, telling people, just admit that you're an enemy of the state.
SPEAKER_01: We will let you free.
SPEAKER_01: What they do is they conveniently leave the cell door open.
SPEAKER_01: And then they will leave like the gate of the prison open and the main gate open.
SPEAKER_01: And the guy goes in the middle of the night, he's like, Well, the door is open.
SPEAKER_01: And he's like, sneaks out, and he tipitoes, Whoa, where are the guards?
SPEAKER_01: Oh, the guards are sleepy, and then he gets through the main gate and he looks up there, the the the tower, and that guard's sleeping.
SPEAKER_01: He's like, Wow, okay, amazing.
SPEAKER_01: And the guy will make a run for it, and he will make a beeline for his house.
SPEAKER_01: And guess who's waiting for him?
SPEAKER_01: The Stasi.
SPEAKER_01: And they would bring him back, and they would imprison him again and go through the same routine.
SPEAKER_01: And then some months later, they'll leave the gates open, and the guy would make a run for it.
SPEAKER_01: And just as he thinks, Oh, I am free, finally free, they take him captive.
SPEAKER_01: You know, they do it about three or four times.
SPEAKER_01: Guess what?
SPEAKER_01: That guy loses all desire to escape.
SPEAKER_01: That is what Satan does with people.
SPEAKER_01: He just lets them give up.
SPEAKER_01: He lets them give up because he's got all these imitations of freedom.
SPEAKER_01: He drives us to despair through the fear of death.
SPEAKER_01: He brings about anxieties of over death, but then drives us deeper into the abyss of despair and self-destruction.
SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, along the road, he will offer all kinds of vices to give us comfort and peace and freedom, which, like the Stasioni, enslaves us even more.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the very good news of Jesus becoming one of us.
SPEAKER_01: The Son of God became one of us to give us life and freedom.
SPEAKER_01: John 10, 10, the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.
SPEAKER_01: I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
SPEAKER_01: And there's no half measures with God.
SPEAKER_01: He redeems us or he doesn't redeem us.
SPEAKER_01: It's either or there's no halfway plan here.
SPEAKER_01: Romans 6, you are no longer slaves of sin.
SPEAKER_01: You do not have to sin.
SPEAKER_01: Your sin does not need to hold you captive.
SPEAKER_01: You do not need to be enslaved in some addiction.
SPEAKER_01: You do not need to be dependent on someone else to make you happy.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus has set you free, for you did not receive a spirit of slavery that returns to fear.
SPEAKER_01: You do not have to live in fear of death, dear brothers and sisters, because Jesus died on your behalf to set you free.
SPEAKER_01: But there's one more accomplishment of the incarnation, and that is the reconciliation of enemies, arc rivals, arc enemies.
SPEAKER_01: Reconciled by the Son of God becoming one of us.
SPEAKER_01: To reconcile enemies.
SPEAKER_01: God's wrath was directed towards man because of sin.
SPEAKER_01: And man was hostile against God because of sin.
SPEAKER_01: Two parties, hostile and at enmity with one another.
SPEAKER_01: And it was because of the fall, alienation brought about that that man was basically severed from his relationship with his creator, and he was therefore separated and alienated from God's mercy and goodness and compassion.
SPEAKER_01: But good news is that God became one of us so that he can make peace.
SPEAKER_01: Hebrews 2.17.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, he had to be made like his brethren.
SPEAKER_01: That's once again speaking of the incarnation.
SPEAKER_01: And he was made like his brethren in all things.
SPEAKER_01: So that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in all things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.
SPEAKER_01: Now look at this.
SPEAKER_01: Let me quickly unpack this verse for us.
SPEAKER_01: God the Son, the eternal Son of God, became like us to experience humanity in every aspect.
SPEAKER_01: But he did so in service of God.
SPEAKER_01: And we benefit from it.
SPEAKER_01: That's where he gets us campaign, I think, falls short of telling us the whole truth.
SPEAKER_01: You see, he did not become one of us just so that he can get us so that God goes, oh, okay, so now I got humans figured out.
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's like, yeah, okay, I I I shouldn't be so hard on them, you know, because you know, life is pretty tough on this on this planet.
SPEAKER_01: That's not the that that's not the entire picture.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, the Son of God, became one of us to serve as a high priest in the service of God.
SPEAKER_01: I believe it's in Job 33, where Job laments this fact.
SPEAKER_01: He says, How can I plead my case with God?
SPEAKER_01: Because God is is a judge and he's divine.
SPEAKER_01: I I don't know how to plead my case with them.
SPEAKER_01: He is God and I am not.
SPEAKER_01: And in Job 33, he says, I wish there was someone who can stand in between us.
SPEAKER_01: One who can touch the judge's bench and who can touch me.
SPEAKER_01: One who's able to put his hand on a human but also put his hand on God.
SPEAKER_01: One who can stand in the gap.
SPEAKER_01: And who do you who do you think would stand in that gap thousands of years later?
SPEAKER_01: The Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: One who could touch both man and God.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because there is enmity and alienation.
SPEAKER_01: And that is where that word propitiation becomes so rich because it has to do everything with God and the problem God has with us.
SPEAKER_01: If we think of this word propitiation, and if you read out of the King James Version, you might read the word to make reconciliation, and I think that's a good word too.
SPEAKER_01: But let's think of propitiation.
SPEAKER_01: What does that refer to?
SPEAKER_01: It refers to the righteous wrath of God and the condemnation of all humans.
SPEAKER_01: Propitiation speaks of the righteous wrath of God and the condemnation of all humanity.
SPEAKER_01: Second propitiation refers to the satisfying of God's wrath, the appeasement of God's wrath.
SPEAKER_01: Propitiation connects the incarnation here for us, and that the Son of God and his death on the cross made a once-for-all act of reconciliation.
SPEAKER_01: Once for all, the Son of God stood there between God and humanity, gave himself as a sacrifice, dying on the cross to please God, to satisfy God's wrath.
SPEAKER_01: And as a result, there is reconciliation once again.
SPEAKER_01: God the Son became one of us to reconcile God with humanity.
SPEAKER_01: Think of Romans 5:10, your dear brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_01: For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son.
SPEAKER_01: Through the death of his son, he was able to reconcile God and humanity once again.
SPEAKER_01: That wonderful hymn, bearing shame and scoffing rude, in my place, condemned me stood, sealed my part, and with his blood, hallelujah, what a savior.
SPEAKER_01: You and I could die on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: The best and goodest person on this planet could die on the cross and say, I'm gonna die on behalf of all humanity, and it would have affected nothing.
SPEAKER_01: It took God Himself to become flesh and blood and die in our place, bearing our shame.
SPEAKER_01: In our place, condemned, he stood, sealed my pardon with his blood.
SPEAKER_01: Hallelujah, what a savior.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus Christ satisfied God's wrath, sealed our pardon, and rose from the dead because he satisfied God's wrath.
SPEAKER_01: That is one indication that Christ, once for all, act on the cross, was sufficient.
SPEAKER_01: The resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: Because he rose from the dead because he was able to justify sinners and reconcile them with God.
SPEAKER_01: And so God Himself took the initiative here.
SPEAKER_01: He sent his only begotten son, number one, to restore humanity.
SPEAKER_01: Number two, he sent his only begotten son to redeem and enslave humanity.
SPEAKER_01: And number three, he sent his only begotten son to suffer and die, to reconcile and offer himself as a peace offering.
SPEAKER_01: One commentator says he averts God's wrath, intercedes for us, heals the brokenhearted, lifts up the fallen, and ministers to the needs of the people.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus is so infinitely capable to minister to the needs of the people.
SPEAKER_01: And yes, he can heal the brokenhearted, and yes, he can lift up the fallen, because verse 18 says that.
SPEAKER_01: Because he became one of us, and he can help us, help us because he became one of us.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, the Son of God, became one of us, and therefore he gets us.
SPEAKER_01: He is able.
SPEAKER_01: And he constantly ministers and intercedes for his people.
SPEAKER_01: For since he himself was tempted in that which he has suffered, he is able to come to the aid of those who are being tempted.
SPEAKER_01: Get this, Jesus understands.
SPEAKER_01: Yet he is without sin.
SPEAKER_01: He gets you.
SPEAKER_01: And that's about the only part that the Hundred million dollar campaign gets right.
SPEAKER_01: It's a great truth.
SPEAKER_01: It's a great comfort, but it's a great comfort to people who are in a relationship with Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: This is not a universal comfort.
SPEAKER_01: He is not the sympathetic high priest.
SPEAKER_01: For everyone, he is the sympathetic high priest that restores his own people and ministers to their needs.
SPEAKER_01: For a hundred million dollars, I would say, how about adding another one dollar there and add these three truths?
SPEAKER_01: That Jesus came to restore humanity the way it was supposed to work.
SPEAKER_01: To redeem people who are kept as slaves of Satan.
SPEAKER_01: And number three, that Jesus came to reconcile sinners with the divine.
SPEAKER_01: Here is, I think, a sub-lesson here.
SPEAKER_01: I think here's a simple application here, dear brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_01: Here people spend a hundred million dollars, churches, missions organizations, uh uh con denominational conventions, they're all chipping in, spending a hundred million dollars, and yet they beat around the bush.
SPEAKER_01: They beat around the bush.
SPEAKER_01: He gets us.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yep, whoopee.
SPEAKER_01: But there's a lot more.
SPEAKER_01: You why are you leaving out the meaty parts, the meaty parts that will actually have people transform?
SPEAKER_01: Where are the gospel transforming truths, dear brothers and sisters?
SPEAKER_01: I would ask them.
SPEAKER_01: And here's a lesson for us, I think.
SPEAKER_01: How often are we intent on sharing the gospel and we stop short?
SPEAKER_01: We stop short of giving people the real good news.
SPEAKER_01: We would say things, oh, God is love, and people would say, Well, I'm just sowing seeds.
SPEAKER_01: That's great.
SPEAKER_01: Let's sow seeds.
SPEAKER_01: But let's not be it around the bush.
SPEAKER_01: Because people are not living according to their purpose and they're unhappy.
SPEAKER_01: If we beat around the bush, guess what?
SPEAKER_01: That person will remain a slave.
SPEAKER_01: And if we we are not intent to share the whole gospel, the full gospel, and nothing but the gospel to people, guess what?
SPEAKER_01: People will remain unalienated from God, and they will be God's enemies until he returns.
SPEAKER_01: May God save us and give us courage to speak these essential life-transforming truths of Him restoring humanity, Him redeeming humanity, and number three, reconciling humanity with divinity.
SPEAKER_01: May God give us mercy and grace.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, thank you for these wonderful truths that are so evidently clear in Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: And these are such comforting truths.
SPEAKER_01: It means that you came in human form and you went all out.
SPEAKER_01: You went all out.
SPEAKER_01: You held nothing back.
SPEAKER_01: And Lord, you are not only able to empathize with us, you can actually help us.
SPEAKER_01: And you are merciful and gracious.
SPEAKER_01: And we can come to you confidently in the time of need and know that you will be gracious.
SPEAKER_01: You are not irritated with your children.
SPEAKER_01: You are not ashamed of those you call your brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_01: You are eager to help them.
SPEAKER_01: And so, Lord, let us not be ashamed or fearful to come to the throne of grace and to receive mercy in the time of need.
SPEAKER_01: We pray this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: We also pray in your holy name that we will not be ashamed of you, that we will not be fearful, that we will not beat around the bush, but give people the gospel and nothing but the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: May you have mercy on us, and may we rejoice in the fact that you are with us till this work is accomplished.
SPEAKER_01: We pray this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_00: Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.